The Humanity of Christ: Jacques Dupuis' Christology

THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST: JACQUES DUPUIS’ CHRISTOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM

Mara Brecht Fordham University

ABSTRACT

The question of Christianity’s relationship to the religious traditions of the world lies at the center of Jacques Dupuis’ theological work. This essay contends that Dupuis’ Christology provides the ground for his pursuit of this larger question. An exploration of Dupuis’ positive assertions about who Jesus Christ is reveals both a new Christological view and an implicit critique of conventional notions of what it means to be human. By challenging traditional Christol- ogy and creatively restructuring the relationship of our humanity to Christ’s humanity, Dupuis invigorates the purpose of humanity’s role in salvation history. This shift in emphasis, toward Christ’s and our shared humanity, allows Dupuis to recognize the theological significance in all mainstream religious traditions. Scholarly comments on Jacques Dupuis’ work have tended to focus on his theological approach to religious pluralism.1 Unless one reads his view of religious pluralism through the lens of his Christology, one mistakes its status.2 Indeed, as many of Dupuis’ interpreters have argued, Dupuis seeks to relate Christian truth to the truth claimed by other religious traditions. Dupuis himself writes, in the concluding remarks of his most significant theological work, Toward a Christian

1I want to express my sincere gratitude to Terrence Tilley for the guidance, pa- tience, and theological wisdom he extended to me through all drafts of this paper. 2For examples of scholarship focusing primarily on Dupuis’ religious pluralism see the following: John Cavadini, “Two Recent Christian Theologies of Religious Pluralism,” Horizons 31 (Spring 2004): 187–91; In Many and Diverse Ways, ed. Daniel Kendall and Gerald O’Collins (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2003); Gerard Hall, “Jacques Dupuis’ Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism,” Pacifica 15 (Fall 2002): 37–50; Christian Heller, “Auf dem Weg zu einer christlichen Theologie des religiösen Pluralismus: die religionsthe- ologischen Positionen Jacques Dupuis’ und John Hicks im Vergleich,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 125:2–3 (2003): 167–85; Gerald O’Collins, “Jacques Dupuis’s Con- tributions to Interreligious Dialogue,” Theological Studies 64:2 (2003): 388–97; Amos Yong, “The Turn to Pneumatology in Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism: Conduit or Detour?” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 35 (1998): 437–54.

Mara Brecht is a doctoral candidate in systematic theology at Fordham University (Bronx, NY 10458). She works in the area of foundational theology, and is especially interested in the question of theological epistemology and its intersection with religious pluralism.

HORIZONS 35/1 (2008): 54–71

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Theology of Religious Pluralism, “The truth to which Christianity witnesses is neither exclusive nor inclusive of all other truths; it is related to all that is true in other religions.”3 Such a statement, characteristic of Dupuis’ overarching theology of religious pluralism, can only be brought into focus properly through his Christological project. This essay will argue that, when reading Dupuis, we must understand that his Christology, which holds that it is the humanity of Jesus Christ who creates the condition for the possibility of all people’s participation in God’s salvific kingdom, allows Dupuis to relate the truth of Christianity in an innovative way to the truths offered by other religious traditions, while at the same time remaining doctrinally orthodox.

I. Criticizing Old Habits and Suggesting New Paths

In “Pluralism in Christology” John Macquarrie critiques traditional modes of doing Christology; although Macquarrie does not provide the sole standard for how Christology ought to be done, his work of tracing the development of contemporary Christology is illuminative. By giving a genealogical account, Macquarrie is able to demonstrate that since the Enlightenment, Christology has ceased to establish simply a history of Jesus Christ and begun to focus on providing a full account of the meaning and significance of Jesus Christ.4 Given this, Macquarrie raises questions about how contemporary Christology can advance and develop in order to more adequately address the question of who Jesus Christ is for us today. He observes that the pattern has been to do Christology through an “uncritical lumping together of disparate material.”5 It is simply in- adequate, he says, to pull passages from the Gospels or pick phrases from the Church Fathers without any discernable method or clear her- meneutical strategy. To avoid such “uncritical lumping” Macquarrie insists upon recognizing the historical nature of our theological sources. There are two loci for such historical-critical reflection: the New Testament and dogma. Both categories are historically produced and can be incorporated properly into our Christologies with a full recognition of their historicity. While Macquarrie criticizes the tendency to ignore the historical production of material, he also warns against the inclination to synthe- size all of our extent sources simply because we have them. He suggests

3Jacques Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1997), 388. 4John Macquarrie, “Pluralism in Christology,” in Radical Pluralism and Truth, ed. Werner Jeanrond and Jennifer Rike (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 183. 5Ibid., 178.

a way of moving forward in Christology wherein we acknowledge the nature of revelation and dogma as well as our ways of interpreting them and strategically choose and use sources that address concerns of the contemporary context.6 In light of his contention that no theology is created arbitrarily, he proposes a fundamental shift in writing contemporary Christology: one must move away from the habit of presenting Christology as something that is determined strictly by our sources (Macquarrie points out that no theology or scholarship is done arbitrarily) and to the habit of being forthright about our concerns for what that Christology does as we shape it.

