The Soteriology of Jacques Dupuis
Soteriology is the study of how Jesus saves us. This is our study of the soteriology of an influential Jesuit theologian from Belgium named Jacques Dupuis.
INTRODUCTION
Rev. Jacques Dupuis, S.J. (1923-2004) was a Jesuit priest from Belgium. He worked long years in the mission fields of India.
Later he served as consultor to the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue as well as consultor to the Commission on Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches.
He was a professor of theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
This study is based on his book, Jesus Christ at the Encounter of World Religions.
In this book, Dupuis attempts to construct a Christian theology of World Religions. He does not seek to construct a phenomenology of religions, nor a philosophy of religions. His is not a pursuit of the history of religions. Rather, he begins in faith and ends in faith.
The concern Dupuis took up was this: given that it is possible for non-Christian people to be saved, and given that all salvation is from Jesus Christ, how is Christic salvation mediated to them?
For example:
- How do non-Christians receive Christic salvation?
- What role, if any, is played by the non-Christian religious tradition to which they belong?
- If non-Christians are to have Christic salvation, is it mediated through their non-Christian religious tradition? If so, how is that possible?
- Do other religions lend a certain visibility and social nature to the saving power of Christ? Are they signs, however incomplete and imperfect, of his saving activity?
In this study, I am not venturing my own viewpoints into these questions. Rather, I am endeavoring to ascertain how Dupuis himself would answer these questions. To do that, I must accept as givens his Catholic theology and worldview.
While Dupuis does mention, in passing, the idea of the salvation of Jewish people and Muslims, his real focus is on Hindus and Buddhists.
This is a reflection of his firsthand encounters with Hindus and Buddhists in India, and hence, his areas of interest and expertise.
The questions taken up by Dupuis are of personal relevance for me. During my own Adventures in Faith:
- I spent years of my life in Japan and India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
- I visited a Buddhist shelter, Shinto Shrines, and Hindu Temples.
- I conversed with Islamic street preachers in England.
- While a guest in homes, I have observed people engage in Confucian ancestor worship at their family shrine.
- I have been blessed with a number of friends from other religions. Some were Buddhists. Some were Hindu and still others were Muslim. I have labored alongside some of them in undertakings of justice.
Of great personal interest to me for many years has been the question of the possibility of their salvation outside of any explicit knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Equally of significance for has been the precise means by which that salvation is mediated to them. I have been reading works on these topics for many years.
This book by Dupuis is the most exhaustive I’ve encountered thus far.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part 1. Salvation without the gospel?
Part 2. Current Theologies of World Religions
Part 3. Christocentric Inclusivism
Part 5. Dupuis’ theological system
Part 6. Four Soteriological Questions
Part 7. Strengths and Weaknesses
PART 1. SALVATION WITHOUT THE GOSPEL?
Jacques Dupuis uses the phrase: “Salvation without the gospel” to mean “Christic salvation for an individual non-Christian prior to hearing the kerygma.
Within Catholic circles, this question seems pretty well answered.
From janitors to bishops, nearly all Catholics I’ve met have been unanimous in affirming that eternal salvation is at least possible for non-Christians.
Sufifice it to say that the barest of treatment is necessary.
A principal document of the Second Vatican Council called Lumen Gentium says God’s plan of salvation still includes the Jews. Muslims are included, as are those who seek the unknown God as well as those who, through no fault of their own, have not yet know Christ’s gospel nor his Church but simply seek God with a sincere heart and try to live in accord with what they understand to be right. See Lumen Gentium, beginning at paragraph 15.
Those points are echoed in Nostra Aetate. The Coucil Fathers strongly affirm that which is good in non-Christian religions:
The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men.
That said, Nostra Aetate adds a missionary urgency to the situation for Christians. Even though non—Christian religions often reflect a ray of that truth who is Jesus Christ, yet Christians:
ever must proclaim Christ “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.
See Nostra Aetate, paragraph 2.
There are many other texts that can be cited here. Rather than go into them in depth, I will provide the following timeline:
- In 1964, the Second Vatican Council said that non-Christian people can be related to the People of God in many ways. Lumen Gentium, beginning at paragraph 16.
- In 1964, pope Paul VI cites an increasing awareness of the Holy Spirit’s activity beyond the Church. See Ecclesiam Suam.
- In 1965, the Second Vatican Council said that in ways known only to him, God can lead non-Christians to faith. See paragraph 7 of Ad Gentes Divinitus.)
