4.10 Suffering: Theodicy in a Darwinian World

4.10 Suffering: Theodicy in a Darwinian World

Wolfhart Pannenberg: The Resurrection as an Historical Event Open to Critical Inquiry

The most distinctive feature of Pannenberg’s theological programme, as it emerged during the 1960s, is the appeal to universal history. Such views are developed and justified in the 1961 volume Revelation as History, edited by Pannenberg, in which these ideas are explored at some length. Pannenberg’s “Dogmatic Theses on the Doctrine of Revelation” opens with a powerful appeal to universal history:

History is the most comprehensive horizon of Christian theology. All theological questions and answers have meaning only within the framework of the history which God has with humanity, and through humanity with the whole creation, directed toward a future which is hidden to the world, but which has already been revealed in Jesus Christ.

These crucially important opening sentences sum up the distinctive features of Pannenberg’s theological programme at this stage in his career. They immediately distinguish him from the historical theology of Bultmann and his school, on the one hand, and the suprahistorical approach of Martin Kähler, on the other. Christian theology is based upon an analysis of universal and publicly accessible history. For Pannenberg, revelation was essentially a public and universal historical event that was recognized and interpreted as an “act of God.” To his critics, this seemed to reduce faith to insight and deny any role to the Holy Spirit in the event of revelation.

Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928–2014). One of the most influential German Protestant theologians, whose writings on the relation of faith and history, and particularly the foundations of Christology, have had considerable influence.

Pannenberg’s argument takes the following form. History, in all its totality, can only be understood when it is viewed from its endpoint. This point alone provides the perspective from which the historical process can be seen in its totality, and thus properly understood. However, where Marx argued that the social sciences, by predicting the goal of history to be the hegemony of socialism, provided the key to the interpretation of history, Pannenberg declared that this was provided only in Jesus Christ. The end of history is disclosed proleptically in the history of Jesus Christ. In other words, the end of history, which has yet to take place, has been disclosed in advance of the event in the person and work of Christ.

This idea of a “proleptic disclosure of the end of history” is grounded in the apocalyptic worldview, which Pannenberg argues provides the key to understanding the New Testament interpretation of the significance and function of Jesus. Whereas Bultmann chose to demythologize the apocalyptic elements of the New Testament, Pannenberg treats them as a hermeneutical grid or framework by which the life, death, and resurrection of Christ may be interpreted.

Perhaps the most distinctive, and certainly the most commented upon, aspect of this work is Pannenberg’s insistence that the resurrection of Jesus is an objective historical event, witnessed by all who had access to the evidence. Whereas Bultmann treated the resurrection as an event within the experiential world of the disciples, Pannenberg declares that it belongs to the world of universal public history.

Ernst Troeltsch (1865–1923). A theologian and sociologist who was closely involved in the founding of the “History of Religions School,” which placed an emphasis upon the historical continuity of the religions. His most important theological contributions are thought to lie in the field of Christology, especially his discussion of the relation between faith and history.

This immediately raised the question of the historicity of the resurrection. As noted earlier, a group of Enlightenment writers had argued that our only knowledge of the alleged resurrection of Jesus was contained in the New Testament. In that there were no contemporary analogues for such a resurrection, the credibility of those reports had to be seriously questioned. In a similar vein, Ernst Troeltsch had argued for the homogeneity of history. Since the resurrection of Jesus appeared to radically disrupt that homogeneity, it was to be regarded as of dubious historicity. Pannenberg initially responded to these difficulties in an essay on “redemptive event and history,” and subsequently in Jesus–God and Man. His basic argument against this position can be set out as follows.

Troeltsch, in Pannenberg’s view, had a pedantically narrow view of history, which rules out certain events in advance, on the basis of a set of provisional judgments that have improperly come to have the status of absolute laws. (There is an important parallel here with David Hume’s view on miracles). Troeltsch’s unwarranted “constriction of historico-critical inquiry” was, Pannenberg declared, “biased” and “anthropocentric.” It presupposed that the human viewpoint is the only acceptable and normative standpoint within history. Analogies, Pannenberg stresses, are always analogies viewed from the standpoint of the human observer; that standpoint is radically restricted in its scope and cannot be allowed to function as the absolutely certain basis of critical inquiry. Pannenberg is too good a historian to suggest that the principle of analogy should be abandoned; it is, after all, a proven and useful tool of historical research. Yet, Pannenberg insists, that is all that it is: it is a working tool and cannot be allowed to define a fixed view of reality.

If the historian sets out to investigate the New Testament already precommited to the belief that “dead people do not rise again,” that conclusion will merely be read back into the New Testament material. The judgment “Jesus did not rise from the dead” will thus be the presupposition, not the conclusion, of such an investigation. Pannenberg’s discussion of this question represents an impassioned and impressive plea for a neutral approach to the resurrection. The historical evidence pointing to the resurrection of Jesus must be investigated without the prior dogmatic presupposition that such a resurrection could not have happened.

Having argued for the historicity of the resurrection, Pannenberg turns to deal with its interpretation within the context of the apocalyptic framework of meaning. The end of history has proleptically taken place in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This maxim dominates Pannenberg’s interpretation of the event. The resurrection of Jesus anticipates the general resurrection at the end of time and brings forward into history both that resurrection and the full and final revelation of God. The resurrection of Jesus is thus organically linked with the self-revelation of God in Christ and establishes Jesus’ identity with God, and allows this identity with God to be read back into his pre-Easter ministry. It thus functions as the foundation of a series of central Christological affirmations, including the divinity of Christ (however this is expressed) and the incarnation.

There is more that needs to be said about the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, which has been the subject of considerable discussion within the last two centuries. More recent writings have offered significant defences of the resurrection on both historical and theological grounds, as in N. T. Wright’s substantial and influential work The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003). We now move on to consider another matter that has been the subject of renewed interest in the twentieth century – the doctrine of the Trinity.

Case Study 4.4 The Trinity in Twentieth-Century Thought

It is widely agreed that the doctrine of the Trinity was marginalized in nineteenth-century thought. The reasons for this are complex. One factor that is certainly significant here is the influence during the modern period of rationalism, which tended to regard the doctrine of the Trinity as absurd. This view can certainly be found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, who regarded the Trinity as an irrational obstacle to proper Christian devotion. In a letter to Timothy Pickering, dated 27 February 1821, Jefferson complained of the apparent irrationality of the notion.

When we shall have done away with the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that there are one, and one is three; when we shall have knocked down the artificial scaffolding, reared to mask from view the very simple structure of Jesus; when, in short, we shall have unlearned everything which has been taught since his day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples; and my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed purely from His lips, the whole world would at this day have been Christian.

The German theologian F. D. E. Schleiermacher placed his discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity right at the end of his Christian Faith, thus suggesting that he regarded the doctrine as some kind of appendix to Christian theology. In fact, however, Schleiermacher argued that the doctrine of the Trinity brought together a number of critical insights concerning the identity of Jesus and the nature of the Christian faith, without which it would lose its identity. The doctrine acted as a “coping-stone,” a final stone added to a complex structure that ensures that all its component parts are secured in their proper places.

[The doctrine of the Trinity] only established itself in defense of the position that in Christ there was present nothing less than the Divine Essence, which also indwells the Christian Church as its common Spirit, and that we take these expressions in no reduced or sheerly artificial sense, and know nothing of any special higher essences, subordinate deities (as it were) present in Christ and the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity has no origin but this; and at first it had no other aim than to equate as definitely as possible the Divine Essence considered as thus united to human nature with the Divine Essence in itself. … In virtue of this connexion, we rightly regard the doctrine of the Trinity, in so far as it is a deposit of these elements, as the coping-stone of Christian doctrine, and thus equating with each other of the divine in each of these two unions, as also of both with the Divine Essence in itself, as what is essential in the doctrine of the Trinity.

However, there has been a remarkable revival of interest in the doctrine of the Trinity in twentieth-century Christian theology. Although the foundations for the Trinitarian revival in theology were laid in the decades before the First World War (1914–1918), the renewal of the doctrine dates from the 1920s and beyond. In what follows, we shall explore four major contributions to the modern discussion of the Trinity, beginning with that of Karl Barth.

Karl Barth: The Trinity and Divine Revelation

Barth sets the doctrine of the Trinity at the opening of his Church Dogmatics. This simple observation is important, for he totally inverts the position in which it was placed by his rival, Schleiermacher. For Schleiermacher, as we have seen, the Trinity is perhaps the last word that can be said about God; for Barth, it is the word that must be spoken before revelation is even a possibility. It is thus placed at the opening of the Church Dogmatics, because its subject matter makes those dogmatics possible in the first place. The doctrine of the Trinity undergirds and guarantees the actuality of divine revelation to sinful humanity. It is an “explanatory confirmation,” as Barth puts it, of revelation. It is an exegesis of the fact of revelation.

Karl Barth (1886–1968). Widely regarded as the most important Protestant theologian of the twentieth century. Originally inclined to support liberal Protestantism, Barth was moved to adopt a more theocentric position through his reflections on the First World War. His early emphasis on the “otherness” of God in his Romans commentary (1919) was continued and modified in his monumental Church Dogmatics. Barth’s contribution to modern Christian theology has been immense.

“God reveals himself. He reveals himself through himself. He reveals himself.” With these words (which it is virtually impossible to translate into inclusive language), Barth sets up the revelational framework that leads to the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Deus dixit! God has spoken in revelation – and it is the task of theology to inquire into what this revelation presupposes and implies. For Barth, theology is Nach-Denken, a process of “thinking afterwards” about what is contained in God’s self-revelation. We have to “inquire carefully into the relation between our knowing of God, and God himself in his being and nature.” With such statements, Barth sets up the context of the doctrine of the Trinity: given that God’s self-revelation has taken place, what must be true of God if this can have happened? What does the actuality of revelation have to tell us about the being of God? Barth’s starting point for his discussion of the Trinity is not a doctrine or an idea, but the actuality of God’s speaking and God’s being heard. For how can God be heard, when sinful humanity is incapable of hearing him?

The above paragraph is simply a paraphrase of sections of the first half-volume of Barth’s Church Dogmatics, entitled “The Doctrine of the Word of God,” punctuated by occasional quotations. There is an enormous amount being said in this, and it requires unpacking. Two themes need to be carefully noted.

The very fact that revelation takes place thus requires explanation. For Barth, this implies that humanity is passive in the process of reception; the process of revelation is, from its beginning to its end, subject to the sovereignty of God as Lord. For revelation to be revelation, God must be capable of revelation (which Barth clearly understands as “self-disclosure”) to sinful humanity, despite its sinfulness.

Once this paradox has been appreciated, the general structure of Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity can be followed. In revelation, Barth argues, God must be in himself what he shows himself to be. There must be a direct correspondence between the Revealer and the Revelation. If “God reveals himself as Lord” (a characteristically Barthian assertion), then he must be Lord “antecedently in himself.” Revelation is the reiteration in time of what God is in himself in eternity. There is thus a direct correspondence between:

To put this in the language of Trinitarian theology, the Father is revealed in the Son.

So what about the Spirit? Here we come to what is perhaps the most difficult aspect of Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity: the idea of “revealedness (Offenbarsein).” To explore this, we will have to use an illustration, not used by Barth himself. Imagine two individuals, walking outside Jerusalem on a spring day around the year AD 30. They see three men being crucified and pause to watch. The first points to the central figure, and says “There is a common criminal being executed.” The second, pointing to the same man, replies, “There is the Son of God dying for me.” To say that Jesus is the self-revelation of God will not do in itself; there must be some means by which Jesus is recognized as the self-revelation of God. It is this recognition of revelation as revelation that constitutes the idea of Offenbarsein.

So how is this insight achieved? Barth is quite clear: sinful humanity is not capable of reaching this insight unaided. Barth is not prepared to allow humanity any positive role in the interpretation of revelation, believing that this is to subject divine revelation to human theories of knowledge. Barth has been heavily criticized for this, even by those, such as Emil Brunner, who might otherwise be sympathetic to his aims. The interpretation of revelation as revelation must itself be the work of God – more accurately, the work of the Spirit. Humanity does not become capable of the word of the Lord (capax verbi domini) and then hear the word; hearing and capacity to hear are given in the one act by the Spirit.

