[Apologetics] The Left, The Right and ‘Dominus Iesus’

Mon Aug 23 18:44:15 EDT 2010

source: 
http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/the-left-the-right-and-dominus-iesus/

Commentary

The Left, The Right and ‘Dominus Iesus’

BY Peter Kreeft

August 29-September 11, 2010 Issue| Posted 8/20/10 at 1:07 PM

Dominus Iesus, published in the summer of 2000 by the Congregation for the 
Doctrine of the Faith, is one of the most important Church documents of modern 
times. Why? Because it concerns what is absolutely central and primary in 
Christianity, Christ himself. Because it defends the most unpopular aspect of 
the Church’s claim today — its “absolutism.” And because it overcomes the 
dualism of “liberal” vs. “conservative” by which the media classify and evaluate 
everything. (I wonder how they will classify the Second Coming when they see 
it.) 

To see these three points, all we have to do is try to classify Dominus Iesus as 
“liberal” or “conservative.” I put an “L” after all its main “liberal” points 
and a “C” after all its “conservative” points, and I ended up with 30 Ls and 38 
Cs. 

But the kicker is that it is not half and half, or halfway in between. It is so 
“liberal” precisely because it is so “conservative.” 

To understand this, we should first try to spear those two slippery fish: the 
“liberal” and the “conservative.” I see four essential differences.
First, liberals begin with subjectivity while conservatives begin with 
objectivity. 

Liberals prioritize personal freedom. Conservatives prioritize objective truth. 
Liberals absolutize persons and see truth as relative to persons. Conservatives 
absolutize truth and see persons as relative to truth. (Both are right in what 
they affirm and wrong in what they deny. Both persons and truth are absolute.)
Second, in their anthropology, liberals prioritize the heart while conservatives 
prioritize the mind. An attempted mutual heart-and-brain transplant between a 
conservative and a liberal failed because no one could find a conservative who 
would give up his heart to a liberal or a liberal who had any brains to give to 
a conservative.
Third, liberals emphasize the abstract universal, the cosmopolitan and the 
global while conservatives emphasize the concrete particular: individuals, 
families, neighborhoods and nations. 

Fourth, most obviously, liberals love change and conservatives love permanence; 
liberals love the new, conservatives the old. That is a matter of temperament 
rather than ideological content, for anti-Establishment liberals turn into 
Establishment conservatives when they succeed. And truth is not told by clocks 
any more than time is told by syllogisms.
These four differences manifest themselves in religion as Modernism vs. 
Fundamentalism, especially regarding salvation. Liberals say you are saved by 
subjective sincerity, love and openness to the new; conservatives by objective 
truth and fidelity to the old. Thus, Modernists are typically universalists and 
inclusivists regarding salvation (“We’re all going to heaven, except perhaps the 
Fundamentalists”), while Fundamentalists are typically exclusivists (“You’re 
going to hell because you’re not us”).
When Dominus Iesus debuted, both groups gagged. The Fundamentalists found it too 
liberal and universalistic. The Liberals found it too conservative and 
exclusivist. It’s not surprising that it happened to Dominus Iesus because the 
same thing happened to Jesus himself: Sadducees and Pharisees, Herodians and 
Zealots, suddenly found one thing to agree about. They had found their common 
enemy.
Throughout Christian history the pattern has repeated itself. There have always 
been the “faith alone” fundamentalists (Tatian, Tertullian, Bernard, Luther) and 
the “reason trumps faith” liberals (Origen, Abelard, Spinoza, Bultmann), but 
also the “both-and” defenders of mainline orthodoxy (Justin Martyr, Augustine, 
Aquinas, Newman, Chesterton).
The same threefold pattern manifests in Judaism. In Islam, of course, the “faith 
alone” people won the center of the battlefield. Dominus Iesus not only 
overcomes the “liberal”/“conservative” divide but also unites the positive in 
both while rejecting the negative. It is not a compromise but a “higher 
synthesis.” Thus many of my labels were neither “L” nor “C” but “LC.” 

The three main points of the document concern 1) Christ, 2) the Catholic Church 
and 3) the Kingdom of God. The first is the longest and most important. Its 
central passage says that:
“God, who desires to call all people to himself in Christ … does not fail to 
make himself present in many ways, not only to individuals, but also to entire 
peoples through their spiritual riches, of which their religions are the main 
and essential expression even when they contain ‘gaps, insufficiencies and 
errors.’ Therefore the sacred books of other religions, which in actual fact 
direct and nourish the existence of their followers, receive from the mystery of 
Christ the elements of goodness and grace which they contain.
“The salvific action of Jesus Christ, with and through his Spirit, extends 
beyond the visible boundaries of the Church to all humanity … for all men of 
good will in whose hearts grace is active invisibly. For since Christ died for 
all, and since all men 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 
made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery.” But “they acquire 
meaning and value only from Christ’s own mediation, and they cannot be 
understood as parallel or complementary to his.”
You can see how this would deeply offend both Modernists and Fundamentalists. 
Just as Jesus himself did.
The point of Dominus Iesus is that it is precisely the “conservative” or 
“traditional” “high Christology” of the Church and the Bible — so uncompromising 
on Christ’s full divinity, “unicity” or uniqueness and universality — that 
allows us to have a very “liberal” hope for the salvation of non-Christians. 
Because all truth and goodness come from him, the truth and goodness in the 
hearts, lives and religions of non-Christians are his action in their cultures 
and their hearts.
Second, since the Church is not Christ’s artifact but his very body, what is 
true of him is true of her. Dominus Iesus refutes the “liberal” separation of 
the two (three cheers for Christ, one for the Church) by correcting its 
misinterpretation of Vatican II’s statement that Christ’s Church “subsists in” 
the Catholic Church: 

“With the expression subsistit in, the Second Vatican Council sought to 
harmonize two doctrinal statements: on the one hand, that the Church of Christ, 
despite the divisions which exist among Christians, continues to exist fully 
only in the Catholic Church, and on the other hand, that ‘outside of her 
structure, many elements can be found of sanctification and truth’ … but … they 
derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the 
Catholic Church. … It is necessary to keep these two truths together, namely the 
real possibility of salvation in Christ for all mankind and the necessity of the 
Church for this salvation.”
Finally, “the Church is not an end unto herself, since she is ordered toward the 
Kingdom of God, of which she is the seed, sign and instrument. Yet, while 
remaining distinct from Christ and the Kingdom, the Church is indissolubly 
united to both. … The Kingdom of God … is not identified with the Church in her 
visible and social reality. In fact, ‘the action of Christ and the Spirit 
outside the Church’s visible boundaries’ must not be excluded.”
Justin Martyr, the first Christian philosopher, said that because Christ is the 
Logos who enlightens all men (John 1:9), whatever has been truly said by the 
pagan philosophers is properly Christian. All truth is ultimately his truth, not 
Buddha’s or Socrates’ or Muhammad’s. 

Thus our “liberal” assessment of the truths in other religions is based on our 
“conservative” Christology. This is the double reason, the both “conservative” 
and “liberal” reason, why we will not and cannot shut up, why we insist on 
telling the Good News to everyone (including Jews and Muslims): because Christ 
is the only Savior and because he is already at work in their lives. 

A prolific author and popular speaker, Peter Kreeft is a professor of philosophy 
at Boston College and the King’s College in New York City. This piece is adapted 
from an essay he wrote for NCRegister.com.(See this "Register Exclusive.") 

Like a deer that longs for running waters so my soul longs for you, O God.
Ps 42:1

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