II. Theological Method

Macquarrie’s article helps to frame this exploration of Dupuis’ Christology. Dupuis meets his requirements for how Christology should be done by drawing on sources (both critically and strategically) with an ultimate goal of constructing a Christology that works in a pluralistic world. As such, his Christology does not depart from traditional Catholic teaching. Dupuis’ Christology involves an implicit, two- fold anthropological focus. First, he points out that Jesus is the full, limited human expression of the Trinity and, second, that Jesus as human brings about the opportunity for all of humanity’s coauthorship in the project of divine salvation. Such a focus pushes Dupuis to invest humanity with a newly found status in the practice of bringing about salvation, and he does so without enervating Christ’s unique salvific significance. In the light of God being manifested as a human being, Dupuis understands all humanity to have been brought into the fold of salvific practice and the onus for the fulfillment of God’s reign to have been shifted from the one to the many.7 In order to explore Dupuis’ theological innovations, I first propose a methodological approach that serves this essay as a heuristic device

6Ibid., 186. 7I use the language of salvific “practice” here to point out humanity’s active invest- ment and involvement in salvation. This idea is meant to be distinct from a Pelagian doctrine of free will and salvation. In a classic text on early Christian doctrines, J.N.D. Kelly summarizes the claims of Pelagianism: it has an “excessively rosy view of human nature and [an] insufficient acknowledgement of man’s dependence on God” (Early Christian Doctrines [New York: Harper Collins, 1976], 357). Dupuis does indeed have a very rich understanding of humanity’s significance in the salvation schema. However, humanity’s significance in the process of salvation must be understood always and only in relation to divine significance in that schema. I label humanity’s role in salvation as a “practice” in order to restrict the sense that humanity’s role in bringing about salvation is an ontological one, but at the same time upholds that humanity’s practice is an utterly graced one.

for sorting through his Christological project.8 What follows is an ad- umbration of a comprehensive framework for understanding the ele- ments of and expectations for a theological approach. This approach presupposes that theology is a correlational task, one that involves placing traditional Christian symbols, narratives, and doctrines into mutual or reciprocal relation with our present experiences.9 Placing these symbols in relation with our present experiences should not be mistaken as placing them in the service of our present experiences. That is, a method of correlation in theology does not assume that by relating Christian symbols with present experiences that we necessarily change the contours of the symbol to be amenable to our experiences.10 Correlation implies mutuality or reciprocity, and this is essential to counter any potential misunderstanding. A method of correlation allows us to understand the symbols in and through our experiences and at the same time allows the symbols to challenge and interrupt our experiences. There are four basic pieces or moments in the task of correlation. The reflexivity of the following questions intends to call attention to, first, their very open-endedness and, second, their status as choices that the theologian makes in writing theology. (1) Which symbols does

8This proposal for a theological approach is indebted to and inspired by the work of Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and David Tracy. Fiorenza’s work, in particular, provides the basis for my own model. Drawing significantly on the political philosophy of John Rawls, he proposes a model for reconstructive hermeneutics termed a “broad reflective equilibrium”: “[This] method presupposes a diversity of judgments, principles, and theories, each entailing different kinds of justification that come together to sup- port or criticize, to reinforce or revise” (Foundational Theology: Jesus and the Church [New York: Crossword, 1984], 301). The broad reflective equilibrium model is invaluable because it outlines with precision the various resources that we draw upon when we interpret any text or material. Most significantly for my own thinking, Fiorenza points out that we employ “background theories” and “retroductive warrants” in the interpretative task. These will be discussed in greater detail (in notes) in the following pages. 9Henceforth, for the sake of brevity, I will refer to “symbols” as shorthand for Christian symbols, narratives, and doctrines. 10Philosophically, I am invoking a claim of Emanuel Levinas’ here. Levinas writes that for Western philosophy, “knowledge is esteemed as the very business of the human where nothing remains absolutely other” (Basic Philosophical Writings [Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996], 153). He resists the idea that all knowing must be a total assimilation of difference to ourselves. Although I propose a correlational method for theology, I believe it is imperative that we leave open the possibility that our present experiences (including the symbolic order and fixed concepts that underlie them) indeed can be disturbed and disrupted by difference (ibid., 71), in this case by the difference of past traditional symbols, narratives, and doctrines. Levinas explains that it is our tendency to know by inviting objects into our “horizon of knowledge” only on the condition that these objects eventually “renounce” their difference (ibid., 12). I want to suggest that we can invite Christian symbols, narratives, and doctrines into our horizon of knowledge/experience while allowing them to maintain their integrity as different and perhaps disruptive.