All this might seem to suggest that Barth is really some kind of modalist, treating the different moments of revelation as different “modes of being” of the same God. It must be conceded immediately that there are those who charge him with precisely this deficiency. Nevertheless, more considered reflection perhaps moves us away from this judgment, although other criticisms can certainly be made. For example, the Spirit fares rather badly in Barth’s exposition, which in this respect can be argued to mirror weaknesses in the western tradition as a whole. However, whatever its weaknesses may be, Barth’s discussion of the Trinity is generally regarded as having reinstated the doctrine after a period of sustained neglect within dogmatic theology. That process of reinstatement has been further consolidated through the work of the Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner, to which we now turn.

Karl Rahner: The Economic and Immanent Trinity

Rahner’s particular contribution to the development of modern Trinitarian theology is generally agreed to be his analysis of the relation between the “economic” and the “immanent” Trinity. The basic distinction here is between the manner in which God is known through revelation in history (“the economic Trinity”) and the manner in which God exists internally (“the immanent Trinity”). The “economic Trinity” can be thought of as the way in which we experience God’s self-disclosure in history and the “immanent Trinity” as God’s diversity and unity as it is within the godhead itself. Rahner’s axiom concerning their relationship, which is widely quoted in modern theology, takes the following form: “The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity.” In other words, the way God is revealed and experienced in history corresponds to the way in which God actually is.

Karl Rahner (1904–1984). One of the most influential of modern Roman Catholic theologians, whose Theological Investigations pioneered the use of the essay as a tool of theological construction and exploration.

Rahner’s approach to the Trinity is a powerful corrective to certain tendencies in older Roman Catholic Trinitarian theology, especially the tendency to focus on the “immanent Trinity” in such a way as to marginalize both human experience of God and the biblical witness to salvation. For Rahner, the “economic” Trinity relates to the “biblical statements concerning the economy of salvation and its threefold structure.” Rahner’s axiom allows him to affirm that the entire work of salvation is the work of one divine person. Despite the complexity of the mystery of salvation, a single divine person can be discerned as its source, origin, and goal. Behind the diversity of the process of salvation there is to be discerned only one God. This fundamental principle of the unity of the economy of salvation can be traced back to Irenaeus, especially in his polemic against the Gnostics (see pp. 40–2), who argued that two divine beings could be distinguished within the economy of salvation.

Rahner therefore insists that the proper starting point of Trinitarian discussion is our experience of salvation history and its biblical expression. The “mystery of salvation” happens first; then we move on to formulate doctrines concerning it. This “previous knowledge of the economic Trinity, derived from salvation history and the Bible,” is the starting point for the process of systematic reflection. The “immanent Trinity” can therefore be thought of as a “systematic conception of the economic Trinity.” Ranher therefore argues that the process of theological reflection that leads to the doctrine of the immanent Trinity has its starting point in our experience and knowledge of salvation in history. The complexity of that salvation history is ultimately grounded in the divine nature itself. In other words, although we experience diversity and unity within the economy of salvation, that diversity and unity correspond to the way God actually is. “For these modalities and their differentiation either are in God himself (although we first experience them from our point of view) or they exist only in us.” Rahner has no hesitation in rejecting the idea that these Trinitarian distinctions are arbitrary constructions of the human mind; they are, he insists, grounded in the actual being of God.

In other words, “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit” are not simply human ways of making sense of the diversity of our experience of the mystery of salvation. Nor are they roles that God somehow temporarily assumes for the purpose of entering into our history. Rather, they correspond to the way God actually is. The same God who appears as a Trinity is a Trinity. The way in which God is known in self-revelation corresponds to the way God is internally.

Jürgen Moltmann: Social Trinitarianism

One of the most influential recent ways of understanding the doctrine of the Trinity and establish its relevance is a social understanding of the Trinity. Advocates of this approach hold that Christians should not imagine God on the basis of a model of some individual person or thing that has three aspects – aspects, dimensions, or modes of being – for example, Patrick’s image of the shamrock leaf or Anselm of Canterbury’s model of the River Nile as spring, river, and lake (Anselm’s knowledge of African geography was not very reliable!). Social approaches to the Trinity insist that God is instead to be thought of as a collective reality – a group or a society, bound together by the mutual love, accord, and self-giving of its members. Cornelius Plantinga, for example, spoke of the Trinity as “a zestful, wondrous community of divine light, love, joy, mutuality and verve.”

In The Trinity and the Kingdom of God (1980), however, Jürgen Moltmann attempts to liberate the Christian doctrine of God from Greek metaphysics of substance by offering a social account of the Trinity, which emphasizes the relative independence of the person and work of the Holy Spirit in its community with the Father and the Son. Moltmann argues that “the trinitarian persons form their own unity by themselves in the circulation of the divine life.”

Moltmann develops this point with reference to the notion of perichoresis, particularly as this notion is expressed in the writings of Cappadocian theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa. This Greek term (often translated as “mutual interpenetration”) came into general use in the sixth century. It refers to the manner in which the three persons of the Trinity relate to one another. The concept of perichoresis allows the individuality of the persons to be maintained, while insisting that each person shares in the life of the other two. Moltmann’s development of the idea proved particularly influential. The Trinity is to be conceived as “a community of being,” in which each person, while maintaining its distinctive identity, penetrates the others and is penetrated by them.

The doctrine of perichoresis, according to Moltmann, “links together in a brilliant way the threeness and the unity, without reducing the threeness to the unity, or dissolving the unity in the threeness.” Moltmann understands this perichoresis as a process by which each person of the Trinity, by virtue of their eternal mutual love, lives in the other two as a fellowship through a “process of most perfect and intense empathy.” This conception of God is radically opposed, Moltmann insists, to any “monotheistic” or “monarchical” doctrine of God that would reduce the real subjectivity of the three persons. Of particular interest is how Moltmann uses this notion to develop a fundamentally theological understanding of human society: “The trinity is our social program.”

For Moltmann, the doctrine of the Trinity is to be understood to provide a vision of God as a union of three divine persons or distinct, but related, subjects. This specific understanding of God as a mutually loving, interacting, and sustaining society allows Christian theology to develop a theory of society. Moltmann therefore sees the social view of the Trinity as having both a theological and a social function: theologically, it offers a penetrating critique of a false idea of God; socially, it articulates a notion of God as a social being, capable of functioning as a proper paradigm for society as a whole.

The triune God is reflected only in a united and uniting community of Christians without domination and subjection and a united and uniting humanity without class rule and without dictatorial oppression. That is the world in which people are defined by their social relationships and not by their power or their property. That is the world in which human beings have all things in common and share everything with one another except their personal qualities.

Moltmann’s approach has been very influential, becoming for many the “new orthodoxy.” It has important implications for Christian political thought, as the liberation theologian Leonardo Boff and other theologians concerned with political theology subsequently made clear. The mutual relationships among three co-equal persons within the Godhead have been argued to provide a model both for human relationships within communities and for Christian political and social theorizing.

But is Moltmann right? Sarah Coakley is one of many scholars to call into question whether Moltmann’s interpretation of Gregory of Nyssa and other Cappadocian writers is reliable, involving paying selective attention to a complex body of writings. Kathryn Tanner (born 1957) argues that human sinfulness means that any political or social proposals that are derived from the “peaceful and perfectly loving mutuality of the Trinity” will seem to be “unrealistic, hopelessly naïve, and for that reason, perhaps even politically dangerous.” Tanner’s point is that “figuring out the socio-political lessons conveyed by the Trinity is a task fraught with complexities and perils” – a task that Moltmann and other social Trinitarians do not appear to have thought through properly.

The Catholic theologian Karen Kilby (born 1964) also offers some important criticisms of the social Trinitarian approach, noting that there is a “high level of projection” in these theories. What Kilby means by this is that ideas about what an individual theologian or society thinks a community should look like is projected onto God. In other words, social approaches to the Trinity run the risk of projecting prevailing cultural values onto God, rather than reading normative social values out of God.

One can form the impression that much of the detail is derived from either the individual author’s or the larger society’s latest ideals of how human beings should live in community. I want to go one step further, however, and suggest that this is no accident: it is not just that as it happens social theories of the Trinity often project our ideals onto God. Rather it is built into the kind of project that most social theorists are involved in that they have to be projectionist.

Kilby argues that the doctrine of the Trinity cannot, and should not, be used in this way. It can too easily become a pretext for claiming insight into the nature of God that could be used to promote certain “social, political or ecclesiastical regimes.”

Robert Jenson: Naming the Christian God

Writing from a Lutheran perspective, but deeply versed in the Reformed tradition, the contemporary American theologian Robert Jenson has provided a fresh and creative restatement of the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. In many ways, it is appropriate to regard Jenson as providing a development of Barth’s position, with its characteristic emphasis upon the need to remain faithful to God’s self-revelation. Jenson’s influential work The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel (1982) provides a fundamental reference point for discussion of the doctrine in a period that has seen fresh interest develop in this hitherto neglected area.

Jenson argues that “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” is the proper name for the God who Christians know in and through Jesus Christ. It is imperative, he argues, that God should have a proper name. “Trinitarian discourse is Christianity’s effort to identify the God who has claimed us. The doctrine of the Trinity comprises both a proper name, ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’ … and an elaborate development and analysis of corresponding identifying descriptions.” Jenson points out that ancient Israel was set in a polytheistic context, in which the term “god” conveyed relatively little information. It was necessary to name the god in question. A similar situation was confronted by the writers of the New Testament, who were obliged to identify the god at the heart of their faith and distinguish this god from the many other gods worshiped and acknowledged in the region, especially in Asia Minor.

The doctrine of the Trinity thus identifies and names the Christian God – but identifies and names this God in a manner consistent with the biblical witness. It is not a name that we have chosen; it is a name that has been chosen for us and that we are authorized to use. In this way, Jenson defends the priority of God’s self-revelation against human constructions of concepts of divinity. “The gospel identifies its God thus: God is the one who raised Israel’s Jesus from the dead. The whole task of theology can be described as the unpacking of this sentence in various ways. One of these produces the church’s trinitarian language and thought.”

Scholars of patristic thought have noted the way in which the early church tended to accidentally confuse distinctively Christian ideas about God with those deriving from the Hellenistic context into which it expanded. The doctrine of the Trinity, Jenson affirms, is and was a necessary defense mechanism against such developments. It allows the church to discover the distinctiveness of its creed and to avoid becoming absorbed by rival conceptions of divinity.

However, the church could not ignore its intellectual context. If, on the one hand, its task was to defend the Christian notion of God against rival conceptions of divinity, another of its tasks was to provide “a metaphysical analysis of the gospel’s triune identification of God.” In other words, it was obliged to use the philosophical categories of its day to explain precisely what Christians believed about their God and how this distinguished them from alternatives. Paradoxically, the attempt to distinguish Christianity from Hellenism led to the introduction of Hellenistic categories into Trinitarian discourse.

The doctrine of the Trinity thus centers on the recognition that God is named by Scripture and within the witness of the church. Within the Hebraic tradition, God is identified by historical events. Jenson notes how many Old Testament texts identify God with reference to his acts in history – such as the liberation of Israel from its captivity in Egypt. The same pattern is evident in the New Testament: God is recognized to be identified with reference to historical events and supremely the resurrection of Jesus Christ. God comes to be identified in relation to Jesus Christ. Who is God? Which god are we talking about? The God who raised Christ from the dead. As Jenson puts it, “the emergence of a semantic pattern in which the uses of ‘God’ and ‘Jesus Christ’ are mutually determining” is of fundamental importance within the New Testament.

Jenson thus recovers a personal conception of God from metaphysical speculation. “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” is a proper name, which we are asked to use in naming and addressing God. “Linguistic means of identification – proper names, identifying descriptions, or both – are a necessity of religion. Prayers, like other requests and praises, must be addressed.” The Trinity is thus an instrument of theological precision, which forces us to be more precise about the specific identity of the God who is under discussion.

