Part 10: Jesus Christ in Non-Christian Religions

(VI.10, p. 311). Jesus is limited in time and space, Rahner says. Non-Christians find it scandalous when Christians claim that Jesus has universal salvific significance for all times and peoples. Rahner takes up this question from the view of dogmatic theology. He asks how the Christian theologian (rather than the historian of religion) is to understand the significance of Jesus Christ for all people (A). He presupposes God's salvific will for all people and the positive role played by non-Christian religions (B). Making his question narrower, Rahner then asks how Christ is "present" in the faith of non-Christians (C). Christ is present through his Spirit, the very Spirit who was the "efficient cause" of Christ's incarnation and cross, so that Christ himself might be the "final cause" of God's self-communication to humanity. Just as the two causes are united, so the explicit Christology of Christians is united with the implicit Christology of the non-Christian responding to God's transcendental call (D). All humanity, insofar as it seeks an absolute saviour, embodies a "searching Christology" (E). This searching memory articulates itself in the many "saviours" sought and found by humanity throughout its history. All of them express a hunger for the absolute saviour we encounter in Jesus Christ.

A. The Question Within the Limits of a Dogmatic Reflection (VI.10.A, p. 312). A history of religion looks at Jesus Christ in an “a posteriori” fashion – namely, from the viewpoint of history. In that history, Jesus Christ is not the only religious figure of universal significance. The Christian dogmatic theologian, by contrast, looks at Jesus Christ in an “a priori” fashion. The dogmatic theologian looks from the viewpoint of those binding sources of faith (the OT and NT) that arose without immediate contact with most non-Christian religions. Such a dogmatic theologian begins with the testimony of Christ’s universal significance.

Given this significance, it is a fair question to ask how Christ is salvific for all. In asking this question, the Christian presupposes that non-Christians are people of good will. Their own religious beliefs testify to their good will, and God's Word may be at work in those beliefs themselves. If Christ has significance for the entire history of salvation, says the Christian, then his significance must have a place where human beings have an explicitly religious, but non-Christian, faith.

B. Two Presuppositions (VI.10.B, p. 313). In order to describe the role of Christ in non-Christian religions from a dogmatic theological standpoint, Rahner presupposes two things. First, God has a universal and salvific will that is present in the world. One sees a testimony to this universal and salvific will in the Letter to the Hebrews. Rahner treated this point in Chapter V (p. 153 ff.). There he speaks of the possibility of a genuine history of revelation outside the OT and the NT. Here he speaks of the elevation of human transcendental experience in grace. He says that this elevated transcendental experience, along with the supernatural object of that experience, are indeed supernatural revelation.

But does the notion of transcendental revelation in non-Christians actually "reach" Christ? That is what Rahner asks here. If the non-Christian's experience does not "reach" Christ, then his or her faith lacks a Christological character. But if it does reach Christ, if it does have a Christological character, then non-Christian religions may well have a positive significance, even for Christians. That is Rahner's first presupposition.

The second presupposition is that, when a non-Christian attains salvation in faith, hope, and love, then the non-Christian religion plays a role in his or her justification and salvation. If this were not the case, if the non-Christian religion had no significance, then we would be guilty of viewing salvation in an a-historical and a-social way. To postulate special revelations is arbitrary and improbable. The human being is social, and his or her decisions are mediated by social and historical life. The decision to respond to God's call to transcendence must be mediated by the non-Christian religion.

Dei Verbum 3 passes over the interval between Adam and Moses "too quickly," says Rahner. He suggests that the religions of this vast and ancient period kept alive "man's relationship to the mystery of existence" (315). To be sure, the ancient religions may have kept alive the transcendental relationship in an incomplete and possibly depraved way. But they did play a role in the history of salvation. We cannot do justice to these ancient religions, for we do not know much about them. But we may suppose that they might have had a positive function.

C. Christ and Non-Christian Religions (VI.10.C, p. 315). The two presuppositions – namely, that of God’s salvific will and that of the positive role played by non-Christian religions – prepare the way for Rahner’s next question. How, he asks, is Christ present in non-Christian religions from the viewpoint of dogmatic theology? How is Jesus Christ operative in the faith of individual non-Christians? To that question, says Rahner, he will confine himself. . . .

Section 10.C. continues in the printed version of The Foundations of Karl Rahner, now available from the Crossroad Publishing Company.