the theologian choose to interpret? (2) What does the theologian identify as the context in which symbols are interpreted? (3) What future outcomes does the theologian imagine for this correlation between sources and experiences? (4) What creative nuances does the theologian bring to this correlation? Which symbols does the theologian choose to interpret? Interpret- ing Christian symbols is not an arbitrary task, even at the level of what symbols we choose to interpret. Indeed, there is no paucity of symbols, narratives, and doctrines from which theologians can choose: multiple testaments to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus; two thousand years of development filled with schism and controversy; centuries of theologians, historians, and philosophers reflecting on the meaning of Christian truth; and a new globalized context in which Christianity is developing. To avoid lumping material together in an uncritical fash- ion, theologians must take care in their decisions about which symbols to appropriate as sources. What does the theologian identify as the context in which these symbols are interpreted? We must approach the symbols with a clear analysis of where we stand as theologians. This analysis involves responding to two demands. First, we must recognize our stance or place in the broader cultural context. Secondly, we must situate ourselves within larger theoretical discussions that are a part of that context. A careful discernment of both our stance and our theoretical assump- tions, identified here broadly as the “context,” is necessary for both reading and writing theology in a responsible way. Perhaps the most important part in identifying the context in which we do theology today involves a recognition of pluralism. We can no longer assume a common source of authority or set of experiences to which we can simply appeal in our theological claims.11 This is not to wage an argument, at this point, about what significance this fact of pluralism holds—whether fecund or barren, laud- able or lamentable—but rather is to point out its reality. By recognizing our clearly pluralistic context, however we might interpret it, we can then become clear about our methodological choices as we do theology.

11Fiorenza states that we are in a situation of philosophical, religious, and theological pluralism. There is no single “given” basis or common presupposition from which to proceed. As other religions “increasingly make their imprint on Christian theology,” our theological presuppositions cannot hold the same status and authority they once did. Furthermore, “No single philosophy or philosophical view exists [as a] standard or cultural medium for theological reflection” (“Systematic Theology: Task and Methods” in Systematic Theology, ed. Francis Schüssler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin, 2 vols. [Phila- delphia: Fortress Press, 1991]: 67).

Within this pluralistic context, we operate with biases for or against a wide array of theories and ideas.12 Our theoretical choices are broad and diverse—we may be influenced by the idea of the Cartesian self, captivated by Platonic dualism, or driven by postmodern texts. When constructing theology, we both consciously and unconsciously bring our theoretical biases to bear on the symbols we have chosen as sources. While we must acknowledge what is unconsciously assumed, too much weight should not be placed on this point. If theological method is principally a set of reflexive questions, our position within a pluralistic context with diverse theories at its disposal need not un- dermine our ability to construct particular theoretical frameworks even while we may encounter plurality of options. What future or outcomes does the theologian imagine for this correlation between sources and experiences? Mutual interpretation between sources and experiences does not imply simply a bouncing back and forth between past and present, symbol and experience; this would be far too static a model. Rather, our correlation pushes out from between these two poles and toward the future. When we correlate the Christian past with our present, we must direct our theological thinking with future hope in mind.13 It is essential that we anticipate how our theological pronouncements will affect both members of the Christian community and the tradition of Christian theology.14 What creative nuances does the theologian bring to this correlation? While theologians must attend to our sources, our contexts and

12These can be identified, in Fiorenza’s broad reflective equilibrium, as background theories, those with which we interpret data. He points out that we look for a “coherence” between our theories and data, and sometimes we must revise our theories in order to attain that coherence (Foundational Theology, 310). 13David Tracy notes that “We need interpretations that risk envisioning a Christian future” (“Theological Method,” in Christian Theology: An Introduction to its Traditions and Tasks, ed. Peter Hodgson and Robert King [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985], 35). 14Fiorenza terms this a “retroductive warrant.” Drawing on the work of the American philosopher Charles Peirce, he discusses retroductive warrants as the criteria by which we make decisions which cannot be attributed to either inductive or deductive reasoning; “a theory is more warranted to the degree that it can guide praxis.” Our retroductive warrants, then, take into consideration not only logical criteria but also practical criteria of how particular decisions will “structure praxis and guide forms of life” (Foundational Theology, 307). Although Tracy does not discuss this in exactly the same way as Fiorenza does, he does suggest that theologians must pay attention to the “history of effects” of various theologies (“Theological Method,” 48). “History of effects” is an idea Tracy draws from Hans-Georg Gadamer (see Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., trans. rev. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall [New York: Crossroad, 1988], 267– 74). Tracy employs this concept to point out how one’s history and context shapes one’s reading of texts (The Analogical Method: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism [New York: Crossroad, 1987], 103). Applying this idea to theological method, Tracy would agree that we ought to consider the “history of effects” that our theologies will have (that is, how history and context will continually influence the interpretation of theology) and grant that consideration some influence in our theological moves.

theories, and our expectations for the future, what we do, theologically, is not determined in advance by one or any combination of these ele- ments.15 The idea of theological method too often suggests a formulaic way of producing theology. Although we construct theology from a particular position and with particular intentions in mind, we have the capacity to bring about creative innovations in our interpretations that cannot be traced to any single source, theory, or expectation.

III. Dupuis’ Theological Method Dupuis identifies three primary sources from which he works: the New Testament, the Old Testament, and traditional dogma. The Gospel accounts in the New Testament are our primary sources for discerning Jesus. Dupuis writes that the New Testament “is the final norm though its content is not monolithic.”16 He thus fully acknowledges that the New Testament is not transparent. The Gospels do not present us with a single, clear, or readily-understood depiction of who Jesus is historically. As theologians, we must seek after the very particular, historical human Jewish man from Nazareth, even while we remain aware that we are given only incomplete and sometimes conflicting hints of who Jesus is. Dupuis presumes that the Gospels are witnesses to messianic hopes in the Old Testament. That is, Dupuis holds that Christ was prefigured in the Old Testament and the evangelists do the work of connecting explicitly the Old Testament’s messianic themes to the messianic fulfillment in Christ.17 Although Dupuis does not search and employ the Old Testament in the same way he does the Gospels, he is clear that the Old Testament scripture functions as authoritative for his Christology. Dupuis draws from Christian dogma—primarily from the defini- tions of the Christian councils—as his principle source for doing