Case Study 4.5 Twentieth-Century Discussions of the Doctrine of the Church

The twentieth century has seen renewed interest in the doctrine of the church (an aspect of theology that is known as “ecclesiology”), partly on account of the rise of the ecumenical movement (concerned with the promotion of Christian unity) and partly through the enormous stimulus given to this area of theology through the process of renewal and reform initiated by the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), especially its important statement Lumen Gentium (“A Light to the Gentiles” – note that authoritative Roman Catholic conciliar and papal statements are generally referred to by their opening words in Latin).

Variations on a Theme: “Wherever Christ is, There is Also the Catholic Church”

The first-century writer Ignatius of Antioch declared that “wherever Christ is, there is also the Catholic Church.” This memorable aphorism has had a deep impact on ecclesiological reflection – whether Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox – throughout Christian history. In what follows, we shall explore three different twentieth-century ways of approaching this aphorism.

1. Christ is present sacramentally

One of the most distinctive contributions of the Second Vatican Council to the development of ecclesiology is its assertion of the sacramental character of the church. As Lumen Gentium puts it, “the church, in Christ, is a kind of sacrament – a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and of unity among all human beings.” The Council did not suggest that the church is a sacrament; the traditional sevenfold understanding of the sacraments (see pp. 119–20) is retained. Rather, the church is “like a sacrament (veluti sacramentum).” In making this statement, the Council seems to have been attempting to bring together the idea of the church as constituted by the word of God, on the one hand, and as being a visible entity, on the other. This idea is certainly present in Augustine’s concept of sacraments as “visible words.”

The idea of the church as sacrament has had a major impact on Catholic ecclesiology in the twentieth century. Even before the Council, such ideas were gaining momentum within the church. In part, this reflects the rise of a “theology of retrieval,” which sought to reappropriate a series of seminal themes from earlier periods in Christian history, most notably the patristic period, which adopted understandings of the nature of the church that contrasted sharply with the more institutional conceptions that had gained the ascendancy since the sixteenth century.

The idea can be seen clearly in the writings of Henri de Lubac, a theologian noted for his magisterial grasp of the patristic heritage. In his important work Catholicism, he writes:

If Christ is the sacrament of God, the church is for us the sacrament of Christ; she represents him, in the full and ancient sense of the term, she really makes him present. She not only carries on his work, but she is his very continuation, in a sense far more real than in which it can be said that any human institution is its founder’s continuation.

Although retaining an institutional understanding of the church, de Lubac gave a new sense of identity and purpose to Catholic conceptions of the church: the church is there to make Jesus Christ present to the world. Ignatius’ aphorism is therefore given new significance through this sacramental understanding of the role of the church.

In 1953, the Jesuit theologian Otto Semmelroth (1912–1979) published a highly influential study entitled The Church as Primordial Sacrament, in which he argues for the church as being the “primordial sacrament (Ursakrament),” demonstrating God’s ability to use the material order to bear witness to the spiritual. The Dominican theologian Edward Schillebeeckx (1914–2009) developed related ideas in his Christ: The Sacrament of the Encounter with God (1959). The overall effect of this approach is to integrate the fields of Christology, ecclesiology, and sacramentology into a coherent whole. Hans Urs von Balthasar adopts a strongly incarnational approach to his understanding of the church, arguing that the church is the elongetur Christi – the prolongation or extension of Christ in time and space. The Jesuit writer Karl Rahner continues this sacramental understanding of the church, declaring that the church is there to make Christ present in the world, in an historical, visible, and embodied form.

Rahner’s approach has attracted considerable interest. For Rahner, the church “is the continuance, the contemporary presence of that real, eschatologically triumphant and irrevocably established presence in Christ in the world of God’s saving will.” The church is thus a “concrete manifestation of God’s salvation of humanity,” the enduring presence of God in the world (an idea anticipated in the sixteenth century by the Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila). Also, on account of its real historical presence in the world, it follows that the church requires structures. For this reason, Rahner is able to justify a continuing institutional element in any Catholic understanding of the nature of the church, while at the same time insisting that these particular structures are not necessarily of defining importance. Furthermore, Rahner is prepared to concede a degree of flexibility in relation to those structures. What may have been appropriate to the definite historical circumstances of the past may not be appropriate today. The church must be free to achieve its sacramental mission in new historical structures.

Schillebeeckx differs from Rahner at some points of importance, most notably in his rejection of Rahner’s argument that the church is the “primal sacrament” (an idea, as we noted above, that can be traced back to Otto Semmelroth). For Schillebeeckx, Christ must be regarded as that primal sacrament; whatever sacramental character the church possesses must be understood to arise through its relation with Christ.

Protestant critics of this approach have expressed anxiety about the relative lack of biblical foundation for the approach and its relative lack of place for a theology of preaching. In view of the importance of this point, we may move on to consider more Protestant interpretations of Ignatius’ axiom, which focus on the presence of Christ resulting from the preaching of the word of God.

2. Christ is present through the Word

A central theme of Protestant understandings of the nature of the church focuses on the presence of Christ resulting from the proclamation of his word, in preaching and the sacraments. For example, consider Calvin’s classic statement on the nature of the church:

Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and listened to, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, it is in no way to be doubted that a church of God exists. For his promise cannot fail: “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). … If the ministry has the Word and honors it, if it has the administration of the sacraments, it deserves without doubt to be held and considered a church.

For Calvin, the preaching of the word and right administration of the sacrament are linked with the presence of Christ – and wherever Christ is, there his church is to be found as well.

This kerygmatic (Greek kerygma: “herald”) theme has continued to be of major importance in the twentieth century, particularly in the writings of Karl Barth. For Barth, the church is the community that comes into being in response to the proclamation of the word of God. The church is seen as a kerygmatic community that proclaims the good news of what God has done for humanity in Christ and comes into being wherever the word of God is faithfully proclaimed and accepted. As Barth put it in his 1948 address to the World Council of Churches, the church consists of “the gathering together (congregatio) of those men and women whom the living Lord Jesus Christ chooses and calls to be witnesses of the victory he has already won, and heralds of its future manifestation.” Barth’s ecclesiology is thoroughly Trinitarian at this point, involving Father, Son, and Spirit in a dynamic understanding of the nature of the church. For Barth, the church is not an extension of Christ, but is united with Christ, and called and commissioned by him to serve the world; Christ is present within his church, through the Holy Spirit.

The role of the Holy Spirit is particularly important in this matter. Although it would not be correct to say that Barth has a “charismatic” understanding of the church, his Christological approach to the identity of the church allocates a definite and distinctive role to the Holy Spirit, which Barth summarized as follows in his Dogmatics in Outline:

Credo ecclesiam [“I believe in the church”] means that I believe that here, at this place, in this assembly, the work of the Holy Spirit takes place. By that is not intended a deification of the creature; the church is not the object of faith, we do not believe in the church; but we do believe that in this congregation the work of the Holy Spirit becomes an event.

The church is thus seen as an event, rather than as an institution. Barth does not identify the Holy Spirit with the church, nor limit the operation of the Spirit to the bounds of the institution of the church. He argues that the Spirit empowers and renews the church, unites it with Christ’s redemptive work on the cross, and is the means by which the risen Christ is made present to the people of God. In this way, the Spirit safeguards the church from lapsing into purely secular ways of understanding its identity and mission.

Rudolf Bultmann also adopts a strongly kerygmatic approach to the nature of the church, linking Barth’s emphasis on the foundational role of “proclamation” with the notion of “church as event”:

The word of God and the church are inseparable. The church is constituted by the word of God as the congregation of the elect, and the word of God is not a statement of abstract truths, but a proclamation which is duly authorized and therefore needs bearers with proper credentials (2 Corinthians 5:18–19). Just as the word of God becomes his word only in event, so the church is really the church only when it too becomes an event.

3. Christ is present through the Spirit

A third major theme in twentieth-century ecclesiology has focused on the role of the Holy Spirit as constitutive of the church. Here, Ignatius’ aphorism is interpreted in such a way as to emphasize the necessity of the Spirit in actualizing the presence of Christ. We have already seen the importance of this point in relation to Barth’s ecclesiology; however, it is present in more developed forms in writers such as the liberation theologian, Leonardo Boff, and the Orthodox theologian, John Zizioulas (born 1931). These two writers interpret their pneumatological (Greek: pneuma = “spirit”) understanding of the church in a different way. Boff remains Christ-centered, despite his emphasis on the Spirit, reflecting his western understanding of the Trinity; Zizioulas develops a much more Orthodox approach, based on a Cappadocian understanding of the role of the Spirit within the godhead.

For Leonardo Boff, the constitutive role of the Holy Spirit in an understanding of the church rests on the fact that it is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Whereas writers such as Rahner and von Balthasar had defended the view that the church was the physical embodiment or “re-presentation” of Christ in the world, Boff defends the view that the church is primarily the spiritual body of Christ, and is therefore not confined to any specific existing structures. In this respect, Boff can be seen as mounting a criticism of institutionalized understandings of the church, particularly those that flourished before the Second Vatican Council.

In his Ecclesiogenesis: The Base Communities Reinvent the Church (1986), Boff provides a definition of the church that shows some parallels with kerygmatic understandings of the church:

The church comes into being as church when people become aware of the call to salvation in Jesus Christ, come together in community, profess the same faith, celebrate the same eschatological liberation, and seek to live the discipleship of Jesus Christ. We can speak of church in the proper sense only when there is question of this ecclesial consciousness.

For Boff, this “ecclesial consciousness” is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit, whose person and work is inseparable from the risen Christ. Boff interprets the creedal doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son as an affirmation of this point.

In the case of Zizioulas, however, the Holy Spirit is allocated a quite distinct role. Zizioulas points out how, especially in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul appears to allocate the Holy Spirit a constitutive role within the church. Pneumatology is therefore not about “the well-being of the church … it is the very essence of the church.” Zizioulas’ distinctive approach could be summarized as follows: the church may have been instituted by Jesus Christ, but it is constituted by the Holy Spirit.

The Second Vatican Council on the Church

The Second Vatican Council introduced a new vitality into the discussion of the doctrine of the church, partly through its reappropriation of traditional biblical imagery relating to the church. Prior to this Council, Roman Catholic writers tended to think of the church in terms of a “perfect society.” This style of imagery dates from the later part of the sixteenth century and emphasized the institutional credentials of the church, especially in the light of the increasing power of European nation-states. Part of the church’s strategy for asserting its independence from the increasing power of the state was to affirm its own identity as a society. Thus Roberto Bellarmine, one of the most important writers of the Catholic Reformation, argued that the church was as visible and tangible a social reality as “the kingdom of France or the republic of Venice.” Thus the standard edition of the preconciliar textbook of Adolphe Tanquerey (1854–1932) spends some 64 pages demonstrating that the church is (a) an infallible society, (b) a perfect society, (c) a hierarchical society, and (d) a monarchic society.

Inevitably, this approach to ecclesiology led to the church being defined primarily in terms of its visible aspects, and particularly its visible structures of government and its codes of belief and conduct. The church was, in effect, modeled on social institutions of the late sixteenth century. There has always been an institutional aspect to Christian doctrines of the church, whether Protestant or Catholic. Thus both Luther and Calvin stressed the importance of proper church government. However, neither of these reformers regarded the institutional element as being of defining importance. The critical thing was the gospel, not the institution. Similar insights are generally typical of patristic and medieval authors until the fourteenth century. At this point, increasing papal political power and a growing determination to fend off attacks on the institutions of the church (particularly the papacy and hierarchy) led to a growing tendency to defend these institutions by making them integral to a proper understanding of the church.

