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