- In 1965, the Second Vatican Council said that the Holy Spirit is offered to all men of good will in whose hearts grace is active invisibly. See paragraph 22 of Gaudium et Spes.
- In 1965, the Second Vatican Council said that non-Christian religions often reflect a ray of Christ’s truth. See paragraph 2 of Nostra Aetate.
- In 1975, pope Paul VI said the Church exists in order to evangelize. Evangelism is an explicit message. See paragraph 14 of Evangelii Nuntiandi.
- In 1979, pope John Paul II said various religions are seeds of the Word leading to the single goal. See paragraph 14 of Redemptoris Hominis.
- In 1990, pope John Paul II said “To introduce any sort of separation between the Word and Jesus Christ is contrary to the Christian faith.”. See paragraph 6 of Redemptoris Missio.
- In 1994, the Catholic church said all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the church. See paragraph 846 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
- In 1994, in paragraph 847 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Catholic church said:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience – these too many obtain eternal salvation.
PART 2. CURRENT THEOLOGIES OF WORLD RELIGIONS
Current Christian theologies of world religions can be roughly categorized into three types. They are as follows:
- Ecclesiocentric Exclusivism
- Christocentric Inclusivism
- Theocentric Pluralism
First Type. Ecclesiocentric Exclusivism
The only people who are saved are those who profess Christ, and probably within a church.
The gods of all non-Christians are idols.
With qualifications, church membership is necessary for salvation. This position has been rejected by the magisterium.
Second Type. Christocentric Inclusivism
This is the majority position. It was most famously advocated by Karl Rahner.
Third Type. Theocentric Pluralism
This calls for a Copernican revolution in Christology.
Christianity needs to renounce its unique claim that Jesus Christ is in any way a universally constitutive element of salvation.
Analysis
In all three models, we can see that “the Christological problem” constitutes the epicenter of the debate.
Dupuis concludes by saying that only the second type, Christocentric Inclusivism, is able to hold the positive tenents of both exclusivism and inclusivism at once.
PART 3. CHRISTOCENTRIC INCLUSIVISM
There are two main types of Christocentric Inclusivism:
- The Fulfillment Theory
- The Theory of the Presence of Christ in other religions
In order to arrive at Dupuis’ theory, we need to briefly examine these two theories.
Theory 1. The Fulfillment Theory
The Fulfillment Theory holds that the various religions represent our innate human desires for union with God.
Jesus Christ is the divine fulfillment of those human longings.
There is an ordering to Jesus Christ which can only be fulfilled by the proclamation of the Gospel.
The mystery of Jesus Christ is capable of reaching the members of other religions, but the religious tradition to which they belong plays no part in that salvation whatsoever.
This is because if the other traditions were to play a positive role in the salvation of their members, it would, in effect, set up parallel routes to salvation and thereby destroy the unity of the divine plan.
Dupuis responded to that by saying that the unity of the divine plan does in fact require one point of convergence, but that point of convergence is not Christianity itself nor the Church, but rather Jesus Christ himself, who alone is “the Alpha and the Omega” (see Revelation 1:8).
This sort of theory is found in Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Paul VI in his encyclical Evangelii Nuntinadi, and others.
Theory 2. The Presence of Christ in other Religions
This theory holds that humanity’s various religious traditions represent various divine interventions in salvation history.
These divine interventions are indeed ordered toward the decisive salvific event in Jesus Christ and, for their adherents, maintain a positive salvific value even today by virtue of the presence of Christ Jesus operative in them and through them.
Thus the members of these other traditions are saved by Christ, not in spite of their religious practices, but through them.
There is indeed no salvation without the gospel, but that salvation is mediated to the adherents of other religions precisely through those religions.
Until they are summoned by the gospel of the one “New Covenant,” they continue to live under the aegis of their own particular “Old Covenant.”
This sort of theory is found in Raimon Panikkar, Karl Rahner, and others.
This is where Dupuis makes his biggest move. Without defending his choice, he simply says that this is the theory he holds.
He does acknowledge that the Fulfillment Theory would be a viable alternative.
The array of current Christian theologies of World Religions is rather large.
Here is my chart of the current Christian theologies of World Religions:
1. Ecclesiocentric Exclusivism
2. Christocentric Inclusivism
- Fulfillment Theory
- The Theory of the Presence of Christ in other religions « Jacques Dupuis
3. Theocentric Pluralism
PART 4. A SYSTEMATIC LOOK
A good systematic theologian, Dupuis stakes out the claims of his theology of world religions using the categories of systematic theology:
- Anthropology
- Christology
- Ecclesiology
Category 1. Christian Anthropology
First, as embodied souls, we have no religious life without religious practice; no faith without reason.