This tendency is generally thought to have reached its zenith during the nineteenth century. Responding to an increasingly dangerous political situation in Europe, where secularism and anti-Catholicism appeared to be on the increase, the First Vatican Council defined the church in strongly institutionalist terms, insisting that the church has all the marks of a true society. Christ did not leave this society undefined or without a fixed form; rather, he himself gave it existence, determined the form of its existence, and gave it its constitution. This strongly hierarchical conception of the church is perhaps seen most clearly in the rigid distinction between “the pastors and the flock,” grounded in the belief that the church of Christ is not a community of equals in which all the faithful have the same rights, but is rather a society of unequals, not only because among the faithful some are clergy and some are laity, but because there is in the church the power from God by which it is given to some to sanctify, teach, and govern, and to others it is not. This point was often expressed in terms of the distinction between ecclesia docens (“the teaching church,” referring to the hierarchy) and ecclesia discens (“the learning church,” referring to the laity, whose responsibilities were primarily to obey their superiors).

Yet by the middle of the twentieth century, Catholic scholars and theologians were increasingly expressing misgivings concerning this model. In part, this reflects an awareness of the growing evidence that suggested that the early church did not have a coherent monolithic structure, but had at least a degree of flexibility over its institutions and orders. The emergence of a strongly organized and institutional church increasingly came to be seen as dating from after the apostolic period and being a response partly to political pressures, such as those resulting from the imperial recognition of Christianity under Constantine. The Catholic New Testament scholar Lucien Cerfaux (1883–1968) and others paved the way for a recovery of biblical and patristic insights that had been overlooked on account of the trend toward institutionalization. Others, such as Yves Congar, worked for the recovery of a theology of the laity, concerned over their marginalization in institutional models of the church. The result was that the Second Vatican Council was in a position to revitalize Roman Catholic thinking on this vital area of theology, with all its implications for ecumenism and evangelism. The results may be seen in the document Lumen Gentium (“A Light to the Gentiles”).

We have already explored the Council’s teaching on “the church as sacrament” (p. 270) and the manner in which it has been developed by theologians such as Karl Rahner. In what follows, we shall explore three further aspects of the teaching of the Council on the nature of the church.

In 1943, the German Catholic writer Ludwig von Hertling (1892–1980) published a study entitled Communio: Church and Papacy in Early Christianity, which dealt with the importance of the theme of “communion” (often referred to by the Greek term koinonia) for a proper understanding of the nature of the church. This work had a deep influence on the Council’s reflections and its distinctive themes can be found in the final statement on the church. On account of the overtones that the term “communion” now possesses, it is perhaps useful to employ the older English word “fellowship” to bring out the point at issue. The basic biblical theme that is expressed by this term is that of sharing in a common life, whether this life is thought of as the life of the Trinity itself or the common life of believers within the church. The term possesses both vertical and horizontal aspects, the former referring to the relation between the believer and God, and the latter to the relationship between individual believers.

The recovery of this biblical idea proved to be a powerful corrective to the purely institutional conceptions of the church that had gained the ascendancy during the nineteenth century. The regulatory enforcement of fellowship was now seen to be one aspect of the more fundamental idea of the fellowship between the believer and God, established through the death and resurrection of Christ, and lived out in the life of the church.

Of the various models of the church set forth by the Second Vatican Council, the most important is that of the church as the “people of God.” This is a strongly biblical idea, with deep roots in both Old and New Testaments. The Council was careful to avoid the direct identification of “the people of God” with “the Roman Catholic church” or the suggestion that the church has somehow displaced Israel as the people of God. Indeed, the second chapter of the Council’s text on the inner life of the church describes the church as the “new people of God,” continuous with Israel. The election of the church as the people of God does not entail the rejection of Israel, but rather the extension of God’s kingdom. This point is made particularly clearly in the Council’s Declaration on Non-Christian Religions, which recognizes a special continuing place for Jews in God’s purposes of salvation:

The Church of Christ acknowledges that in God’s plan of salvation the beginning of her faith and election is to be found in the patriarchs, Moses and the prophets. She professes that all Christ’s faithful, who as men of faith are sons of Abraham (cf. Galatians 3:7), are included in the same patriarch’s call and that the salvation of the Church is mystically prefigured in the exodus of God’s chosen people from the land of bondage. On this account the Church cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament by way of that people with whom God in his inexpressible mercy established the ancient covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws nourishment from that good olive tree onto which the wild olive branches of the Gentiles have been grafted (cf. Romans 11:17–24). The Church believes that Christ who is our peace has through his cross reconciled Jews and Gentiles and made them one in himself(cf. Ephesians 2:14–16).

The Second Vatican Council took place at the time during which there was widespread interest in the charismatic movement. The impact of this development was felt strongly within some quarters of the Catholic church. It led to the Belgian Cardinal Leo-Josef Suenens delivering a powerful appeal to the Council to include reference to this development in its reflections on the nature of the church. Lumen Gentium responded by explicitly recognizing the importance of charismatic gifts within the life of the church. The Council used the term “charism” (Greek: charisma = gift) to refer to such gifts or abilities bestowed upon individuals to fulfill some specific service. This term has a long history of use and does not necessarily imply the kind of “spiritual gifts” (such as speaking in tongues or the gift of healing) specifically associated with the charismatic movement. Nevertheless, the Pauline use of the Greek term charisma clearly includes such gifts, suggesting that the Council was allowing a significant degree of openness to this increasingly important aspect of the twentieth-century Christian experience.

Case Study 4.6 Natural Theology and the Rationality of Faith

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the heavens proclaim the work of God’s hands” (Psalm 19:1). This well-known text can be seen as representing a general theme within the Christian Bible – that something of the wisdom of the God who made the world can be known through the world that was created. The exploration of this theme has proved to be one of the most fruitful areas of theology, which has become of increasing importance as a result of the rise of the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment raised new challenges to Christian theology, above all raising questions about whether its fundamental beliefs could be defended rationally. In such an intellectual environment, the church’s public defence of the existence of God on the basis of an appeal to tradition or the Bible became increasingly problematic. The emergence of the fledgling discipline of “biblical criticism” eroded confidence in the reliability of the text of Scripture; the growing influence of “doctrinal criticism” challenged its traditional interpretations; and the rise of rationalism called the need for divine revelation into question. One apologetic strategy was to attempt to devise arguments for the Christian faith based purely upon reason; the other was to make an appeal to the natural world as a basis of faith.

The development of “natural theology” as an apologetic tool took place primarily in England during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The rise of Deism in the seventeenth century – which can be seen as a local precursor of the Enlightenment – forced the English church to realize that it needed to defend the existence of God to an intellectual culture that was inclined to be sceptical about this notion. The church, realizing that it was increasingly difficult to base a dialogue with English academic thought upon the Bible, sought an alternative common ground for its apologetic discourse – and found it in the realm of nature. Natural theology thus rapidly became an important apologetic tool.

By the early eighteenth century, the concept of “natural theology” was firmly established within English religious culture as a means of demonstrating God’s existence without recourse to any religious beliefs or presuppositions. This represented an adaptation of the concept to the realities of the English religious situation, primarily in response to the agenda of the Enlightenment. The idea of the “two books of God” – nature and Scripture – was widely explored as the basis of a defensible natural theology. One of the clearest statements of this approach is found in the writings of Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682), particularly his work Religio Medici (“The Religion of a Physician,” 1643). Browne here set out his understanding of natural theology with an appeal to the wisdom of the ancients:

Thus there are two Books from whence I collect my Divinity; besides that written one of God, another of His servant Nature, that universal and publick Manuscript, that lies expans’d unto the Eyes of all: those that never saw Him in the one, have discovered Him in the other.

The most important work of English natural theology is widely agreed to be William Paley’s Natural Theology (1802), which develops the image of God as the “watchmaker.” For Paley, the natural world exhibits indications of design – which point to a divine designer. Who, Paley asks, could look at the mechanical intricacies of a watch, without appreciating that someone had designed and constructed this complex piece of machinery?

The Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries led to growing popular interest in machinery – such as watches, telescopes, stocking-mills, and steam engines – on the part of England’s ruling class. Paley appealed to this in developing his argument. How, Paley asked, could such complex mechanical technology come into being by purposeless chance? Paley develops this point by his appeal to the analogy of the watch. In setting the context, Paley highlights the fundamental distinctions between a stone and a watch, when both are encountered while crossing a heath.

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there: I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever; nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given – that, for any thing I knew, the watch might have always been there.

What distinguishes the watch from the stone? The nub of Paley’s answer can be summed up in the single word contrivance – a system of parts arranged to work together for a purpose, manifesting both design and utility. Paley used the term “contrivance” to convey the dual notions of design and fabrication, appealing to the popular interest in machinery characteristic of the new age of industrialization then emerging in England. Paley then offers a detailed description of the watch, noting in particular its container, coiled cylindrical spring, many interlocking wheels, and glass face. This was obviously designed and manufactured.

Having established this analogy, Paley then surveys the biological world, emphasizing both its complexity and the way in which its various features appear to have specific functions. The human eye, for example, is clearly enormously complex and has been designed in order that human beings could see. Paley then draws his conclusion: these indications of purposeful design within the biological world point to someone who designed and executed them – namely, God as creator.

These ideas were developed further in England in the early Victorian period in a remarkable series of eight works of natural theology that appeared during the years 1833–1836, collectively known as the Bridgewater Treatises. These were the result of a bequest made by the eighth Earl of Bridgewater, Francis Henry Egerton (1756–1829), who bequeathed £8,000 to the Royal Society as a payment to the person or persons chosen by its President who would be invited to “write, print and publish, one thousand copies of a work” on natural theology. In the end, the Royal Society invited eight prominent “gentlemen of science” to write these treatises, showing how the complexities of nature pointed to a divine designer.

To illustrate the approach, we shall consider the argument set out in William Prout’s Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion Considered with Reference to Natural Theology (1834). Prout here argues that certain physical characteristics of animals are indicative of divine design:

Animals in cold climates have been provided with a covering of fur. Men in such climates cover themselves with that fur…. Now, since the animal did not clothe itself, but must have been clothed by another, it follows that whoever clothed the animal, must have known what the man knows, and must therefore have reasoned like the man…. The man who clothes himself in fur to keep off the cold performs an act directed toward a certain end; in short, an act of design. So, whoever, directly or indirectly, caused the animal to be clothed with fur to keep off the cold must likewise have performed an act of design.

These approaches to natural theology, based on an appeal to the complexity and adaptation of the biological world, would be called into question after the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). Darwin’s argument was that the appearance of design could arise through the process of natural selection over an extended period of time. How could one meaningfully speak of the divine “design” of the natural order, when that appeared to have emerged over an extended period of time by essentially natural processes? In fact, Paley’s approach to natural theology had fallen into some disrepute by about 1850 and it was clearly a waning force in English intellectual circles – even if it did retain some popular appeal.

One of the most significant nineteenth-century criticisms of Paley’s approach to natural theology came from the pen of John Henry Newman (1801–1890). Newman made his distaste for Paley’s “physico-theology” clear during the 1830s, developing two basic lines of argument against it: first, that it failed to establish a coherent connection between the natural world and faith in God; and second, that it failed to connect with the specific emphases of the Christian faith. Arguments from nature can only be inductive, and thus fail to establish the core ideas of faith. While they may be of service to those who already believe in God, offering reinforcement of these beliefs, natural theology lacks the evidential and argumentative rigour to establish such a belief in the first place. Newman famously rejected traditional arguments from design: “I believe in design because I believe in God; not in God because I see design.” Paley’s natural theology, Newman suggested, was as likely to lead to atheism as to belief in God.

Second, Newman raised concerns about the identity and character of the “God” disclosed by natural theology. If “God” amounted to little more than what a telescope or a microscope disclosed of nature, then “divine truth is not something separate from Nature, but it is Nature with a divine glow upon it.” Such a notion of God is limited to a rational principle of interpretation, lacking any sense of transcendence, holiness, or majesty. Natural theology, Newman insisted, focussed “exclusively” on only three divine attributes: power, wisdom, and goodness. Yet it remained silent concerning the real essence of the Christian vision of God – namely, the divine holiness, justice, mercy, and providence. Paley’s approach to natural theology may indeed be apologetically useful in demonstrating the capacity of the Christian faith to make sense of the natural order, but, taken on its own, it “cannot tell us anything of Christianity at all.”

