Re: Predetermination: God's controlling will?

From: Robert Schneider (rjschn39@bellsouth.net)
Date: Wed Jul 09 2003 - 20:57:43 EDT

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    George, you write,

    > RC views, OTOH, come not just from Vatican II but Vatican I & its
    insistence
    > that a natural knowledge of God is possible independently of revelation.

    That a natural knowledge of God is possible independently of revelation is
    not the point that either Dupuis or I were making. My allusion to Vatican
    II is to certain passages, which I won't include here, from the
    constitutions and documents "Lumen gentium" and "Nostra Aetate," on the
    possibility of the action of grace outside of the Church. Their
    implications are spelled out in later documents. To summarize, the
    recognition of authentic religious truth and practice in other religions is
    understandable in the light of the fact that the Logos (the Christ)
    enlightens every human being coming into the world (here contemporary
    theologians are picking up on a theme in Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria,
    and other early patristic writers), and that the action of the Holy Spirit
    is not limited to Christians, for "the wind blows where it will" (John 3:8).
    This quotation from John Paul II's encyclical on the Holy Spirit (1986),
    "Dominum et Vivificantem" [The Lord and Giver of Life], though it focuses
    upon the theme of universal salvation, gets to my point:

        "The Second Vatican Council, centered primarily on the theme of the
    Church, reminds us of the Holy Spirit's activity also "outside the visible
    Body of the Church." The council speak precisely of "all people of good will
    in whose hearts grace is active invisible" [LG 16]. For, since Christ died
    for all [cf. Rom. 8:32], and since all human beings are in fact called to
    one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit
    offers to all the possibility of being associated, in a way known to God,
    with the Paschal Mystery" [GS 22].

    His later encyclical "Redemptoris Missio" (1991) speaks even more of the
    action of the Holy Spirit not only within individuals but even in religious
    traditions:

        "The Spirit manifests himself in a special way in the Church and her
    members. Nevertheless, his presence and activity are universal, limited
    neither by space nor time.... The Spirit...is at the very source of the
    human person's existential and religious questioning which is occasioned not
    only by contingent situations but by the very structure of its being. The
    Spirit's presence and activity affect not only individuals but also society
    and history, peoples, cultures and religions" [RM 28].

        The point I was trying to make is not that the non-Christian draws
    his/her knowledge and understanding of God from nature, but that through the
    Logos, and as these passages emphasize, the Spirit, the light of revelation
    falls upon all human persons, even if they are unaware that the source of
    revelation is the action of the Holy Spirit. Thus, in interreligious
    dialogue, the Christian may gain from the non-Christian authentic insight
    into the Sacred because he/she too is enlightened by the Word and Spirit.
    Revelation is not confined to the Word that speaks from the Bible.

        I guess Luther and I find different values in the Moses story. Your
    point does raise the question whether out of an evolving creation we can
    discern authentically the presence of the Sacred outside of biblical
    revelation, and whether this leads to authentic knowledge of God. I refuse
    to rule that out.

    Grace and peace,
    Bob



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