《【宗教研究】拯救与多重拯救：在其他宗教中找到上帝的痕迹：超越静态的评估》.pdf

Modem Theology 10:2 April 1994 ISSN 0266-7177 REVELATION AND REVELATIONS: DISCERNING GOD IN OTHER RELIGIONS. BEYOND A STATIC VALUATION GAVIN DCOSTA Introduction In much of the recent discussion on a Christian theology of religions, two major warnings have been sounded . First, there is the danger of smother- ing where Otherness is either destroyed in assimilation, or entirely negated 1 in rejection. The initial smothering is suffocation by love whereby liberal minded pluraliste insist that all religions are the same and thereby to be respected and fully tolerated . The alternative is when hard-line exclusivists deny that there can by anything of God within our religions so that they are all branded as pure unbelief or sinful error . While being on opposite ends of the spectrum of the debate the irony is that both pluraliste and exclusivists succeed in smothering Otherness . Both tactics are guilty of static valuations . (There is of course the further irony that pluraliste, despite their tolerant and fair-minded intentions, end up negating the Other in their magnanimous assimilation!)2 The second warning that has been sounded regards closure . It has paral- lels with the previous criticism. It is concerned that theologies of religions (pluralism, exclusivism and inclusivism) have provided overarching theo- logical structures that have answered all the questions prior to any real meeting with other religions and therefore prejudge the question . This 3 warning is sounded by those who cast a plague on all three camps, and by those within one camp upon those from another.4 Dr Gavin DCosta University of Bristol, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, 36 Tyndalls Park Road, Bristol BS8 1PL, UK © Basil Blackwell Ltd 1994. Published by Blackw