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JESUS CHRIST AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM

The significance of Jesus Christ in a world of many religions has been a major theological issue for at least a century. It has become more acute in the last 15 years or so, due partly to immigration. Increasingly, Buddhists, Hindus, and Moslems live not just "over there," but are also neighbors, colleagues, and friends. 

Perhaps more significant is today's "postmodern" climate. Postmodernists complain that absolute belief systems can function oppressively. To remedy this, they stress the cultural conditioning of all knowledge, and often insist that no one religion can be superior to others. 

Tendencies like these have sparked at least two trends in current discussion of this issue. The first inclines away from "exclusivist" towards "inclusivist" understandings among some evangelicals. The second leads from inclusivism towards "pluralism" among some more liberal theologians. I will define these terms and describe these changes in the first two sections below. Following this, I will suggest some constructive responses to each. 

(1) From Exclusivism to Inclusivism

(A) Exc1usivism makes two main claims. The first is ontological: Jesus Christ is the only source of salvation. The second is epistemological: salvation can only be received through explicit confession of faith in Jesus, which of course must involve some knowledge of him. Both claims apparently express the obvious meaning of texts such as Acts 4:12 ("there is no other name under heaven given among humans by which we must be saved") and John 14:6 ("I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me"). Historically, most "evangelicals" have probably held this view. 

According to some exclusivists, knowledge necessary for this confession is almost always communicated through Christian witness. John Sanders, in his helpful overview of the options (No Other Name [???????????, 1992]) calls this position "restrictivism." Its proponents, he claims, include John Calvin and some current evangelicals, mostly in the reformed tradition, such as R.C. Sproul, C.F.H. Henry, and R. Nash. Most restrictivists, however, allow that non-Christian religions contain some true knowledge of God, though never enough for salvation. 

Exclusivism, however, exists in two other forms, according to Sanders. One proposes that Jesus appears to everyone at death, offering salvation. It has been held mostly by Roman Catholics, though several evangelicals (such as N. Geisler) embrace it. The second maintains that Christ will encounter people after death. Support is often found in Jesus' preaching to the dead (see 1 Pet 3:18-20; 4:6), and/or in the notion, common in Eastern Orthodoxy, that everyone will respond positively or negatively to him when he returns for judgment. Theologians such as G. Lindbeck, G. Fackre, D. Bloesch and W. Grudem espouse this general position. 

These last two positions seem to account better than restrictivism for passages that affirm God's desire for everyone's salvation, such as 2 Pet 3:9 (God is "not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance") and John 12:32 ("I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself").They seem to allow for some continuity between one's awareness of God through a non-Christian religion and one's encounter with Jesus at or after death. Still, both are exclusivist, since they insist that salvation comes only through explicit knowledge and confession of Jesus Christ. 

(B) Inclusivism makes the same ontological claim: Jesus is salvation's only source. Yet it makes a different epistemological claim: awareness and explicit confession of this source is not always necessary for salvation, for some can be saved by responding positively to their deepest awareness of God. This could come through another religion. 

Inclusivists often argue that in a world where many do not hear, or hear rightly, of Jesus, their position makes good sense of texts affirming God's universal salvific will (such as those just quoted). They also stress passages that seem to affirm salvation apart from explicit knowledge of Christ, such as Rom 2:15-16 (through the law "written on their hearts") and Acts 10:35 ("in every nation anyone who fears [God] and does what is right is acceptable to him"). 

Many inclusivists find their strongest biblical evidence in the fact that before Christ many Israelites experienced salvation without specific knowledge of him. They also point out that those passages that explain faith most fully-Romans 4 and Hebrews 11-refer chiefly to such persons, and make little reference to Jesus. 

Although many evangelicals have been inclusivists, this position is receiving much more attention and affirmation today through people like Sanders (most fully in What about Those Who Have Never Heard? [???????, 1995]) and C. Pinnock (A Wideness in God's Mercy [?????????, 1992]). This may represent the rise of a somewhat "Arminian" orientation over against the reformed approach, which many have equated with "evangelical" theology (see especially Pinnock et al., The Openness of God [????????, 1992]). 

This hardly means that salvation for inclusivists is attained by human achievement or insight. God initiates and sustains the process through means such as prevenient grace (especially in the Wesleyan tradition) or the universal working of Christ (e.g., John 1:4-5, 9). Nevertheless, some inclusivists distinguish between "believers," who have no explicit relationship with Jesus, and "Christians," who do. Since the latter kind of salvation is richer, and would be desired by genuine members of the first group, strong incentives exist for bringing the Christian message to them. 

