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Religious Diversity, Sacramental Encounters, and the Spirit of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2013

Glenn Ambrose
Affiliation:
University of the Incarnate Word

Abstract

There is increasing pressure on religious thinkers and leaders to construct theologies thoroughly grounded in the particularities of a faith tradition but truly appreciative of religious pluralism. This essay argues that a significant contribution towards articulating a Roman Catholic theology of religious diversity can be advanced by explicitly integrating developments in pneumatology and sacramental theology. Pneumatology has obvious pluralistic implications insofar as Catholic theologians and the magisterium itself have emphasized the universal presence of the Holy Spirit. The sacramental tradition is more ambivalent. On the one hand, the sacramental principle and sacramental nature of human existence would seem to endorse the authenticity of religious pluralism. On the other hand, sacramental theology in the West has historically been shaped by a Christomonism which necessarily tends toward exclusivism. This tendency can be overcome by understanding sacraments in light of a Spirit Christology from below.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 2010

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References

1 E.g., Tissa Balasuriya, Jacques Dupius, and Peter Phan were specifically targeted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) for their views on religious pluralism. Some censures, such as those of Roger Haight and Jon Sobrino, may focus on Christology or sotieriology, but suspicion directed towards their work was connected to their openness to religious pluralism. See Hinze, Bradford, “A Decade of Disciplining Theologians,” Horizons 37 (2010): 92126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See Tilley, Terrence W. et al. , Religious Diversity and the American Experience: A Theological Approach (New York: Continuum, 2007).Google Scholar

3 E.g., Pope Benedict XVI's comments on Islam and violence given at the University of Regensberg in 2006 are still a point of tension. See his lecture “Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections” (12 September 2006), http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html (accessed 11 October 2010).

4 Early arguments especially for religious pluralism often made the mistake of ignoring real differences across religions either because they were too eager to find commonality or driven by a grand theory of religion that made differences inconsequential. In the former scenario, the argument for religious pluralism required the jettison of too many fundamental faith commitments resulting in a theology that was no longer recognizable by a majority of its adherents. In the latter case, the grand theory of religion was too reflective of one culture or faith tradition making the intended pluralistic argument an inclusivist argument at best. Although intellectually and morally enticing, the pursuit of another grand theory of religion is not what is urgently needed in our pluralistic age. Such a project is at best grossly premature and prone to projecting false universalisms. What is needed in a world with many histories, cultures, and religions are arguments from within various religious traditions that develop pluralistic sensibilities that cultivate respect and reverence for the other in their faithful.

5 On the Holy Spirit's “junior status,” see McDonnell, Kilian, The Other Hand of God: The Holy Spirit as the Universal Touch and Goal (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003), 8190.Google Scholar

6 Initially, many twentieth-century reflections on the Holy Spirit were offered in connection to the renewed interest in the doctrine of Trinity. Some feminist theologians have also drawn attention to the Spirit as a way of both retrieving intimate, nurturing and relational images of God from the tradition and neutralizing the effect of the maleness of God incarnate. Greater contact with the Eastern Orthodox tradition, driven in part by the ecumenical concerns of Pope John Paul II and the collapse of the Soviet Union, has also been an important stimulus for exploring the role of the Holy Spirit. Lastly, several works in pneumatology have also grown out of and in response to charismatic movements within many Christian traditions, including the Roman Catholic Church.

7 A few highlights from such a list: Congar, Yves, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3 vol. in 1 trans. Smith, David (New York: Crossroad, 1997)Google Scholar; Coffey, David, Grace: The Gift of the Holy Spirit (Manly, NSW: Catholic Institute of Sydney, 1979)Google Scholar; Lampe, Geoffrey W. H., God as Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1984)Google Scholar; Holl, Adolf, The Left Hand of God: A Biography of the Holy Spirit, trans. Cullen, John (New York: Doubleday, 1998)Google Scholar; and Welker, Michael, God the Spirit, trans. Hoffmeyer, John F. (1994; reprint, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004).Google Scholar

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9 Jones, Serene and Lakeland, Paul, eds., Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005)Google Scholar; the following explication of these two themes is deeply indebted to the book's concluding chapter written by Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Barbara Holmes, Serene Jones, Catherine Keller, Walter Lowe, Jim Perkinson, Mark Wallace and Sharon Welch.

