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Will the followers of other religions who have not heard of the gospel be saved? Since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic church has been grappling with this question, culminating in a recent document, Dominus Iesus in 2000. In the post-DI climate, the British theologian, Gavin D'Costa, has been described as a "representative post-DI theologian of religions." And with good reason, since other theologians such as Jacques Dupuis whose work along the lines of "neo-Rahnerianism" have been curtailed by DI.
D'Costa's work has spanned the past three decades and is aimed at developing a theology that echoes developments within the Catholic church's efforts to grapple with the existence of other religions. In doing so, he has appropriated the doctrine of the Trinity by reasoning it provides the very resources for interacting with "Others" and developed a form of Trinitarian inclusivism. Based on the work of patristic theologians such as Lewis Ayres and Michel Barnes and their conception of a "Pro-Nicene" theological matrix, this book is an attempt to assess whether D'Costa's utilization of trinitarian resources for contemporary concerns is faithful to the tradition. The book concludes that while there is much to commend in D'Costa's system, there remain some features not fully consonant with classical Trinitarianism.
List of contents
Chapter 1 The Roman Catholic Theology of Religions
Chapter 2 Gavin D'Costa's Trinitarian Theology of Religions
Chapter 3 The Trinitarian Theology of Basil of Caesarea
Chapter 4 An Assessment of D'Costa's Trinitarian Theology of Religions based on Cappadocian Trinitarianism
Glossary
About the author
By Loe Joo Tan
Summary
This book examines the trinitarian underpinnings of a form of inclusivism that has been propounded by British theologian Gavin D’Costa by drawing from the work of the Cappadocian Father Basil of Caesarea and his doctrine of the Trinity.