15Pierre Bourdieu develops the concept of a “space of possibilities” in order to evaluate the process of production of cultural works (art, music, literature). Bourdieu’s theory rejects an overly deterministic model (i.e., the theology I construct is solely the result of my context) of cultural production and at the same time rejects a romantic one (i.e., I construct theology independently of my context). He points out that while we necessarily work within a particular horizon of possibilities that constrains what we write or produce (i.e., we are deeply embedded in contexts that will shape our produc- tions), we are able to bring about genuinely new creations that cannot be reduced to the explanation that they are the result of our context. See Pierre Bourdieu, “Principles for a Sociology of Cultural Works,” in The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, ed. John Randall, trans. Claud Du Verlie (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). 16Jacques Dupuis, Who Do You Say I Am? (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994), 75. 17Ibid., 65. While it is outside the scope of this essay to offer justification or warrant here, I wish at least to acknowledge the supercessionist tinge that this view has. The view that Christ is prefigured in the Hebrew Scriptures is perhaps the result of Dupuis’ con- fessional biases.

Christology. He fully recognizes that dogma is historically conditioned and open to development; and he attributes dogmatic plurality to shifts in cultural circumstances. Nevertheless dogma is a constitutive source for his Christology.18 The question then becomes, given his presuppositions about the contingency of dogma, how does he take up these sources? Dupuis states that his is an “integral approach” to Christology, and insists upon the mutual interaction between traditional ascending and descending Christologies.19 In other words, Dupuis believes that writing Christology involves wrestling with both what the New Testa- ment indicates about Jesus (however unclear that may be) and with what the tradition has historically said about Jesus (however contingent that may be). Given that he draws upon different methodological types of Chris- tologies and historically distinctive Christologies, Dupuis is comfort- able asserting that not all Christologies are “valid” for all times and places.20 Rather, Christologies necessarily reflect the concerns of the time. Even the New Testament accounts of Christ suggest a certain type of Christology, conditioned by its time and place. Dupuis explains, for example, that the mystery of the incarnation was originally articulated in terms of the conceptual framework of Greek philosophy. This is no longer adequate to communicate Christian convictions about the incarnation today.21 Christians in every era reformulate earlier Christologi- cal conceptions in their own terms.22 For example, according to Dupuis the Christian tradition, as we see by tracing dogmatic developments, has effectively “dehellenized the mystery of Christ” over the course of two thousand years.23 There are two primary contextual theories operative in Dupuis’ work. First, he poses a challenge to the conceptualization of self- hood wherein knowing is the principle determinative factor. That is, he

18Ibid., 21. 19Ibid., 107. 20Ibid., 168. 21The larger assumption grounding my claim here is that theology is first and fore- most an endeavor oriented toward communication rather than representation. On this point, I have been influenced by Terrence Tilley. Tilley argues that an assumption that “language essentially functions to signify what we mean” is confused. Rather, he states, “language fundamentally is a communication medium.” To communicate effectively, one must consider the audience being addressed and “[their] ability to understand what is communicated.” This view presupposes that because theologians seek to communicate theological ideas effectively, those theological ideas will be shaped, at least in part, according to the context of the audience (Terrence Tilley, Religious Diversity and the American Experience: A Theological Approach [New York: Continuum, 2007], 32–34). 22This is not to suggest that we assimilate all theological concepts to the philosophy of the day, but rather is to point out that our theological concepts are always a part of our larger conceptual frameworks. 23Dupuis, Who Do You Say I Am?, 81.

resists the Enlightenment philosophical prejudice for the intellectual above all other ways of being and the Cartesian construction of the knowing self (most notably Cogito ergo sum). Secondly, Dupuis nego- tiates between metaphysics and history. While Dupuis operates with a historical consciousness that acknowledges the contingent nature of all human knowledge, he is still invested in ontological categories and speculative metaphysics. Dupuis constructs his Christology in the context of religious pluralism. In his historical theological work he is careful to point out the “history of effects” of past Christologies.24 His constructive theological work reveals a sensitivity for how Christology in particular will bear upon Christianity’s relationship with other religious traditions. He makes his Christological claims with an expectation in mind for how they will shape the Christian future. Dupuis makes it quite explicit that he intends to remain faithful to the Christian tradition; his use of both dogma and the New Testament as his primary sources lends evidence to this claim. Dupuis himself does not overtly address what he imagines for the future of Christian practice and Christology. Peter Phan contends that Dupuis’ starting point is not, at bottom, the Bible or the dogmatic tradition. Rather, it is the “actual praxis of dialogue with non-Christian religions.”25 Phan is correct about the importance of the practice of dialogue for Dupuis, but praxis is not a source for Dupuis’ Christology and theology. He does not draw upon or cite the practice of interfaith dialogue as a source in the same way that he does conciliar decrees or Gospel passages. Yet, praxis is unarguably a huge influence in Dupuis’ work; it is a part—if not the most significant part—of both Dupuis’ context and future vision. The experience of engagement with other religious traditions is both the impetus driving Dupuis’ pluralistic project and the measuring stick by which he evaluates his Christology vis-à-vis non-Christian religions. Dupuis’ attention to religious pluralism is rooted in his conviction that pluralism should be understood de jure and not simply de facto. He values religious pluralism in principle rather than only as a plain fact. Terrence Merrigan argues that Dupuis is one of the first theologians to challenge the idea of religious pluralism as solely a fact. That he affirms pluralism in principle as a mysterious part of God’s creation