Yet natural theology has moved on since these nineteenth-century debates and is now enjoying a renaissance. In part, this reflects the growing realization that the natural sciences are raising fundamental questions about the origins and purpose of the universe, which cannot be answered by the scientific method. Many recent philosophers of religion – such as Richard Swinburne (born 1934) – have developed arguments for the existence of God based on the perception that there is an ordering within nature, which requires to be explained.

Equally, the fact that the human mind can discern and investigate this ordering of nature is of considerable significance. There seems to be something about human nature that prompts it to ask questions about the world. There also seems to be something about the world that allows answers to those questions to be given. The noted theoretical physicist and Christian apologist John Polkinghorne comments on this point as follows:

We are so familiar with the fact that we can understand the world that most of the time we take it for granted. It is what makes science possible. Yet it could have been otherwise. The universe might have been a disorderly chaos rather than an orderly cosmos. Or it might have had a rationality which was inaccessible to us. … There is a congruence between our minds and the universe, between the rationality experienced within and the rationality observed without.

There is, Polkinghorne asserts, a deep-seated congruence between the rationality present in our minds and the rationality – the orderedness – that we observe as present in the world. Thus the abstract structures of pure mathematics – a free creation of the human mind – provide important clues to understanding the world. All of this, Polkinghorne argues, is a form of natural theology, preparing the way for the full knowledge of the Christian revelation.

Others, however, have raised concerns about natural theology, especially if this is understood as a way of demonstrating the existence of God through pure reason or reflection on the natural order, independent of the specifics of the Christian faith. The most important criticisms of natural theology during the twentieth century have come from Karl Barth, whose 1934 controversy with Emil Brunner (1889–1966) over this issue has become something of a cause célèbre. We shall consider this in what follows.

In 1934 Brunner published a work entitled Nature and Grace. In this work he argued that “the task of our theological generation is to find a way back to a legitimate natural theology.” Brunner located this approach in the doctrine of creation, specifically the idea that human beings are created in the imago Dei, the “image of God.” Human nature is constituted in such a way that there is an analog with the being of God. Despite the sinfulness of human nature, the ability to discern God in nature remains. Sinful human beings remain able to recognize God in nature and in the events of history, and to be aware of their guilt before God. There is thus a “point of contact” (Anknüpfungspunkt) for divine revelation within human nature.

In effect, Brunner is arguing that human nature is divinely constituted in such a way that there is a ready-made point of contact for divine revelation. Revelation thus addresses itself to a human nature that already has some idea of what that revelation is about. For example, take the gospel demand to “repent of sin.” Brunner argues that this makes little sense unless human beings already have some idea of what “sin” is. The gospel demand to repent is thus addressed to an audience that already has at least something of an idea of what “sin” and “repentance” might mean. Revelation brings with it a fuller understanding of what sin means – but in doing so, it builds upon an existing human awareness of sin.

Barth reacted with anger to this suggestion. His published reply to Brunner – which brought their long-standing friendship to an abrupt end – has one of the shortest titles in the history of religious publishing: Nein! (“No!”). Barth vigorously rejected Brunner’s positive evaluation of natural theology, arguing that Brunner’s approach seemed to imply that God needed help to become known or that human beings somehow cooperated with God in the act of revelation. “The Holy Spirit … needs no point of contact other than that which that same Spirit establishes,” was his angry retort. For Barth there was no “point of contact” inherent within human nature. Any such “point of contact” was itself the result of divine revelation. It is something that is evoked by the Word of God, rather than something that is a permanent feature of human nature.

Underlying this exchange is another matter, which is too easily overlooked. The Barth–Brunner debate took place in 1934, the year in which Adolf Hitler gained power in Germany. Underlying Brunner’s appeal to nature is an idea that can be traced back to Luther, known as “the orders of creation.” According to Luther, God providentially established certain “orders” within creation, in order to prevent it collapsing into chaos. Those orders included the family, the church, and the state. (The close alliance between the church and the state in German Lutheran thought can be seen as reflecting this idea.) Nineteenth-century German liberal Protestantism had absorbed this idea and developed a theology that allowed German culture, including a positive assessment of the state, to become of major importance theologically. Part of Barth’s concern was that Brunner, perhaps unwittingly, laid a theological foundation for allowing the state to become a model for God, and who, he wondered, wanted to model God on Adolf Hitler’s Germany?

Others, however, have questioned whether this is an accurate account of the situation. Surely the Christian faith itself seems to generate an expectation that God will be known, even if only partly, through the natural order. Surely the creator can be known, however dimly, through the creation? Writers such as Thomas F. Torrance (1919–2009) and Alister McGrath (born 1953) have suggested that natural theology arises “naturally” when the created order is viewed using a Christian theological framework. The debate continues.

Case Study 4.7 The Feminist Critique of Traditional Christian Theology

Both Old and New Testaments use male language about God. The Greek word theos is unquestionably masculine and most of the analogies used for God throughout Scripture – such as father, king, and shepherd – are male. Does this mean that God is male? This is an example of the type of question that feminist writers have asked concerning the traditional language and imagery of the Christian tradition. In this case study, we shall explore some aspects of the feminist critique of traditional Christian theology, noting its implications and the possible future directions that the discussion might take.

We begin by considering the question of the alleged “maleness” of God. It can be shown that certain persons or social roles, largely drawn from the rural world of the Ancient Near East, were seen by biblical writers to be suitable models for the divine activity or personality. One such analogy is that of a father. Yet the statement that “a father in ancient Israelite society is a suitable model for God” is not equivalent to saying that “God is male” or that “God is confined to the cultural parameters of ancient Israel.” Mary Hayter, reflecting on such issues in her work New Eve in Christ (1987), writes:

It would appear that certain “motherly prerogatives” in ancient Hebrew society – such as carrying and comforting small children – became metaphors for Yahweh’s activity vis-à-vis his children of Israel. Likewise, various “fatherly prerogatives” – such as disciplining a son – became vehicles for divine imagery. Different cultures and ages have different ideas about which roles are proper to the mother and which to the father.

To speak of God as father is to say that the role of the father in ancient Israel allows us insights into the nature of God. It is not to say that God is a male human being. Neither male nor female sexuality is to be attributed to God. For sexuality is an attribute of the created order, which cannot be assumed to correspond directly to any such polarity within the creator God himself.

Indeed, the Old Testament avoids attributing sexual functions to God, on account of the strongly pagan overtones of such associations. The Canaanite fertility cults emphasized the sexual functions of both gods and goddesses; the Old Testament refuses to endorse the idea that the gender or the sexuality of God is a significant matter. As Mary Hayter puts it:

Today a growing number of feminists teach that the God/ess combines male and female characteristics. They, like those who assume that God is exclusively male, should remember that any attribution of sexuality to God is a reversion to paganism.

If Hayter is right, there is no need to revert to pagan ideas of gods and goddesses to recover the idea that God is neither masculine or feminine; those ideas are already potentially present, if neglected, in Christian theology. Wolfhart Pannenberg develops this point further in his Systematic Theology.

The aspect of fatherly care in particular is taken over in what the Old Testament has to say about God’s fatherly care for Israel. The sexual definition of the father’s role plays no part. … To bring sexual differentiation into the understanding of God would mean polytheism; it was thus ruled out for the God of Israel. … The fact that God’s care for Israel can also be expressed in terms of a mother’s love shows clearly enough how little there is any sense of sexual distinction in the understanding of God as Father.

In an attempt to bring out the fact that God is not male, a number of recent writers have explored the idea of God as “mother” (which brings out the female aspects of God) or as “friend” (which brings out the more gender-neutral aspects of God). An excellent example of this is provided by Sallie McFague, in her Models of God (1987). Recognizing that speaking of “God as father” does not mean that God is male, she writes:

God as mother does not mean that God is mother (or father). We imagine God as both mother and father, but we realize how inadequate these and any other metaphors are to express the creative love of God. … Nevertheless, we speak of this love in language that is familiar and dear to us, the language of mothers and fathers who give us life, from whose bodies we come, and upon whose care we depend.

A similar point is made by Elizabeth Johnson, a Catholic professor of systematic theology at Fordham University, New York, in her landmark publication She Who is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (1992):

Although drawing their predominant speech about God from the pool of male images, the biblical, early theological, and medieval mystical traditions also use female images of the divine without embarrassment or explanation. The images and personifications are not considered feminine aspects or features of the divine, to be interpreted in dualistic tension with masculine dimensions or traits, but rather they are representations of the fullness of God in creating, redeeming, and calling the world to eschatological shalom.

The feminist critique extends beyond the question of the “maleness” of God; it also extends to other areas of theology. Three additional areas of importance may be noted:

Saiving suggests that the focus on pride, characteristic of traditional Christian interpretations of sin, reflects a specifically masculine experience that is inappropriate to the experience of most, if not all, women, who are much more likely to be prone to “triviality, distractibility, and diffuseness.” Saiving thus holds that contemporary theologians make the mistake of assuming that a “thinking man’s theology is equally good for a thinking woman.”

The temptations of woman as woman are not the same as the temptations of man as man, and the specifically feminine forms of sin – “feminine” not because they are confined to women or because women are incapable of sinning in other ways but because they are outgrowths of the basic feminine character structure – have a quality which can never be encompassed by such terms as “pride” and “will-to-power.” They are better suggested by such items as triviality, distractability, and diffuseness; lack of an organizing center or focus; dependence on others for one’s own self-definition; tolerance at the expense of standards of excellence; inability to respect the boundaries of privacy; sentimentality, gossipy sociability, and mistrust of reason – in short, underdevelopment or negation of the self.

It will be clear that the feminist agenda thus has considerable implications for traditional Christian theology, at least in the West. Although the merits of some of the lines of criticism of traditional patterns of thought are contested, both inside and outside feminist circles, a significant debate is under way. The same may be said of the issues arising from the existence of religions other than Christianity in the world, to which we now turn.

Case Study 4.8 Christian Approaches to Other Religions

Christianity is but one world religious tradition among a host of others. So how does it relate to other religious traditions? The question is not modern; it has been asked throughout Christian history. Initially the question concerned Christianity’s relationship with Judaism, the matrix from which it emerged in the period AD 30–60. As it expanded, it encountered other religious beliefs and practices, such as classical paganism. As it became established in India in the fifth century, it encountered the diverse native Indian cultural movements that western scholars of religion have misleadingly grouped together and termed “Hinduism.” Arab Christianity has long since learned to co-exist with Islam in the eastern Mediterranean.

In the modern period, the question of the relation of Christianity has assumed a new importance in western academic theology, partly on account of the rise of multiculturalism in western society. As will become clear, three main approaches have gained currency. However, it will be helpful to begin by considering the idea of “religion” itself.

A naïve view of religion might be that it is an outlook on life that believes in, or worships, a Supreme Being. This outlook, characteristic of Deism and Enlightenment rationalism, is easily shown to be inadequate. Buddhism is classified as a religion by most people; yet here a belief in some supreme being is conspicuously absent. The same problem persists, no matter what definition of “religion” is offered. No unambiguously common features can be identified among the religions, in matters of faith or practice. Thus Edward Conze, the great scholar of Buddhism, recalled that he “once read through a collection of the lives of Roman Catholic saints, and there was not one of whom a Buddhist could fully approve. … They were bad Buddhists though good Christians.”

There is a growing consensus that it is seriously misleading to regard the various religious traditions of the world as variations on a single theme. “There is no single essence, no one content of enlightenment or revelation, no one way of emancipation or liberation, to be found in all that plurality” (David Tracy). John B. Cobb, Jr. also notes the enormous difficulties confronting anyone wishing to argue that there is an “essence of religion”:

Arguments about what religion truly is are pointless. There is no such thing as religion. There are only traditions, movements, communities, peoples, beliefs, and practices that have features that are associated by many people with what they mean by religion.