Many different appraisals of non-Christian religions can be called inclusivist. A "weak" form would postulate that salvation sometimes occurs through such faiths, but not in regular or predictable ways. God, it supposes, speaks through very different features of these religions, and in varying ways, in diverse situations. 

A "strong" form affirms that many such religions are regular channels of saving grace. Many inclusivists, especially Catholic ones, endorse K. Rahner's claim (made in the 1960s) that since humans are not simply spiritual individuals, but are intrinsically shaped by sociohistorical contexts, the cultural forms through which they experience the divine-non-Christian religions-must be such channels. For Rahner, however, since this grace (ontologically) comes from Christ, many of their adherents are, unknowingly, "anonymous Christians." 

(2) From Inc1usivism to Pluralism

Despite "strong" inclusivism, many studies in comparative religion suggest that the major religions are far too diverse to be vehicles, in any regular sense, of the same religious reality. Pluralists, drawing on postmodernism, often conclude that different religions mediate quite different realities. They find the claim that all of these really come from Christ imperialistic. Like postmodernists, most pluralists believe, with J. Hick, that claims about Christ's ultimacy have "done much to poison the relationships between the Christian minority and the non-Christian majority of the world's population by sanctifying exploitation and oppression on a gigantic scale" (The Myth of Christian Uniqueness [ed. P. Knitter and J. Hick; ???????????, 1987] 17). 

Pluralism was perhaps most influentially introduced through P. Knitter's No Other Name? (???????, 1985). Knitter concluded that other religious "names" are salvific, and that Jesus' ultimacy is not an essential belief for Christians. He urged Christians to dialogue with other faiths without assuming the latter. 

Pluralism emerged more definitively as a major theology of religions in The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, with contributions from such theologians as G. Kaufman, W.C. Smith, and R.R. Ruether. This volume soon elicited thoughtful, critical responses, such as those collected in Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered (ed. G. D'Costa; ?????????, 1990). 

Knitter's essay in Myth maintained that, despite diversities among religions, dialogue among them should lead to common commitments and actions. In order to do so, it must find criteria for distinguishing the desirable from the undesirable in each faith. He proposed that human liberation and wholeness become the chief such criterion. Knitter claimed that it was not "theological" (like affirmations about Jesus' uniqueness) but ethical; not theoretical but praxiological. Conscious of postmodernism's antipathy towards absolutes, he called it a common "context" or "approach" rather than a universal norm. 

Recently, however, Knitter has focused more on christology and sought to align his views with Christian tradition (in The Uniqueness of Jesus [ed. L. Swidler; ???????? 1997] and Jesus and the Other Names [??????????, 1996]). Knitter finds NT titles for Jesus highly metaphorical and widely diverse. They are intended much more to encourage practical discipleship than to convey ontological truth. Thus there can be no final way of defining Jesus' significance. 

Nevertheless, Knitter attempts to identify Jesus' most important feature. He finds this in Jesus' call to realize God's Reign through acts of love and justice. Today this means "to transform this world from one of division and injustice to one of love and mutuality" (Uniqueness, 13). 

In contrast to The Myth of Christian Uniqueness, Knitter now affirms Jesus' uniqueness. It includes (1) universality: Jesus is in some way meaningful for all people; (2) decisiveness and normativity: he calls for change in conduct and enunciates behavioral norms; and (3) indispensable: everyone must know about him; this provides impetus for Christian mission. Yet while these adjectives describe Jesus truly, they do not apply only to him. Other religious figures also convey universal and indispensable truths, call us to change, and provide behavioral norms. Uniqueness, then, does not mean that Jesus is God's full, definitive, or unsurpassable revelation. 

Nonetheless, Knitter also endeavors to affirm Jesus' deity. He understands it as representative: that Jesus fully reveals God's will; rather than ontological: that Jesus is that divine agent who alone brings salvation. Knitter can say that Jesus' being participates in God's, and even that the totality of his being was divine. Yet he means that Jesus was a man wholly filled with the divine, not that he alone was God the Son from eternity. For in the former sense, figures of other religions can also be divine. 

(3) Some Constructive Responses

(A) Jesus' Uniqueness Are representative categories fully adequate for affirming Jesus' deity? I would say no, chiefly because Scripture presents salvation as an act which only a uniquely divine agent can perform (e.g., Isa 45:20-23). For this reason, all people are dependent on this act. That is why it is said that Jesus "takes away the sins of the world" (John 1:29), and that he "died for all" so that all may live for him (2 Cor 5:14-15). Further, although something of God is known in many religions, now that Jesus has been raised, God "commands all people everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30-31). 