24Dupuis gives the example of the various ways in which St. Cyprian’s third-century dictum extra ecclesiam nulla salus (“outside of the Church there is no salvation”) has been employed for rather questionable purposes (Toward a Christian Theology of Reli- gious Pluralism, 127). See n. 14 for discussion of “history of effects.” 25Peter Phan, “Jacques Dupuis and Asian Theologies of Religious Pluralism” in In Many and Diverse Ways, 73.

pushes Dupuis “to the frontiers of pluralism.”26 Luigi Sartori explains further how Dupuis’ theology concretely addresses the idea of pluralism in principle. He writes that Dupuis’ theology is premised upon the idea that “each particular subject takes up dialogue within an unlim- ited horizon.” That is, individuals think about God and Christ with a profound awareness of and engagement with religious traditions that are not their own. The person whom Dupuis has in mind when he writes his theology is a plenary and global subject.27 It is precisely because Dupuis takes seriously this encounter with the alterity and irreducible difference of other religious traditions that he construes Christology as he does.28

IV. Dupuis’ Christology: The Positive Significance of Jesus Christ

Dupuis answers the question “Who is Jesus?” in several different ways. There are six primary responses to this question. These assertions are cumulative: none of these is meant to stand alone; one builds on the other, with the first acting as a foundation for the rest. Taken together they give a holistic picture of the positive significance that Dupuis attributes to Jesus. In each point, the center of gravity is the issue of humanity—either Jesus’ or our own.29 In each, one of his contextual theories (either his challenge to the “knowing subject” or his navigation between history and metaphysics) is operative. 1. Jesus is an object of faith. Dupuis’ first Christological claim functions as a theological premise, setting the terms of his discussion. His intention is not to provide proofs for Jesus’ being an object of faith nor is it to give an apologetic for why or how Jesus is the Son of God. Rather, he presupposes Jesus’ identity as the Son of God and moves forward from there. As an object of faith, Dupuis explains, Jesus is not open to be proven or disproven.30 Furthermore, Christ is not just a

26Terrence Merrigan, “Jacques Dupuis and the Redefinition of Inclusivism,” in ibid., 63. 27Luigi Sartori, “‘Subsistit in’: Criterion of ‘Truth and History’ in Interreligious Dia- logue” in ibid., 96–7. Just as Karl Rahner is said to have the non-believer always in mind when he wrote his theology, one could say that Jacques Dupuis always kept the global and plenary subject in mind when he wrote his theology. 28Claude Geffré, “From the Theology of Religious Pluralism to an Interreligious Theology” in ibid., 48. 29I refer to these assertions as a group, yet I am excluding the first point from that group. As I want to make clear in my discussion of it, the first point is in fact foundational for the other five and cannot be evaluated in the same terms as the others. In points two through six I will point to the aspect of humanity and draw out the implicit background theories. 30Dupuis, Who Do You Say I Am?, 41.

central belief for the Christian tradition, but rather is himself the foundation of faith.31 2. Jesus is, at one and the same time, the Jewish man from Naz- areth and the second person of the Trinity. Because Dupuis has already established that Jesus is, fundamentally, an object of faith, he ap- proaches the Gospel witness with the post-Easter knowledge of the risen Lord, and his status as a member of the Trinity. Because Chris- tians are given this knowledge, the Gospel accounts are rightly read only through the framework of the Trinity. Dupuis writes that “the incarnation is unintelligible without the Trinity.”32 We can only understand the person of Jesus, as he is given to us in the Gospel accounts, through the profoundly metaphysical reality of the Trinity. Although the Trinitarian understanding of Jesus is essential, it does not take precedence or priority at the expense of Jesus’ historical particularity. Dupuis explains that Christocentrism must not overshadow the uniqueness of Jesus of Nazareth.33 In this, we see the tension Dupuis holds between a historical and a metaphysical account of Jesus; he does not surrender himself to either mode of explanation. Dupuis asserts that we must always maintain the personal identity between Jesus Christ and the Word of God, for Jesus is “no other person than the Word of God made human.”34 The “intra- trinitarian relationship” is brought into human form through Jesus.35 Jesus as such signals to us God’s “deepest and most unsurpassable involvement with humankind in history.”36 Though Dupuis has a rather lofty metaphysical starting point, it ultimately leads to an entirely human conclusion. Jesus is a member of the Trinity; more im- portantly, however, Jesus “humanizes” the Trinity, creating an unam- biguous bond between humanity and God. 3. Jesus is an eschatological prophet. Dupuis radically challenges our sense of what it means to be an eschatological prophet: he emphasizes that it is Jesus’ life and action that express eschatological proph- ecy, not his words and self-understanding. His teaching and mission