Cobb stresses that the assumption that religion has an essence has bedeviled and seriously misled recent discussion of the relation of the religious traditions of the world. For example, he points out that both Buddhism and Confucianism have “religious” elements – but that does not necessarily mean that they can be categorized as “religions.” Many “religions” are better understood as cultural movements with religious components.

The idea of some universal notion of religion, of which individual religions are subsets, appears to have emerged at the time of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment understandably yet wrongly regarded “religion” as a universal category. During the period of colonial expansion, many Europeans came across worldviews that differed from their own and chose to label them as “religions.” In fact, many of these, such as Confucianism, were better regarded as philosophies of life. Some were explicitly non-theistic. Yet the Enlightenment belief in a universal notion called “religion” led to all of these being forced into the same mould.

It is increasingly agreed that definitions of religion tend to reflect the agendas and bias of those who propose them. There is still no definition of “religion” that commands scholarly assent. Religion clearly belongs to what the philosopher Donald Brown calls “universals of classification” rather than to “universals of content.” “Universals of content” have shared core beliefs; “universals of classification”, on the other hand, share common patterns, but not necessarily individual beliefs. They have fuzzy boundaries and lack easily distinguishable core convictions.

What, then, of Christian approaches to understanding the relation between Christianity and other religious traditions? In what way can such traditions be understood, within the context of the Christian belief in the universal saving will of God, made known through Jesus Christ? It must be stressed that Christian theology is concerned with evaluating other religious traditions from the perspective of Christianity itself. Such reflection is not addressed to, or intended to gain approval from, members of other religious traditions, or their secular observers.

One recent development needs to be noted at this stage. The revival in Trinitarianism in Christian theology during the twentieth century has led to its explanatory and regulative fruitfulness being extended to include the theology of other religions. What is particularly significant about these Trinitarian approaches to other religions is that they do not adopt a Barthian critique of “religion,” but rather seek to understand both religions and their ideas within a Trinitarian framework.

The pioneering work in this field is generally regarded as being Raimundo Panikkar’s Trinity and the Religious Experience of Man (1973). Panikkar argued that a Trinitarian framework offered a means of making sense of the complex nature of human spirituality, including religious experience and expression.

These ideas were developed further in 1991 by Ninian Smart and Stephen Konstantine. In their Christian Systematic Theology in World Context, Smart – a veteran commentator on world religions – and Konstantine argued that the concept of the “social Trinity” is the ultimate divine reality that constitutes the ground of all human religious experience. Differing forms of human spirituality are to be understood as arising from an experience of one of these three “aspects of the divine life” of the triune God.

In 1996, Jacques Dupuis (1923–2005) set out a different approach in his Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism. Dupuis, a Jesuit theologian with significant experience of the Indian context, argued that the doctrine of the Trinity “serves as the hermeneutical key for an interpretation of the experience of the Absolute Reality to which other religious traditions testify.” For Dupuis, this line of thought opened up further the lines of thought already developed by his fellow-Jesuit Karl Rahner. “It may be said that the divine Trinity is experienced, though hiddenly and ‘anonymously’, wherever human beings allow the Divine Reality that impinges upon them to enter into their life. In every authentic religious experience the Triune God of Christian revelation is present and operative.” We shall explore Rahner’s notion of an “anonymous Christian” later in this section.

Gavin D’Costa’s The Meeting of Religions and the Trinity (2000) further confirmed the fruitfulness of a Trinitarian approach to other religions. Though careful to emphasise that Christianity was the unique vehicle of divine salvation, D’Costa argued that the universal presence of the Holy Spirit had implications for other religions. For example, he suggested that the Christian church might be led more deeply into the life of God through an engagement with adherents of other religions and that Christians may observe “Christ-likeness” in these adherents on account of the universal presence and work of the Spirit. A similar approach is found with the Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong, especially in his Discerning the Spirit(s): A Pentecostal‐Charismatic Contribution to a Christian Theology of Religions (2000).

Three broad approaches to a Christian understanding of other religions have emerged during the last century:

We will explore each of these approaches in what follows.

The Particularist Approach

Perhaps the most influential statement of this position – still also referred to as “exclusivist” in the literature – may be found in the writings of Hendrik Kraemer (1888–1965), especially his Christian Message in a Non-Christian World (1938). Kraemer emphasizes that “God has revealed the Way and the Truth and the Life in Jesus Christ, and wills this to be known throughout the world.” This revelation is sui generis; it is in a category of its own and cannot be set alongside the ideas of revelation found in other religious traditions.

At this point, a certain breadth of opinion can be discerned within this approach. Kraemer himself seems to suggest that there is real knowledge of God outside Christ when he speaks of God shining through “in a broken, troubled way, in reason, in nature and in history.” The question is whether such knowledge is only available through Christ or whether Christ provides the only framework by which such knowledge may be discerned and interpreted elsewhere.

Some particularists (such as Karl Barth) adopt the position that there is no knowledge of God to be had apart from through Christ; others (such as Kraemer) allow that God reveals himself in many ways and places – but insist that this revelation can only be interpreted correctly, and known for what it really is, in the light of the definitive revelation of God in Christ. (There are important parallels here with the classic theological debate over natural and revealed knowledge of God.)

What, then, of those who have not heard the Christian gospel? What happens to them? Are not particularists denying salvation to those who have not heard of Christ – or who, having heard of him, choose to reject him? This criticism is frequently levelled at particularism by its critics. Thus John Hick, arguing from a pluralist perspective, suggests that the doctrine that salvation is only possible through Christ is inconsistent with belief in the universal saving will of God. That this is not in fact the case is easily demonstrated by considering the view of Karl Barth, easily the most sophisticated of twentieth-century defenders of this position.

Barth declares that salvation is only possible through Christ. He nevertheless insists on the ultimate eschatological victory of grace over unbelief – that is, at the end of history. Eventually, God’s grace will triumph completely and all will come to faith in Christ. This is the only way to salvation – but it is a way that, through the grace of God, is effective for all. For Barth, the particularity of God’s revelation through Christ is not contradicted by the universality of salvation.

More recent expositions of the particularist position are associated with Stephen C. Neill (1900–1984) and Lesslie Newbigin (1909–1998), both British writers who spent a substantial part of their working lives as Christian bishops in India. Neill saw no tension between the affirmation of the unique status of Christianity and having respect for, and interest in, other religions. Yet he was clear that Christianity, by its very nature, called the truth of other belief systems into question.

Christian faith claims for itself that it is the only form of faith for men; by its own claim to truth it casts the shadow of falsehood, or at least of imperfect truth, on every other system…. But we must not suppose that this claim to universal validity is something that can quietly be removed from the Gospel without changing it into something entirely different from what it is.

Neill concedes that, to non-Christians, this must sound like “crazy megalomania, and religious imperialism of the very worst kind.” Yet he believes that, while this aspect of the Christian faith is open to sensitive statement and application, it cannot be denied or diluted.

Lesslie Newbigin similarly affirms the uniqueness of the Christian faith and the missionary response that is required to its distinctive view of reality. One of Newbigin’s most important contributions to the exclusivist position lies in his defense of the particularity of the Christian faith. Newbigin strongly resists any attempt to suggest that Christianity is just one perspective on God or one way of seeing a greater reality. The pluralist alternative to traditional ways of thinking, he argues, is flawed.

The Inclusivist Approach

The inclusivist approach holds that Christianity creates theological space for other religions. Rather than seeing them as degradations or denials of the truth, they are to be seen as important milestones along the road to the Christian faith. These ideas can be seen developing in British India during the second half of the nineteenth century, as increasing numbers of British theologians became familiar with Hinduism at first hand. The “fulfillment hypothesis,” especially associated with J. N. Farquhar (1861–1929), saw other faiths as pointing toward their fulfillment in Christianity.

The groundwork for the “fulfillment” model of the relation of Christianity to other faiths was laid by the English theologian F. D. Maurice (1805–1872), whose Religions of the World and Their Relations to Christianity (1846) marked the beginning of the end of the missionary “defamation” of other religious traditions. Similar ideas were developed by B. F. Westcott (1825–1901), who spoke of “the progressive action of the Word” in the world’s religions and of a “Divine plan in the education of the world.”

These ideas began to be reflected in the Indian context. In a course of lectures given at Madras in 1876, the missionary writer and thinker T. E. Slater set out the guiding principle of the “fulfillment” model as follows:

Not to present Christianity as an antagonistic Religion among other Religions of the world, not as a voice sounding the knell of doom to non-Christian nations, but, in the firm persuasion that all are by nature Christians, to hold it up as that in which Hindus would find realized and satisfied the noblest and earliest ideas of their sages, and the truest sentiments and yearnings of their hearts.

These ideas gained increasing popularity in the 1890s, resonating with a shift in both cultural and theological mood. In an editorial of 1908, the Madras Christian College Magazine, citing some words of Jesus of Nazareth from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17): “I came not to destroy but fulfill.” This, the editorial declared, “is not a word to be limited in its application to Judaism. All that there is of truth and inspiration in other religions must find its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.”

The outbreak of the First World War brought such theological speculations to an end. Although such ideas were explored sporadically over the next decades, they never received the systematic exposition they required. The “fulfillment” approach to other religions was revived after the Second World War, particularly within Catholic theology. Jean Daniélou (1905–1974) argued that Christianity was to be seen as the fulfillment of human longings for salvation and acceptance. Daniélou, a noted patristic scholar, developed arguments found in writers such as Justin Martyr, arguing that pagan religions are to be seen as “divine pedagogy.”

For Daniélou, the Church “does not despise pagan teaching, but sets it free, fulfills it, and crowns it.” This has an important ecclesiological implication: that there are people who will be saved through Christ, who are not members of the visible church.

The domain of Christ and of the Church extends beyond the limits of the explicit revelation of Christ and of the visible expansion of the Church. In every age and in every land there have been men who believed in Christ without knowing Him and who have belonged invisibly to the visible Church.

The most significant advocate of this model in the twentieth century is the leading Jesuit writer Karl Rahner. In the fifth volume of his Theological Investigations, Rahner develops four theses, setting out the view, not merely that individual non-Christians may be saved, but that the non-Christian religious traditions in general may have access to the saving grace of God in Christ.

The first three of these theses need discussion in more detail. It will be clear that Rahner strongly affirms the principle that salvation may only be had through Christ, as he is interpreted by the Christian tradition. “Christianity understands itself as the absolute religion, intended for all people, which cannot recognize any other religion beside itself as of equal right.” Yet Rahner supplements this with an emphasis upon the universal saving will of God; God wishes that all shall be saved, even though not all know Christ: “Somehow all people must be able to be members of the church.”

For this reason, Rahner argues that saving grace must be available outside the bounds of the church – and hence in other religious traditions. He vigorously opposes those who adopt too neat solutions, insisting either that a religious tradition comes from God or that it is an inauthentic and purely human invention. Where Kraemer argues that non-Christian religious traditions were little more than self-justifying human constructions, Rahner argues that such traditions may well include elements of truth.

Rahner justifies this suggestion by considering the relation between the Old and New Testaments. Although the Old Testament, strictly speaking, represents the outlook of a non-Christian religion (Judaism), Christians are able to read it and discern within it elements that continue to be valid. The Old Testament is evaluated in the light of the New and, as a result, certain practices (such as food laws) are discarded as unacceptable, while others are retained (such as the moral law). The same approach can and should, Rahner argues, be adopted in the case of other religions.

The saving grace of God is thus available through non-Christian religious traditions, despite their shortcomings. Many of their adherents, Rahner argues, have thus accepted that grace, without being fully aware of what it is. It is for this reason that Rahner introduces the term “anonymous Christians,” to refer to those who have experienced divine grace without necessarily knowing it.

This term has been heavily criticized. For example, John Hick has suggested that it is paternalist, offering “honorary status granted unilaterally to people who have not expressed any desire for it.” Nevertheless, Rahner’s intention is to allow for the real effects of divine grace in the lives of those who belong to non-Christian traditions. Full access to truth about God (as it is understood within the Christian tradition) is not a necessary precondition for access to the saving grace of God.

