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CHAPTER VII

CHRISTIANITY
AND THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS


In the previous chapter I have shown that Christianity, in a fifth stage, now faces other mentalities. Not one of them has the special privilege to illumine new possibilities for the intellection of the revealed deposit. Indeed the history of revelation is not finished at all. Furthermore, these mentalities have many religions. They are not simply the paganism, which St. Paul encountered, but the very religious fact in its whole complexity and magnitude. Christianity, in its fourth stage, i.e., in the encounter with modern reason, had to take into account its own internal history. Now, with this other type of encounter, it has to take into account its own historical reality within the history of religions. The first issue lead to a theology of the history of revelation. The second cannot fail but to culminate in a theology of the history of religions. It is still a theology just now taking its first uncertain steps. I am going to dedicate this last chapter to it. What is theologically for Christianity the history of religions? Christianity presents itself as true. Fine. But then, from {328} the point of view of the history of religions, three inexorable questions do arise.

First: What is Christianity as a true religion, not only in itself, but in history?
Second: What are the other religions?
And, third: What is Christianity in its unity with the rest of the religions of history?


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§ 1

CHRISTIANITY AS TRUE RELIGION

It is not only the case that Christianity may be true. Of course, Christianity already presupposes this. That is not the question. The question is to know what it is that this truth represents with respect to the fact of the religious history of mankind. That is the question, namely, the problem of Christianity as the way of access to God¹.

We have said that Christ preaches God the Father of all men, mercy, and the Beatitudes as identification badges for membership to the kingdom of Heaven, etc. One will immediately think this is true. However, even though no small matter, this is not what is most essential and crucial. Because what is most essential and crucial is not the fact that Christ may have preached a divine truth, but that He, really and physically, is the very divine truth. And that is an entirely different matter. Here He not only functions as a prophet and educator, but at the same time functions as a physically existent reality on Earth. He is the very God, and with that the access to God is not simply the acceptance of some truths via the way of transcendence. It is now something more profound. Indeed, He is the very way of transcendence. God is reached, yes, the Christian God, but in a Christian and divine way. In this sense Christianity represents, as religion, the deification of the way of transcendence. Not only is God accessed, but {330} God is accessed divinely, in a divine way. That was precisely the attitude of Christ².

When we say that the Christian religion is the true one, we mean that it is a definitive truth, where definitive means that it is precisely the divine access to God. For that reason it is the religion, the definitive truth, the only way that actually leads to the reality of God. That is what we mean when we say that Christianity is true religion, i.e., not only that what Christianity says is true, correctly understood, but that in addition Christianity is precisely the deification of the way of transcendence. Christ is not only the one who preaches about God, but is actually God himself leading all men to the most profound reality of God.

Having said this, we now take up the second question. What are the other religions in themselves?


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§ 2

THE OTHER RELIGIONS IN THEMSELVES

This is an issue, which becomes progressively sharper, as greater energy is displayed when affirming that Christianity is a definitive truth. What happens then to the other religions?

A) Let us first take the other religions in themselves. Undeniably, we must affirm that all religions intrinsically and formally involve —we shall see in what sense— an access to the God of Christianity. There are two possibilities to interpret this access. One is the most obvious possibility, which consists in saying that it is the case of an individual access. All men, taken individually, can have access to Christ. If they have another religion, they have access to Christ despite having another religion. This is precisely the idea of good faith. A Buddhist in good faith, a Mohammedan in good faith, a pantheist in good faith, they all reach the Christian God. And they reach Him precisely because they have good faith, i.e., notwithstanding the religion they have.

However, Is this the only possible interpretation? One might think there is a different possibility, which consists in considering that the Buddhist or the Brahman do not reach the Christian God despite being Buddhists or Brahmans, but do so in the measure they are good Buddhists and good Brahmans, and precisely by being so. In this case the objective body of religion has an intrinsic value for the access to the God of Christianity, and not just individuals because of their good faith. {332} Precisely because he is a good Buddhist he can reach the reality of Christ. This may seem somewhat paradoxical. Not quite. Not everything in the religion of Israel can be transplanted into Christianity. The attitude, which the whole ancient world and Israel adopt towards their enemies is not tolerable inside Christianity. With respect to some precepts Christ himself said: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now” (Jn 16:12). Be that as it may, the objective body of religion can actually lead to the Christian God without being intrinsically and formally the one of Christianity. There is, therefore, a universality of all religions with respect to the God of Christianity. A universality that is not simply individual, but an objective universality.