31Ibid., 141. 32Ibid., 96. 33Jacques Dupuis, “Trinitarian Christology as a Model for Theology of Religious Pluralism” in The Myriad Christ, ed. Terrence Merrigan and Jacques Haers (Sterling, VA: Leuven University Press, 2000), 90. 34Jacques Dupuis, “Universality of the Word and Particularity of Jesus Christ” in The Convergence of Theology, ed. Daniel Kendall and Stephen T. Davis (New York: Paulist, 2001), 322; Dupuis, “Trinitarian Christology as a Model for Theology of Religious Pluralism,” 89. 35Dupuis, Who Do You Say I Am?, 107. 36Dupuis, “Trinitarian Christology as a Model for Theology of Religious Pluralism,” 93.

reveal the already/not-yet tension of the kingdom of God.37 Moreover, his mission is itself that which allows “the reign of God to break through.”38 Dupuis understands Jesus as a prophet, but not in the traditional sense (as one who speaks or brings a message). Rather, Jesus as prophet has a strong mediating function, which is to bring God’s reign to us.39 Such a view of Jesus as eschatological prophet shifts the significance from knowing to doing. In other words, Jesus does not merely come to tell about God’s reign, but rather to enact it. While Dupuis draws from dogmatic sources—which have long given precedence to Jesus’ awareness of his mission and his divine-human identity—he implicitly challenges their underlying assumption: namely, that Jesus’ significance as eschatological prophet depends largely or even entirely upon his knowledge of God. The Christian tradition has long struggled with the question of Jesus’ self-understanding. Even the Gospel witnesses themselves show disparate and developing understandings of how Jesus views—or better, knows—himself. For example, in the Gospel of John, the latest Gospel, Jesus pronounces a series of “Iam” statements that speak explicitly, if metaphorically, about his identity. In the Gospel of Mark, the earliest Gospel, Jesus, by contrast, refers to himself as “the Son of Man” but does not provide a clear and consistent content to this claim. Dupuis would point out that Jesus’ self-understanding or our understanding of Jesus as the Son is not what is crucial. Instead, it is Jesus’ actions and practice that alert us to his divine significance. It has been a cultural bias to locate significance in what Jesus knows; this has the effect of obscuring the significance of Jesus’ actions themselves as ex- pressive of his divine identity. 4. Jesus is relational. Dupuis writes that Jesus is “neither absolute nor relative but is rather constitutive and relational.”40 What is the meaning of Jesus Christ as constitutive and relational? He is relational in two senses: as discussed above, Jesus is enmeshed in the intratrini- tarian relationship, but he is also enmeshed in the relationship with humanity. In fact, Dupuis argues that Jesus institutes a new form of relationship for humanity through his life, death, and resurrection.41 It is because of the resurrection, Dupuis writes, that Jesus is forever alive and present with us.42 The whole of humanity is related to God because of Jesus’ humanity. As humans we are—by right of Christ’s humanity—

37Dupuis, Who Do You Say I Am?, 42. 38Ibid., 43. 39Ibid., 49. 40Dupuis, “Trinitarian Christology as a Model for Theology of Religious Pluralism,” 96. 41Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 270. 42Dupuis, Who Do You Say I Am?, 56.

made partners with God in the work of bringing about God’s reign, of bringing about salvation. 5. Jesus is universally salvific. In contemporary Christology/ soteriology there is a question about the distinction between Jesus as necessary and Jesus as constitutive for salvation. Dupuis is a significant voice in the complex debate surrounding this question.43 For present purposes, it is enough to note that Dupuis’ claim to Christ as constitutive is a claim that upholds the universal significance of Jesus’ death and resurrection.44 Precisely what is Jesus’“universal” significance and how does it function? In answer to this, Dupuis writes that we cannot “attribute real salvific power to the Word apart from humanity of Jesus.”45 There is a tension that Dupuis holds here between Christ’s singu- larity and Christ’s universal significance. In defense of Dupuis’ Chris- tology as both orthodox and coherent, Terrence Tilley explains Dupuis’ position as follows:

There are no independent saviors or economies of salvation. But the ordo essendi is not the ordo actuandi. Just as other religious traditions may enable us to understand better the perfect and final revelation given in Jesus, so the other religious traditions may enable those who are not Catholic Christians to participate in the salvific economy of Jesus.

What Tilley convincingly argues is that Dupuis marks a distinction but not separation between the “logos as logos and the logos as incarnate Jesus.”46 At stake in this is whether the one economy of salvation extends beyond the Church. For Dupuis, it is by reason of Christ’s humanity that he is uniquely related to the whole of the human uni- verse. Because Dupuis is deeply Christocentric, he reorients the issue: the economy of salvation is found through Christ (which is indeed mediated through the Church) whose claim and effect on humanity cannot be restricted to any earthly institutions. It is possible, then, that other religious traditions “would have a unique salvific significance” for their communities.47

43Dupuis poses the question sharply: “Is it possible to make the salvation of all depend on the particular, historical Jesus of Nazareth, about whom often they [non- Christian people] have not heard or whom otherwise they have not been in a position to recognize? More radically, what authority as a ‘norm of faith’ does the New Testament witness still retain, once it is confronted with our present experience of dialogue?” (Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 191). 44Ibid., 305. 45Dupuis, “Universality of the Word and the Particularity of Jesus Christ,” 323. 46Terrence Tilley, “Christian Orthodoxy and Religious Pluralism,” Modern Theology 22 (2006): 56. 47Ibid., 60.