Second, as social beings, we grow as a member of a community. Therefore, if members of other religions have an authentic experience of God, their religion must contain supernatural, grace-filled elements.
Category 2. Christology
Christologically, all salvation transpires through Jesus Christ. He is the primordial sacrament, unique and necessary for an encounter with God.
Christians consciously encounter Christ in the human face of Jesus, whereas others encounter unconsciously and can attain salvation through that encounter.
Dupuis does in fact use the term “unconsciously” to describe how that encounter takes place. I find it puzzling to discern how somebody could have a faith-response to an unconscious encounter.
Nonetheless, they must have that encounter to be saved, since Christ is God in a personal relationship with human beings.
If they have unconsciously discovered a personal relationship with God, it is Christ that they have encountered.
The risk here is that Dupuis might appear to be introducing a separation between the “Jesus of History” and “the Christ of Faith.”
Salvation always involves an encounter with the mystery of Christ. As long as the Jesus of history has not yet been revealed to an individual person, that person is not able to recognize Christ in his humanity.
An implicit experience of the Christic mystery is one thing; its explicit discovery in Jesus of Nazareth is something else.
The former, Dupuis says, is a necessary condition of salvation, whereas the latter is the privilege of Christians.
Jesus Christ, as God personally turned toward humans, is the mystery of salvation whose active presence is universal.
Thus it is important to refer the question of the salvation of adherents of other religions first of all to the mystery of Christ, and not to the mystery of the Church.
The question boils down to this: how do other religious traditions contain, however imperfectly, the Christic mystery, of which the Church is the eminent manifestation.
Category 3. Ecclesiology
From an ecclesiological perspective, the Church is the community that proclaims and sacramentally represents themystery of Christ, the efficacious sign in which the Christic mystery is contained, the sign in which it subsists, as Lumen Gentium, says in paragraph 8
Within it is contained the entire fullness of the means of salvation. It is the universal sacrament of salvation.
This does not mean, however, that other, less perfect signs do not exist for others, or that for others a partial mediation of that same mystery is not operative through their own religious traditions.
Other religions, as oriented toward the Church, can constitute imperfect means of the same salvation.
While the mystery of Christ attains its total visibility within the Church, it can still find a lesser expression in the life of other religious traditions.
While it would seem that Christians would be placed at a salvific advantage over others, Dupuis points out that salvation depends on the intensity with which we respond in our concrete situation to the Christic mystery of salvation present to us.
Membership in the Church, therefore, places a great responsibility on Christians to render credible testimony to the salvific mystery they have personally encountered in Christ Jesus.
PART 5. DUPUIS’ THEOLOGICAL SYSTEM
For Jacques Dupuis, Jesus Christ is God in a personal relationship with human beings.
Every authentic experience of God is an encounter of God in Jesus Christ. Conversely, the Second Vatican Council saw the Holy Spirit, rather than Christ Jesus, in this role.
Salvation consists precisely in this personal communication of God to the individual, a communication whose concrete realization is Jesus Christ and whose sign is the humanity of Jesus.
God’s condescension to us is at the center of the mystery of Christ. This condescension is pre-eminently clear in the proclamation of the gospel by the Church and in the sacraments.
Do other religions contain and signify, in some Way, the presence of God to human beings in Jesus Christ?
Dupuis says it seems necessary to admit this, since it is those very religious practices themselves that give expression to their experience of which is implicitly (not explicitly) through Jesus Christ.
Thus the religious conclusions of others are for them a way and a means of salvation
In what sense do the other religions mediate for their members the presence of the Christic mystery?
It will be inferior to the mediation at work within the Church. It will not be on an equal footing with the Church’s mediation, nor would we say it is simply a matter of degree.
Yet they must be credited with a certain mediation of grace.
The difference is that in the Church, Christ is present to the adherents overtly and explicitly, by virtue of its perfect mediation.
In other religions, Christ is present covertly and implicitly, by virtue of imperfect mediation.
The novelty of Christianity cannot be reduced to nothing but the simple awareness of a salvation mystery that would itself be present elsewhere in the same manner.
The essential difference between other religions and Christianity is the way in which the mystery of Christ is mediated.
