Bogoslovska smotra, Vol. 72 No. 1, 2002.
Original scientific paper
Elements of a Christian Theology of Pluralism Religious Traditions in the Latest Writings of Jacques Dupuis
Nikola Bižaca
orcid.org/0000-0001-9412-508X
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Split, Split, Croatia
Abstract
J. Dupuis is one of the most active and the most renowned catholic participants in the efforts of contemporary theology to recognize the place and role of religions in God's plan of redemtion as well as the actual implications of that fact. But, his recent theological ideas have encountered certain reservations with a part of theological publicity, especially with the church teaching, which indirectly raises objections to insufficiently clear detachment from the theses of pluralistic theology of religions. The aim of this study is to show if, and to which extent, the mainstream elements of Dupuis' theological and religious model abandon the sphere of Christocentric inclusive model.
Therefore, the first part of the study deals with the fundamental views of an inclusive and then also a pluralistic model, defining the scope within which our interpretation of Dupuis' ideas moves. The second part singles out, from the author's rather unsystematic text, his most important ideas, articulating them into several, for Dupuis' theological model charasteristic, thematic groups. Critical observations and opinions, which are in the last part of the study, suggest several basic conclusions: 1. that the subject is about an approach to religions which has revealed, in a unique way, to what extent the issue of theological status of the fact of religious pluralism is crucial for self-perception of Christianity as such; 2. that Dupuis' models needs to be deepened since it, besides sporadic lack of discipline in terminology, indicates a certain incompleteness in some solutions, not always consequently predicting possible implications of some ideas, as it is, for example, the idea about the performance of »unincarnate Logos« among people after resurrection too; or the idea about »reciprocal complementarity« of religions and Christianity, etc.; 3. that, even in his recent publications, the author has neither changed anything or improved his approach to religious pluralism; 4. that Dupuis' theological and intellectual organization of religious pluralism, viewed as a whole, represents in fact a test of the ultimate breaking point of traditional Christocentric inclusivism, which, in spite of all its problematic points, remains, in principle and substantially, within the limits of Christocentrism.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
29013
URI
Publication date:
15.1.2003.
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