Dupuis’ Christology locates Jesus’ real salvific significance in his human significance.48 Thus, because Dupuis has established that it is Christ’s humanity which gives him salvific purchase and that humanity fundamentally and inextricably shares in Christ’s humanity, all of humanity qua humanity (and not qua Christian humanity) is consecrated in its role in salvation history.49 The main thrust of points four and five—Jesus is relational and universally salvific—contributes to Dupuis’ challenge to the construction of the knowing subject. Jesus is important precisely because he is human. And what is important about being human is the orientation toward God, over and against any spe- cific knowledge of God. Thus, because Dupuis reorients the meaning and purpose of Jesus’ humanity as the Word made flesh, he reorients the meaning and purpose of our humanity away from an exclusive focus on our knowing capacity. 6. Jesus is unique. As we have already seen, Dupuis argues that “God undertook an irreversible commitment to humanity” in Jesus. This “manifestation is decisive; it can be neither surpassed nor re- peated.”50 Thus, what occurred in Jesus is a central event for all of humanity. It is universal, insofar as it affects all of humanity, but it is not exclusive, insofar as God cannot be exhausted by any one manifestation.51 Indeed, the Word, to use Dupuis’ language, breaks into the human world and into human history. In this, Jesus has a unique value and significance.52 However, because God is infinite, and unknowable to us as such, no finite form (even the form of God made human), can manifest God completely. Again, the tension between Dupuis’ use of history and metaphysics peeks through: he affirms the metaphysical significance of Christ; however, because he takes history seriously as partial, contingent, and particular, he does not view Christ as a total- izing and absolutizing manifestation of the divine. It simply cannot be that God in Godself is exhaustively revealed in the human, limited form of Christ.53 Dupuis ties together the question of what Jesus’ humanity means for Jesus as the Christ with the question of what Jesus’ humanity means

48Dupuis, “Universality of the Word and the Particularity of Jesus Christ,” 327. 49Again it should be emphasized that the role humanity plays in bringing about God’s kingdom or salvation is functional insofar as it is a practice and is ontological insofar as it is graced by the very incarnation of the Word. 50Dupuis, Who Do You Say I Am?, 141. 51Ibid. 52Dupuis, “Universality of the World and the Particularity of Jesus Christ,” 332. 53Dupuis argues that the Word made flesh should be thought of in terms of quality and not quantity. Any revelation in history is necessarily relativized and inabsolute, precisely because it comes in history, happening in a particular time and place. Mani- festation in human form must be, by definition, limited manifestation (Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, 252).

for our own humanity. In technical terms, he holds together ontological and functional Christology. Both the ontological and the functional turn on the meaning of humanity. In recentering humanity, Dupuis challenges traditional Western understandings of what it means to be human. Jesus reveals for us a version of what it means to be human that does not prioritize the knowing subject at the expense of the relational subject. Through Christ, we learn that “human actions are expressions of God’s saving power.”54 It is Jesus’ human actions as the Son of God, and not his self-understanding as the Son of God, that are purposive for his identity as Christ. Dupuis poses the question plainly: “Must our center of reference be the human ego?”55 His answer is a resounding “no.” What Jesus reveals is that we participate in the practice of salvation not by knowing our actions but rather by enacting our actions. This is not meant to suggest that people unwittingly find themselves to be Christians, but rather is to suggest that the construction of the human person that over-emphasizes rational subjectivity is challenged at its very core by the Word made flesh. What has unique and salvific significance for us is the bond created between humankind and God—brought about definitively through the humanity of Jesus Christ.

V. Fidelity to the Catholic Tradition?

Dupuis’ Christology, indeed, risks a new vision for Christian theology in a pluralistic world. This future anticipates the increasing ex- change between Christianity and the religions of the world. Claude Geffré points out that Dupuis takes religious pluralism to be mysteri- ously willed by God and employs inductive theology to investigate this mystery in light of Christian revelation.56 In this, Dupuis is responding to a “real need” of the Church.57 Cardinal Avery Dulles notes that interreligious dialogue, especially as Dupuis portrays it, is not a “direct call for conversion” but is rather a genuine theological engagement with the world religions.58 Dupuis’ creative innovation is at the same time to remain doctrinally orthodox and to do justice, in the words of Merrigan, to the reality of our context.59 The Roman Curia’s response to Dupuis’ work came in the form of a “Notification” from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

54Who Do You Say I Am?, 116. 55Ibid., 114. 56Geffré,49 57Merrigan, 61. 58Avery Cardinal Dulles, “World Religions and New Millennium: A Catholic Per- spective” in In Many and Diverse Ways, 12. 59Merrigan, 67.