Rahner does not allow that Christianity and other religious traditions may be treated as equal or that they are particular instances of a common encounter with God. For Rahner, Christianity and Christ have an exclusive status, denied to other religious traditions. The question is: can other religious traditions give access to the same saving grace as that offered by Christianity? Rahner’s approach allows him to suggest that the beliefs of non-Christian religious traditions are not necessarily true, while allowing that they may, nevertheless, mediate the grace of God by the lifestyles that they evoke – such as a selfless love of one’s neighbor.

In recent years, growing discontent with the shortcomings of the pluralist approach has led to the emergence of a variant inclusivist approach, sometimes referred to as “parallelism.” Irritated at pluralist attempts to shoehorn all the religions into the same basic pattern (to be considered presently), writers such as Joseph DiNoia and Mark Heim have insisted that the distinctive features of each religion must be respected. In his study The Diversity of Religions (1992), DiNoia pleads for religious diversity to be taken seriously and offers a critique of what he regards as the shortcomings of reductionist approaches. In his Salvations: Truth and Difference in Religion (1995), Heim critiques three major pluralistic thinkers in his book: John Hick, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, and Paul Knitter. He argues that all three create paradigms that arise from and are informed by the world of Western liberal thought. The outcome is inevitable: they end up forcing religions into a preconceived mold.

For Heim, it is essential to respect religions for what they are. Instead of arguing that all religions ultimately lead to Christian truth (the inclusivist position) or to some ultimate reality that transcends all religious traditions (the pluralist position), Heim insists that we must take each religion’s understanding of its beliefs and goals seriously. Christian beliefs and practices will lead to Christian goals – to the New Jerusalem. Muslims will attain a Muslim paradise on the basis of their beliefs and practices. Buddhist beliefs and practices will lead to Buddhist goals. And so on. Instead of forcing all religions to end up at the same place, Heim insists that we respect their own visions of what they believe, and what they are seeking to achieve.

Heim’s position is itself a form of religious particularism. Writing from a Christian perspective, Heim insists that everyone must recognize both the actuality and the possible value of other religious particularisms, without trying to subsume them all into some grand religiously neutral theory. Heim argues that pluralism is actually crypto-inclusivist, in that it claims to believe in many goals but actually believes in only one – namely, “reality-centeredness” in the case of John Hick, liberation from social oppression for Paul Knitter, and universal faith and rationality for Wilfred Cantwell Smith.

The parallelist way of thinking allows for the possibility that different religions may be deeply and genuinely different, offering their adherents competing goals that, however good each may be, are profoundly incompatible. That is why the title of Heim’s book is so significant: Salvations – in the plural. Against the pluralist insistence that all religions ultimately lead to the same salvation, Heim argues that we must acknowledge and respect each religion’s own distinctive understanding of what salvation actually is. “Christians can consistently recognize that some traditions encompass religious ends which are real states of human transformation, distinct from that Christians seek.” Christian theology should therefore consistently recognize that there are (or can be) many different religious goals and hence many different salvations.

This position raises a number of questions. Its fundamental approach could be described as a “plurality of absolutes.” All religions are to be recognized as being completely right in their own terms. But how can this be? Can all be right? Heim’s argument, in effect, is that these claims are justified, epistemically speaking, even if they may be mistaken. This conclusion reflects a postmodern reaction against the modernist insistence on a single standard of justification for beliefs. The religions develop their own standards of determining what justifies a belief and their beliefs are justified by their own standards. It is an argument that is not without its problems. However, it certainly moves us away from the modernist assumptions that underlie pluralism. It remains to be seen how this new approach will be evaluated in the coming years.

Pinnock and other inclusivists clearly believe that the difficulties encountered with the “particularist” or “exclusivist” model for understanding the relation of Christianity to other religions can be dealt with using the “inclusivist” approach. Others disagree; while recognizing the force of the difficulties with the “particularist” paradigm, they believe that these are more effectively addressed through a “pluralist” approach, to which we now turn.

The Pluralist Approach

The most significant exponent of a pluralist approach to religious traditions is John Hick (1922–2012). In his God and the Universe of Faiths (1973), Hick argues for a need to move away from a Christ-centered to a God-centered approach. Describing this change as a “Copernican Revolution,” Hick declared that it was necessary to move away from “the dogma that Christianity is at the centre to the realization that it is God who is at the centre, and that all religions … including our own, serve and revolve around him.”

Developing this approach, Hick suggests that the characteristic of God’s nature, which is of central importance to the question of other faiths, is his universal saving will. If God wishes everyone to be saved, it is inconceivable that he should reveal himself in such a way that only a small portion of humanity could be saved. In fact, as we have seen, this is not a necessary feature of either particularist or inclusivist approaches. However, Hick draws the conclusion that it is necessary to recognize that all religions lead to the same God. Christians have no special access to God, who is universally available through all religious traditions.

This suggestion is not without its problems. For example, it is fairly clear that the religious traditions of the world are radically different in their beliefs and practices. Hick deals with this point by suggesting that such differences must be interpreted in terms of a “both–and” rather than an “either–or.” They should be understood as complementary, rather than contradictory, insights into the one divine reality. This reality lies at the heart of all the religions, yet “their differing experiences of that reality, interacting over the centuries with the different thought-forms of different cultures, have led to increasing differentiation and contrasting elaboration.” (This idea is very similar to the “universal rational religion of nature” propounded by Deist writers, which became corrupted through time.) Equally, Hick has difficulties with those non-theistic religious traditions, such as Advaitin Hinduism or Theravada Buddhism, which have no place for a god.

The observed features of the world’s religious traditions thus make it difficult to accept that they are all speaking of the same God. However, a more fundamental theological worry remains: is Hick actually talking about the Christian God at all? A central Christian conviction – that God reveals himself definitively in Jesus Christ – has to be set to one side to allow Hick to proceed. Hick argues that he is merely adopting a theocentric rather than a Christocentric approach. Yet the Christian insistence that God is known normatively through Christ implies that an authentically Christian knowledge of God is derived only through Christ.

For a number of critics, Hick’s desertion of Christ as a reference point means abandoning any claim to speak from a Christian perspective. For example, the Catholic theologian Gavin D’Costa (born 1958) has been one of the most perceptive and persistent critics of John’s Hick’s “pluralist” approach to other religions. D’Costa raises fundamental questions about whether the traditional three-fold typology of approaches to other religions – exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist – is defensible. In this important critique of John Hick’s approach, D’Costa argues that pluralism is actually just another form of exclusivism. Pluralism must always “logically be a form of exclusivism,” in that philosophical pluralism “in fact involves specific and exclusive truth claims with specific and exclusive criteria for truth.”

The debate over the Christian understanding of the relation of Christianity to other religious traditions is likely to continue for some considerable time, fueled by the rise of multiculturalism in western society, on the one hand, and increased emphasis on missionary work, on the other. The three broad viewpoints outlined above are likely to continue to be reflected in Christian writing on the matter for some time to come.

Case Study 4.9 Postcolonial Theology: Indigenous African Christologies

Postcolonial theology can be explored at two different levels: first, at the level of postcolonial theory and second, in terms of the development of new forms of theology in former colonies of European powers in Africa or Asia. Postcolonial theology is about allowing the voices of those who were on the margins of the churches or the academy to be heard properly and taken seriously, particularly as they try to find their own distinctive voice, rather than echo those of former colonial powers. The sense of cultural superiority and cultural subjugation that is often associated with the British imperial legacy in Asia and Africa is of particular interest. Local voices in these regions were treated with condescension, as lacking intellectual seriousness and theological weight.

Theoretically, postcolonial theology has drawn on the work of Edward Said, particularly his influential study Orientalism (1978), which explores how the “Orient” was represented in Western literature. For Said, western representations of the “Orient” tell us a lot more about the power of the Western imagination than the many cultures of Asia. One of Said’s more significant observations is that western writers tend to construct rather that observe cultures, creating their own imagined versions of Africa and Asia, rather than being attentive to these social realities themselves.

Postcolonial theology thus sets out to reframe the status and significance of Western Christianity, challenging any claims it might make to be an authoritative interpretation or normative statement of authentic Christian theology. It is argued that western theology is deeply influenced by its particular cultural framework, being one among many ways of enacting Christianity, which happened to dominate for historical reasons. It is thus only one of the many forms of Christianity that emerged in this specific context, shaped by a variety of historical forces and processes. Western Christianity does not have some privileged position in theological debate, but is rather to be seen as one possible form of Christian theology. Other theological voices need to be heard and respected – especially those from Africa and Asia, which were marginalized or ignored by western theologians. It is an important point. In her Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology (2015), Kwok Pui-Lan argues that feminist theology needs to engage more deeply with the reality of colonial legacies and cultural framing, rather than focus on issues in western culture.

Yet our concern in this case study is to look at some specific forms of postcolonial theology, rather than focus on the theoretical aspects of postcolonialism. Now that these alternative theological voices are being respected and taken seriously, what are they saying? What theological approaches are they adopting? In what follows, we shall look at a number of postcolonial African theological voices and themes.

It will be helpful to set the historical context for these voices. During the nineteenth century, Catholic and Protestant missionaries established churches throughout southern Africa. These were generally African implementations of European models, with little more than cosmetic adaptations to the local culture. Catholicism became the dominant form of Christianity in French and Belgian colonies, as did Anglicanism in British colonies. Many in twentieth-century Africa came to regard Christianity as a colonial religion, imposed on native populations by European invaders, such as Britain and France.

It was widely believed that, when the Europeans finally relinquished control of their former colonies, Christianity would be abandoned as part of the colonial past, so that there would be widespread reversion to the traditional religions of the region. In fact, the ending of the colonial era during the 1960s actually removed western constraints that had until then prevented the emergence of more culturally adapted forms of Christianity. African churches developed theologies, ministries, and styles of worship that were adapted to their contexts, rather than being imitations of those found in Europe.

With the gradual disengagement of the colonial powers in the decades following the Second World War, African Christianity underwent significant changes. First, leadership within the churches gradually devolved from Europeans to Africans, resulting in a growing adaptation of the colonial churches to local customs and traditions. Yet alongside this development, many indigenous churches (often referred to as “African Initiated Churches”) began to emerge, without any historical connection with European denominations. African Initiated Churches often criticise traditional local religions, on the one hand, while developing practices that can be seen as Christian “alternatives,” which are embedded in local communities.

One of the most important developments since the 1970s has been the emergence of indigenous African Christian theologians, such as the Kenyan John Mbiti (1931–2019) and the Ghanaian Kwame Bediako (1945–2008), who were concerned to develop authentically African theological paradigms rather than capitulate to western theological norms. For example, western theologians have often been dismissive of critical traditional African views, such as the importance attached to ancestors. African Christians refuse to adopt such dismissive attitudes and argue for the need to take such views seriously, exploiting their apologetic potential and Christianizing them from within. One of the most important issues here is that of biblical interpretation. Zablon Nthamburi and Douglass Waruta have pointed out that, “unless an African is enabled to understand Scripture in his or her own cultural patterns, the Scripture will not only lose its validity, but its authoritative relevance as well.” This comment extends to Christology. How can the identity and significance of Christ be expressed using the cultural patterns of sub-Saharan Africa?

One of the most important themes in traditional African religion is the “cult of the ancestors,” based on the belief that one’s ancestors are an essential link in a hierarchical chain of powers stretching from this world to the spirit world. Deceased ancestors are integral to the traditional African social structure. Many indigenous African churches recognize the ministry of prophets who play a role similar to that of the mganga (Swahili: “doctors” or “healers”) in the “cult of the ancestors.” The Tanzanian theologian Charles Nyamiti (1931–2020) developed this Christological approach in his influential work Christ as Our Ancestor (1984). Nyamiti and other African theologians argued that Christ should be recognized and referred to as “our Ancestor par excellence” or our “Proto-Ancestor” due to his mediatory role on behalf of humanity to the Father.