Other scriptures may contain profound intuitions of the mystery of God’s personal gift to women and men, yet they remain incomplete and ambiguous.
It is one thing to listen to the words of a sage who has implicitly experienced Christ in his heart; it is another to listen to the decisive Word of God speaking directly to us in Jesus Christ.
Only the sacraments of the Church carry a guarantee that the mystery of Christ will be directly and infallibly encountered.
Dupuis said that ultimately, truth is not an object to be possessed, but a person by whom we allow ourselves to be possessed.
PART 6. FOUR SOTERIOLOGICAL QUESTIONS
Now that the stage has been carefully set, I will tackle the main purpose of this paper: to analyze Dupuis’ theology of world religions using four key soteriological questions:
- Why is a Savior needed?
- What constitutes “salvation”?
- How does Christ save?
- What is the role of God in the drama of
salvation?
There are two issues I need to explain in regard to these four questions.
First, Dupuis did not provide specific answers to these specific questions in his texts. Thus, in answering these questions, I will need to synthesize answers that I think are consistent with the thought of Dupuis.
Second, these answers are crafted to explain how non—Christians can be saved without explicitly knowing Jesus Christ. It is not about the salvation of Christians.
Soteriological Question 1. Why is a Savior needed?
Dupuis explains many times that every person needs the Savior for salvation, but he did not explain why.
I think Dupuis assumed that his reader would already agree that every person needs the Savior, and that his reader would have worked out the reasons why people need the Savior.
Nowhere did I find the slightest hint that a Savior was unnecessary.
In chapter 6 of his Christology, Dupuis provides some missing material. He mentions four reasons that the Savior is needed.
- The first reason the Savior is needed is that we need the gift of being. I didn’t find an explanation of what that gift of being is. Presumably Dupuis means that without the Savior we are incomplete in our humanness.
- The second reason a Savior is needed is that we need the gift of divinization; that is, to have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.
- The third reason a Savior is needed is that we need forgiveness of our sins.
- The fourth reason a Savior is needed was that we were outside the family of God and need to be adapted as children of God (see Galatians 4:6 and Romans 8:15).
Soteriological Question 2. What constitutes “salvation”?
Salvation consists in precisely a personal communication of God to the individual, a communication whose concrete realization is Jesus Christ and whose sign is the humanity of Jesus.
In the Church, Christ makes himself present to Christians overtly and explicitly, by virtue of the Church’s perfect mediation.
To the adherents of other religions, Christ makes himself present covertly and implicitly, by virtue of imperfect mediation.
Again drawing from chapter 6 of his Christology, in those same four points, Dupuis describes the nature of salvation:
- The gift of being
- The gift of divinization
- The forgiveness of our sins
- Being adapted as children of God
Dupuis’ description of the gift of being reminded me of the notion of becoming a new creation (see 2 Corinthians 5:17).
He description of divinization evokes images from Athanasius. His description of the forgiveness of sins reminds me of Thomas.
Soteriological Question 3. How does Christ save?
Dupuis holds that Jesus Christ is the only Savior of the entire world.
Jesus Christ makes himself known to peoples everywhere, and when one responds in faith, then that person has found salvation.
Christians know Christ explicitly as Jesus; non—Christians can know him implicitly as the mysterious presence of God in their life.
In his introduction to his Christology, Dupuis says that it is in Jesus, the sacrament of the encounter with God, that we come in contact with God.
Jesus is not merely a go—between trying to bridge the gap that separates the finite from the infinite, nor is he is just an intermediary.
Rather, he is the mediator in whom both parties are bound together because he is of both sides.
Both Anselm and Thomas speak of Jesus in that vein, of Jesus Christ as the God-man, the true mediator.
Dupuis also says that by Christ’s incarnation, he has somehow united himself with every person (see Gaudium et Spes, paragraph 22).
This is like the theme in Thomas that Jesus Christ is in solidarity with us. I think the solidarity theme runs large in Dupuis.
In chapter six of the same work, Dupuis points to the resurrection as the pivot-point of world history, the hinge between the already and the not-yet, the starting point of Christological faith. Thus the resurrection figures largely in how Christ saves.
I did not find references in Dupuis that the life and ministry of the Savior posits a salvific value.
In a similar vein, the suffering and death of the Lord were not specifically mentioned as being of salvific significance.
Soteriological Question 4. What is the role of God in the drama of salvation?
From a human perspective, Dupuis maintains, God the Father is completely silent toward us. The one word the Father has spoken is the pre-existent Word, who was born of Mary.