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22 Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate), in Flannery, Austin, ed., Vatican Council II: The Basic Sixteen Documents, rev. ed. (Northport, NY: Costello, 1996), 569–74.Google Scholar The universal presence of the Spirit is affirmed on several occasions in the Vatican II documents, especially in Gaudium et Spes. It is also a common theme found in several of John Paul II's encyclicals. See Mitchell, Nathan, Meeting Mystery: Liturgy, Worship, Sacraments (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2006), 140–41, 254–55.Google Scholar

23 It should be noted that even in the very cautious interpretation of religious inclusivism advanced by Dominus Iesus, there is a clear affirmation that the “customs, precepts, and teachings” of other religions continue to “nourish and maintain” a “life-relationship with God” (art. 8). Elsewhere, endorsing the view of Pope John Paul II, the document states that “the action of Christ and the Spirit outside the Church's visible boundaries' must not be excluded” (art. 19). See Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church (Dominus Iesus), 6 August 2000, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html (accessed July 16, 2009).

24 The authors of Constructive Theology assert that in a pluralistic age any discernment of the Spirit that remains locked down by traditionalism will be less reliable then a contextual discernment done in true collaboration with those that are different (248).

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31 It is also tempting to make connections to contemporary developments in the Roman Catholic Church. There is much concern about ritual rubrics, a desire to revive traditional devotions and nostalgia for an idealized past. These are not the marks of a pilgrim church looking towards the future, but a Church fearing the future, in denial about the present, and overly sentimental about the past.

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35 Likewise, it is also possible to politicize liturgy for the purpose of serving some particular social cause.

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46 The empowerment of the laity will continue to be stymied so long as hierarchical thinking and concerns about power dominant discourse concerning the distinction between the common and ordained priesthood. This internal Catholic debate is important for discerning the movement of the Spirit outside of the Christian community because it is difficult to reconcile more inclusive or pluralistic theologies of religious diversity without the recognition of the full ministerial potential of all the members of the Church.

47 For a brief account of Schillibeeckx's theology of creation in relationship to Christology see Haight, Roger, The Future of Christology (New York: Continuum, 2007), 117–20.Google Scholar

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50 See Haight, Roger, Jesus Symbol of God (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1999).Google Scholar A briefer account of his Christology that addresses the controversy over his work can also be found in The Future of Christology.

51 Haight, , Jesus Symbol of God, 396.Google Scholar

52 Haight offers a succinct account of his understanding of normativity in the context of religious pluralism in The Future of Christology, 148–64. Phan, Peter (Being Religious Interreligiously, 9398)Google Scholar reaches a similar conclusion in his discussion of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.

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55 It should be noted that Haight's work in Christology essentially begins with an appeal “to the Christian experience of grace”—or Spirit—”as an analogy for understanding what is going on in Christology” (Jesus Symbol of God, 447).

56 Ibid., 463.

57 Although particularity and universality have often been understood as mutually exclusive, they need not be and in our current pluralistic and postmodern environment it would be unwise to do so.

58 Himes, Michael, “Catholicism as Integral Humanism: Christian Participation in Pluralistic Moral Education,” in The Challenge of Pluralism: Education, Politics and Values, ed. Power, F. Clark and Lapsley, Daniel (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), 117–39, at 123.Google Scholar

59 Jacques Dupuis' understanding of the significance of the humanity of Christ is especially relevant to this point. For Dupius, the humanity of Christ makes it possible for all of humanity through the Spirit to participate in the advent of the reign of God. For an excellent account of Dupuis' Christology with respect to religious pluralism, see Brecht, Mara, “The Humanity of Christ: Jacques Dupuis' Christology and Religious Pluralism,” Horizons 35 (2008): 5471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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