To be sure, biblical presentations of Jesus' saving work, as Knitter claims, involve many varied metaphors. Their meanings cannot all be finally defined. Yet "the world," "all" and "all people everywhere" are not metaphor. Though many dimensions of Jesus' saving work surpass full understanding, the claim that they apply to everyone is clear. 

Biblical language about Jesus' person also involves metaphor. Yet while it cannot define Jesus fully, it can describe some aspects of him truly. Many such expressions clearly refer to some kind of personal agency Who shares the divine eternity. This Son is "the exact imprint of God's very being..." (Heb 1:2-3). "He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Col 1:17). "In the beginning" he "was God" (John 1:1). 

Such texts clearly intend to indicate that Jesus was more than a man filled with divine presence (though he was also this). Somehow, they affirm, that same agent Who created the worlds is the one who lived, died, and rose for us. Somehow, God's very self experienced all of what it means to be human, including death. Since such an embracing of human reality by the divine is integral to Jesus' saving work, he must be "ontologically" divine. 

In addition, however, Jesus' call to participate in God's Reign is, as Knitter insists, essential to his uniqueness. This kingdom transcends all other social visions. To affirm Jesus' deity ontologically while neglecting this call is to deny his lordship. Nevertheless, performing acts of love and justice in his name might not be equivalent to transforming the whole world in a liberationist sense, as Knitter seems to suggest. 

(B) Pluralism and Universal Truths. Pluralists generally endorse postmodernism's critique of the oppressive potential of universal assertions. Yet while they often reject affirmations of Jesus' unique universality, pluralists usually find that they must presuppose, or at least search for, some other absolute(s). 

Knitter's substitution of human liberation and wholeness provides a good example. To be sure, he wants to call this criterion ethical rather than ontological. Yet the interfaith cooperation he lauds will not get far unless its participants presuppose, or work towards, compatible ontological understandings of what is truly "human," and therefore of what is truly liberating. Pluralistic theologians, it seems, cannot be consistently pluralistic so long as they seek meaningful interreligious agreement. 

Nevertheless, universal affirmations can indeed function oppressively. Claims like "Jesus is Lord" have often accompanied, and promoted, allegedly universal, but actually ethnocentric, western values. The remedy, however, lies not in rejecting all universals (which is impossible), but in recognizing the unusual character of such affirmations about Christ. 

His universal lordship contrasts markedly with the oppressive lordships exercised in this world. It is a self-emptying, or "kenotic," lordship (cf. Phil 2:7), which gives itself fully for, even suffers and dies for, its subjects. Jesus as Lord does not oppress his subjects, but raises them up to fulfill their created potential. Therefore his universal kenotic lordship critiques most sharply the alleged lordships of all oppressive rulers, belief systems, and values (cf. Luke 11:25-27). Allegiance to Jesus' exclusive lordship frees people from such claims. 

(C) Exclusivism or Inclusivism? Jesus, I have affirmed, is ontologically necessary for salvation. But what about epistemology? Can only those who know about him and confess him explicitly be saved? 

God is known most fully in a "face to face" sense through faith in Jesus. Yet many people today have not heard of him, and many others, often due to false alliances of the gospel with western culture, know of him only distortedly. Yet the God of the whole earth desires everyone's salvation. Might salvation, then, be available to some who do not hear properly of Jesus through Christian witness in this life? 

While Jesus may appear to some non-Christians at death, Scripture offers no real evidence that this will occur for everyone. In contrast, however, the Bible provides numerous examples, from ancient Israel and occasionally from surrounding nations (e.g., Melchizedek [Heb 7:17], Naaman [2 Kings 5]) of people who surely received salvation without explicit knowledge of Christ. Consequently, it appears that today salvation is becoming available to some, including people in other religions, who lack accurate awareness of him. (Perhaps, however, this salvation will be definitively accepted when such people respond positively to Jesus at his return for judgment.) 

Nevertheless, the great diversities among religions, which pluralists emphasize, undercut any "strong inclusivism." Non-Christian religions understand essentials like God and salvation so differently that they cannot, as overall worldviews or established institutions, be regular channels of Christ's grace. Nonetheless, all major religions embrace an enormous variety of teachings and experiences and are practiced in astonishingly diverse ways. Therefore we may hope that Christ, working differently in different circumstances, sometimes utilizes various features of these faiths to draw towards himself those who lack sufficient accurate knowledge of him. 

By Thomas Finger, Eastern Mennonite Seminary.