(CDF). The Notification states that the Vatican has concerns about the following points of Dupuis’ work: “the interpretation of the sole and universal salvific mediation of Christ, the unicity and completeness of Christ’s revelation, the universal salvific action of the Holy Spirit, the orientation of all people to the Church, and the value and significance of the function of other religions.”60 Cardinal Franz König believes that the CDF “responded hastily and thoughtlessly” to Dupuis.61 Phan argues that Dupuis’ theology and Christology are “neither revolutionary nor uncommon today and remain well within the bounds of orthodoxy,” and laments that Dupuis’ work has been “made notorious by the fact that the Vatican [reviewed and questioned]” his theological posi- tions in the Notification.62 The Vatican challenges Dupuis, one reviewer points out, on the claim that “non-Christian religious traditions might themselves medi- ate salvation.”63 The CDF charges Dupuis with specifically locating salvation in other religious traditions: “The historical revelation of Je- sus Christ offers everything necessary for man’s salvation and has no need of completion of other religions.”64 Locating the activity of the Logos and the Spirit also outside of the Church, and therefore in the non-Christian religions, is “contrary to the Catholic faith.”65 What this criticism seems to miss is precisely how human-centered Dupuis’ Christology is. It is not religious traditions that would complete what Christ began, it is human persons who would do so even in the context of other religious traditions. Dupuis grants positive salvific value to other religious traditions inasmuch as they allow human beings to participate in enacting God’s reign, inaugurated by Christ, across all the world and through all of time. What is primarily important for Dupuis’ Christology is the meaning of Christ for all of humanity, not the meaning of Christ for the other religious traditions per se. In this way, it is the human person, in her very connection to God and her role in enacting God’s reign, who becomes responsible for participating in the realiza- tion of salvation. George Lindbeck believes that Dupuis remains “doctrinally traditional” because he “insists that it is the particular divine self-

60Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Notification on the book “Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism” by Fr. Jacques Dupuis, S.J., (24 January 2001), preface, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ cfaith/documents/rc_ con_cfaith_doc_20010124_dupuis_en.html. 61Franz Cardinal König, “Let the Spirit Breath” in In Many and Diverse Ways,14–17. 62Peter Phan, Review of Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism by Jacques Dupuis, S.J., Dialogue & Alliance 14 (Spring-Summer 2000): 122. 63Terrence Nichols, Review of Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, by Jacques Dupuis, S.J., Cross Currents 49 (1999): 411. 64Notification, II.3. 65Notification, V.8.

communication in Jesus, God incarnate, which unsurpassably identifies who God is (what God is remains unknown, incomprehensible to Chris- tians).”66 We know God concretely only as Christ, and we are unable, because of the relativized historical status of Jesus of Nazareth, to assert that this is God’s absolute manifestation. Gerald O’Collins sees Dupuis as maintaining a “consistently Thomistic position” by rejecting any inflated use of the term “absolute.”67 Out of a commitment to hold history and metaphysics in tension, Dupuis asks the question of how historical truths relate to the transcendent world.68 His answer is that because Jesus is in effect a historical truth, we cannot assert that he, as the Word in human form, would exhaust the transcendent God. Dupuis advances beyond the theology of Karl Rahner, who is typi- cally understood to be the architect of the Church’s understanding of itself in relation to religious pluralism. Like Dupuis, Rahner presumes that God’s offer of salvation is universal and also, like Dupuis, Rahner is attentive to the human dimension of Christology. However, for Rah- ner, Christ is the event in human history that brings the history of God’s self communication to completion.69 Dupuis’ response to this would be that as long as we are working in and through the category of humanity—a category decisively consecrated by the Christ event—we cannot speculate on completion, quantitative fullness, or absoluteness. Examining Dupuis’ work through the rubric of my proposed correlational method for theology allows me to draw four conclusions about Dupuis’ Christology which connect with the four reflexive questions of this methodology. First, Dupuis’ integrative approach and careful use of sources from the Christian tradition position his work squarely within the prescribed limits of orthodoxy. Second, his analysis of the present situation fully acknowledges the reality of pluralism. Because Dupuis embraces rather than ignores this reality, he is able to self-consciously situate himself among current theoretical and philosophical debates. I have argued that he takes up two particular philosophical issues—rational subjectivity and the tension between metaphysics and history—and critically and constructively examines them through the course of his Christological project. Third, in his critical and constructive work which seeks to answer the question framed by Macquarrie—namely, who Jesus is for us today—Dupuis is principally concerned with the issue of how humanity figures into Christ’s salvific

66George Lindbeck, Review of Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism by Jacques Dupuis, S.J., International Bulletin of Missionary Research 22 (1998): 34. 67Gerald O’Collins, “Jacques Dupuis: His Person and His Work” in In Many and Diverse Ways, 24. 68Sartori, 86. 69Roger Haight, “Jesus Christ and Religious Pluralism” in Thinking of Christ, ed. Tatha Wiley (New York: Continuum, 2003), 94.

mediation. Because he allows himself to fully encounter the fact of pluralism, he anticipates how his distinctively Christian statements will function in a pluralistic world. Fourth, because Dupuis’ Christol- ogy sets up Christ as challenging the very project of the knowing subject, Dupuis creatively shifts the weight of salvific value away from the ontological status of other religious traditions onto the functional prac- tices of humanity, precisely as engaged in other religious traditions, in enacting God’s reign. Dupuis’ Christology is meant to free his larger project, regarding the status of religious pluralism, from the critique that it denigrates the value of Christian truth because it sets Christian truth in relation to other religious truths. Instead, Dupuis invests Christian truth with newly found significance for all of humanity, because his Christological construction invests all of humanity with newly found significance in the practice of salvation.