In Christ as our Ancestor, Nyamiti argued that Christ’s family tree may be traced back to Adam, thus allowing his role as “Brother-Ancestor” to be grounded in the Christian belief of the common origin of all humanity. For Nyamiti, thinking of Christ as an ancestor engages and builds upon a number of core themes of traditional African thought, such as:

It is not difficult to see a possible link between the intercessory and mediatorial role of ancestors in African culture and the practice of appealing to saints for intercession within the Catholic tradition.

The Sierra Leonean Edward Fasholé-Luke (born 1934) develops an Ancestor Christology that is rooted in the Christian idea of the communion of saints. This acts as a theological foundation that allows the African cultural ideal of ancestorship to be included within a Christian view of reality. The Zairean theologian François Kabasélé Lumbala (born 1947) also locates his Ancestor Christology within a theological framework, arguing that Christ’s role as mediator can be incorporated within an “Ancestor” framework, which identifies his unique significance as the synthesis of all mediations. The American theologian Charles A. Wanamaker (born 1949), based in South Africa, developed an Ancestor Christology by noting the importance of Christ’s family lineage and offering an “ancestral” reading of the story of Christ that focusses on his place in a family history.

An important theme in many indigenous “Ancestor Christologies” is the role of Christ in bridging the physical and the spiritual realms through his resurrection. In his study “Christ as Ancestor and Elder Brother,” François Kabasélé argues that Christ can be considered as an “ancestor” because his death relocated him from the physical realm to the spiritual realm. Christ lived as a mortal being and experienced death – and by doing so, meets the essential condition of being an ancestor. Yet Christ’s resurrection gave him a unique role as mediator between God and humanity. The New Testament’s emphasis on the death and resurrection of Christ is thus interpreted within indigenous African categories, leading to an understanding of the identity and the significant that resonates with this world of thought.

Yet other approaches to Christology have emerged in an African context that are less embedded in the continent’s cultural norms. Many of the themes of Latin American liberation theology (see pp. 222–3) can be found in African reflections on Christology. Yet while the theme of “liberation” may be universal, it takes different forms in different locations. The South African situation during the period of apartheid is an excellent example of a context that gave rise to an emphasis on Christ as liberator. The black South African theologian Takatso Mafokeng (born 1942), for example, argued that Christ was the answer to the South African quest and hunger for freedom and complete emancipation from the shackles of apartheid.

Postcolonial theological reflections in Africa weave together a number of themes, including the need to liberate an indigenous people from alien worldviews imposed upon them (rather than chosen by them) and the importance of reconnecting with (without being imprisoned within) traditional modes of thought. Christianity remains an important presence in sub-Saharan Africa; yet it has now found its own voice and ways of expressing its ideas and lifestyles.

Case Study 4.10 Suffering: Theodicy in a Darwinian World

The term “theodicy” came into use during the early modern period to refer to attempts to defend the rationality of religious belief in God in the face of the problems of evil and suffering. In earlier theological generations, neither evil nor suffering were seen as reasons to doubt the existence of God; they were generally seen as inevitable. If anything, belief in God was seen as important in helping religious believers to cope with periods of suffering or distress, often through meditating on images of the crucified Christ. The rise of rationalism in western Europe, however, changed this perception. Many educated people came to think that the experience of evil or suffering was itself a ground for disbelief. The Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of 1755 was seen as challenging the belief, developed by the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, that this was the best of all possible worlds.

In what follows, we shall look at some approaches to theodicy within the Christian tradition, before going on to consider a new twist given to the question by certain aspects of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, which are widely discussed today.

Irenaeus of Lyons (c.130–c.200)

In the second century, Irenaeus developed an approach to the problem of evil that regards human nature as a potentiality, rather than a fully developed actuality. Human beings are created with certain capacities for growth toward maturity and perfection. They are called to achieve perfection, rather than being perfect already. This process of growth and development requires contact with, and experience of, good and evil if truly informed decisions are to be made. If we are to be good, we need to know its opposite. This tradition tends to view the world as a “vale of soul-making” (to use a term taken from the English poet John Keats, 1795–1821), in which an encounter with evil is seen as a necessary prerequisite for spiritual growth and development.

Irenaeus’s approach was developed further by the British philosopher of religion John Hick (1922–2012), who is widely regarded as the most influential and persuasive exponent of such an approach. In his influential book Evil and the God of Love (1966), Hick emphasized that human beings are created incomplete. In order for them to become what God intends them to be, they must participate in the world. God did not create human beings as automatons, but as individuals who are capable of responding freely to God. Unless a real choice is available between good and evil, the biblical injunctions to “choose good” are meaningless. Good and evil are thus necessary presences within the world, in order that informed and meaningful human development may take place.

Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

During the fifth century, Augustine of Hippo developed an approach to theodicy that had a major impact upon the western theological tradition. By the fourth century, the problems raised by the existence of evil and suffering had become significant, due to the rise of Gnosticism. Gnosticism offered a simple explanation of the existence of evil. It arose from the fundamentally evil nature of matter, which was the result of the inadequacy of the creator God. A “demiurge” had created the world, in its present form, out of pre-existent matter. The entire purpose of salvation was to redeem humanity from the evil material world and transfer it to a spiritual realm that was uncontaminated by matter. The redeemer god was thus regarded as being quite distinct from the creator demigod.

Augustine, however, could not accept this approach. It might offer a neat solution to the problem of evil, yet the intellectual price paid was far too high. For Augustine, creation and redemption were the work of one and the same God. It was therefore impossible to ascribe the existence of evil to creation, for this merely transferred blame to God. For Augustine, God created the world good, meaning that it was free from the contamination of evil. So where does evil come from? Augustine’s fundamental insight here is that evil is a direct consequence of the misuse of human freedom. God created humanity with the freedom to choose good or evil. Sadly, humanity chose evil; as a result, the world is contaminated by evil.

Evolution and Evil

Yet many argue that Darwin’s theory of natural selection, set out in his Origin of Species (1859), highlighted the problem of the wastefulness of the evolutionary process and the suffering that it presupposed. Darwin’s letter to Asa Gray of May 1860 makes this point with considerable force:

I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the [Ichneumon wasp] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that the cat should play with mice.

Darwin’s model of evolution envisages the emergence of the animal kingdom as taking place over a vastly extended period of time, involving suffering and apparent wastage that go far beyond the concerns of traditional approaches to theodicy. As Bethany Sollereder points out in a series of recent important interventions, human beings were not in any way involved in such suffering, in that the gratuitous suffering we observe in the natural world precedes human existence by hundreds of millions of years.

It is important to avoid framing such discussions in terms of “natural evil.” The judgment that any natural process is “evil” is problematic, from an evolutionary point of view. Such a moral evaluation is not based on natural criteria, but on the imposition of a human moral framework. Earthquakes and tsunamis arise from the earth’s moving tectonic plates. Yet the movement of plate tectonics allows constant change at the earth’s surface. There is a growing body of scientific research that suggests that this process of geological change and renewal is necessary for life to exist.

Earth is unique among the planets of our solar system in that its outer surface consists of several rigid plates. These plates move – sometimes toward each other, sometimes away from each other, and sometimes alongside each other. The contrast with the planet Mars is interesting. Mars has no plate tectonic activity because it does not have an outer surface divided into plates, like the earth. There is, as far as we know, no life on Mars.

We may consider that the shifting of a tectonic plate is “evil,” in the light of our perception of its implications for earthquakes and tsunamis. Yet the shifting of tectonic plates is just natural. The additional judgment that it is, or leads to, evil cannot be defended from a scientific perspective. It is only because we observe nature through a particular moral lens that we can speak of natural suffering being “evil.” It is, however, perfectly proper to ask why suffering and pain seem to be an inbuilt aspect of the natural world and reflect on their religious significance.

The English theologian William Paley (1743–1805), noted for his advocation of natural theology (see pp. 276–7) was aware of the existence of suffering and pain in nature and believed that their existence could be satisfactorily accommodated within the notion of the divine “contrivance” of the world. Pain within the natural world might be held to represent “a defect in the contrivance: but it is not the object of it.” Creation is thus held to reflect God’s benevolent purposes, even where these are imperfectly executed.

Christopher Southgate

One of the most important recent discussions of the problem of suffering in evolutionary perspectives is due to the British theologian Christopher Southgate (born 1953). In his work The Groaning of Creation (2008), Southgate offered a theologically rigorous engagement with the problem of suffering in evolution. Rightly recognizing the severe limitations of non-Trinitarian approaches to the question, such as process thought, Southgate develops an approach based on the Pauline motif of the “groaning of creation” (Romans 8).

Southgate’s concern to remain faithful to core themes of the Christian tradition also leads him to reject the approach of the French Jesuit theologian and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), who held that God used “evolutionary centration” to bring about a convergence upon a glorious, God-centered final culmination of evolution. For Southgate, the biblical theme of “the mighty redeeming act of God inaugurated in the Cross of Christ” seems to offer a much more theologically secure foundation for such reflections.

The problem of evolutionary suffering is thus seen through a theological lens shaped by some of the leading themes of a Trinitarian theology – such as the notion of creation ex nihilo and the final consummation, yet specifically excluding the notion of an historical fall, as traditionally interpreted. His approach weaves together the following five themes.

Southgate’s approach is rich in insights – such as the dialectic between disvalue and value within the evolutionary process, which sets the disvalue of the suffering of individual animals, on the one hand, against the value of the survival of their species that this suffering helps to make possible, on the other. It is a point made earlier by the environmental ethicist Holmes Rolston III (born 1932), who argues that processes that are intrinsic to the evolutionary process can indeed give rise to pain and suffering, but can also be instrumental in enhancing values, by giving rise to new forms of existence. Rolston expresses this general point using an often-quoted aphorism: “The cougar’s fang sharpens the deer’s sight, the deer’s fleet-footedness shapes a more supple lioness.”

Similar points are made by the Canadian theologian Bethany Sollereder, who argues that God’s intention is not evil or suffering, but rather to make possible new and better forms of existence within the evolutionary process. Picking up on Darwin’s concerns about the Ichneumon wasp, she offers an alternative theological reading of this observation.

God did not design the parasitic Ichneumon wasp to lay eggs within a living host, but God’s love created an open field of possibilities in which the Ichneumon would have the freedom to develop that survival technique as it pursued its desires.

In general, three distinct themes have emerged as characteristic of recent Christian reflections on the apologetic concerns arising from evolutionary suffering, whether woven together into a coherent tapestry or asserted individually as significant in their own right.

The three glories form … a tryptych with an eschatological perspective, the creation as it will be in its transformed state. Gloria mundi, what the not-yet-completely redeemed world discloses of its creator, must be appropriated and understood in the context of Gloria crucis, of all we see of God in the Passion of Christ – and this in turn opens up and is informed by what one might term Gloria in excelsis, the eschatological song of the new creation, in which creaturely flourishing will be attained without creaturely struggle.

Finally, it is important to note some recent criticisms of theodicy, which have seen this as a rationalist attempt, originating within the culture of the Enlightenment, that treats evil as an abstract idea, rather than being attentive to the practical realities of evil, suffering, and pain. In his Raging with Compassion (2007), the pastoral theologian John Swinton argues that man theodicies are pastorally unhelpful precisely because they are constructed “in abstraction from the life experiences of those who experience the problem of evil primarily as a practical problem that profoundly impacts their lives, the lives of their families, and their communities rather than a theoretical dilemma.” Swinton’s point is that these “rational” theodicies seem to aim at establishing some kind of “logical coherence within a theistic framework,” rather than addressing the practical aspects of suffering, or developing practices – such as lament – that help people cope with suffering.

Swinton reminds us that the problem of evil was not of great concern to the theologians or bishops of the early church, raising the question of whether theodicy is an outcome of a specific cultural concern – such as the rise of rationalism in western Europe during the modern era. He also notes how some theodicies are pastorally damaging, in that the problem of “undeserved suffering” appears to imply that it is reasonable to believe that some people deserve to suffer. Much more will clearly be written on these themes!

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