The salvation of every person is utterly dependent upon this Word, the Christ. Salvation may not be found by any other name. This is because Christ alone is the presence of God to the human person.
In the introduction to his Christology, Dupuis says that the position of Jesus Christ at the center of the Christian mystery does not make him usurp the place of God the Father.
The Father remains the end of all things. This reminds me of Thomas, who said that the Father is the principal cause of our salvation.
PART 7. STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
One strength of Dupuis’ theology of world religions is that he offers a meticulous survey of the current Christian theologies of World Religions.
Given that non-Christians can be saved, even if they do not yet explicitly know Christ Jesus, Dupuis offers his own personal theory of how that salvation is mediated to them.
A weakness of Dupuis’ system is that the need for the Savior is not directly stated.
A second weakness is that Dupuis risks separating the “Jesus of history” from the “Christ of Faith.”
A third weakness is that he sees God’s encounters with people in history as done by the Eternal Word, which is contrary to the view of the Second Vatican Council that it is done by the Holy Spirit.
A fourth weakness is that he risks having Jesus simply become a universal idea.
PART 8. UNDER INVESTIGATION
The Catholic church has a supermassive administrative headquarters called the Roman Curia. One of their departments is called the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
It was founded in 1542 as the “Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition.” Note the word Inquisition.
In 1908 they were renamed as the “Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.” Note that they remove the word “Inquisition” from their title.
In 1965, they were renamed again as the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” (CDF).
In 2001, the CDF determined that Dupuis’ book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (1997) contained ambiguities that presented:
difficulties on important doctrinal points
with respect to the proper understanding of
the seeds of truth and goodness that exist in other religions.
Dupuis was told to clarify his position in relation to that document, but he was never disciplined.
Future editions of his book had to include a copy of the Congregation’s notification about areas in which it considered his work unclear:
It is consistent with Catholic doctrine to hold that the seeds of truth and goodness that exist in other religions are a certain participation in truths contained in the revelation of or in Jesus Christ. However, it is erroneous to hold that such elements of truth and goodness, or some of them, do not derive ultimately from the source-mediation of Jesus Christ.
The notification from the CDF merely stated what Dupuis had always maintained: that all truth and goodness derive from the Jesus Christ.
PART 9. CONCLUSION
Given that it is possible for non-Christian people to be saved, those who are invincibly ignorant of the gospel, how is that salvation mediated to them?
Dupuis has illustrated his theory that they are saved through the religious system to which they belong.
Hindus or Buddhists can receive Christic salvation through their practice of Hinduism or Buddhism, because religious tradition to they belong has had influences of the divine since the beginning.
And since the human face of the divine is none other than the Son of God, it is he who has left fingerprints in these other religions, fingerprints that will lead the seeker to him.
As such, those other religions can lend a certain visibility and social nature to the saving power of Christ. They can be signs, however incomplete and imperfect, of his saving activity.
It is important to note that, in spite the fact that non-Christians who are invincibly ignorant of the gospel may be saved, still the missionary mandate is valid.
The Church exists in order to evangelize, Paul VI said in Evangelii Nuntiandi.
The multitudes of the world have the right to know the riches of the Christ, in whom they will find all they are groping for concerning God, man and his destiny, life, death and truth,
he said. Evangelization is the primary service the Church offers to the world.
In this study:
- I discussed current Catholic thoughts about the possibility of non—Christians being saved.
- I discussed three current categories of theologies of world religions.
- I discussed Dupuis’ chosen category which is called Christocentric Inclusivism.
- I described Dupuis’ theology of world religions, using the systematic categories of anthropology, Christology and ecclesiology.
- I described his theology itself.
- I analyzed Dupuis’ system using four soteriological questions.
- I listed a few strengths and weaknesses of his system.
- I summed up the investigation by the CDF.
The questions taken up by Dupuis are of personal relevance for me. He has provided me with another perspective into how the non-Christian people I have met might possibly be saved, both Japanese, Indian and Pakistani, Hindus, Buddhists, Shinto, Muslim and Confucian.
NOTES
RESOURCES
Sarah Butler, Ph.D., Readings in Soteriology, 1998
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dupuis, Jacques, S.J.. Jesus Christ at the Encounter of World Religions. Translated by Robert R. Barr. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1989.
Dupuis, Jacques, S.J.. Who Do You Say I Am? Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1994.
IN THIS SERIES
The four most influential theories of Soteriology