B) In the second place, every religion is not only universal, but in addition none is false simpliciter. That would be quite absurd. Other religions, as we have seen, utilize ways different than the way of monotheism. They are ways, in the etymological sense of the term, “ab-errant”, i.e., they roam about, but through roaming they reach the God of Christianity. There is no doubt about that. Therefore, this means that the objective body in which this “ab-erration” exists —insofar as it actually reaches the Christian God in its own “circumlocutory” way— is precisely a Christianity, but "de-form"³ (Sp. “de-forme”). Every non-Christian religion is intrinsically and formally a “de-form” Christianity. The deformity of the objective body of a religion is just the inexorable consequence of the “ab-errant” characteristic of the way that was taken. And this applies absolutely to {333} irreligion as well. It makes no exception because the voice of conscience is —as I mentioned above— a real, and actual access to the God of Christianity. No doubt about it. When Christianity investigated the problem of martyrdom of the non-baptized it has not eliminated this way as a supreme access to the possession of God, and to belong to the body of the Church. If a monotheist —for example, a Moslem— is sacrificed purely and simply because of his monotheist idea, he will not be a martyr coram ecclesiam —as theologians say with subtle distinctions—, but he will undoubtedly be one before God, before the Christian God. Furthermore, if a polytheist were to be sacrificed precisely for having a religion in a society that has none, he would undoubtedly be a martyr before God. There is no doubt whatsoever that the cases do not end here. As I have mentioned numerous times⁵, those who die in absolute fidelity to a position of their conscience unquestionably shared and maintained, are martyrs before God, regardless of the particular confession, which has sacrificed him.

Undoubtedly, due to the particular characteristic belonging to the condition of any objective body of religion —an existing social body, or the pure voice of conscience— every religion, and every religious attitude has a dimension of universality, {334} and a dimension of truth by virtue of which all these positions are “de-formed” Christianities. All of this means that other religions are not only religions because there is a surrender of man to the reality of God, but in addition because that surrender is absolutely human. In other words, man surrenders to God humanly, with his whole mentality —the diversity of religions— and through all the different historical ways. This is what St. Paul expressed so graphically in the Areopagus with his phrase: pselaphán ton Theón, “grope for Him” (Acts 17:27). The attitude, which St. Paul assumes with respect to the ágnotos Theós, the “Unknown God” (Acts 17:23) is classical on this point: humanity groping for God, but precisely for the Christian God, and unquestionably accessing Him.

Certainly, if the other religions constitute real and actual accesses to the possession of the Christian God, and they obviously represent a “de-form” Christianity —but a Christianity nevertheless— then the question surfaces: Are all religions equivalent? That is the third question: Christianity and the other religions.


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§ 3

CHRISTIANITY AND THE OTHER RELIGIONS

Christianity cannot deny, or will ever deny, that it is the definitive truth in the sense I have explained above: it is the definitive truth, because it is the divine way of access to the Christian God. Now we face three questions.

In the first place: What is the Christian truth with respect to the other religions?
Second: What are the other religions with respect to Christianity?
And third: when we say “Christianity and the other religions”, In what does the copulative “and” consist? On this will depend, ultimately, what we may consider what the history of the other religions is.

A) The truth of Christianity with respect to the other religions. Of course, one can compare the Christian religion to the other religions, and say, for example, that Christianity is superior to them. This is something difficult. It may clearly be so in many ways, but on the other hand, Where can we find the univocal criteria to judge on the superiority of a religion? Obviously, these criteria do depend, for the most part, on the conception of religiosity made by the one making the comparison. However, the fact that all other religions may be in one way or another a “de-form” (Sp. “deforme”) Christianity indicates that, independently of the criteria one may formulate to make a historical comparison, there is something unquestionable, which is not a syncretism {336} —as if all other religions had pieces of Christianity—, but something quite different indeed, namely, the historical transcendence of Christianity.

However, the historical transcendence of Christianity is not what constitutes the Christian truth. The Christian truth, with all its transcendence, is in the same situation the miracles of Christ were with respect to the Jews. They were nothing but semeía, signs. Many saw these signs and did not believe. A miracle is not some kind of great mechanical catastrophe. God has not performed a miracle to destroy and rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem. “Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross that we may see and believe” (Mk 15:32). He did not come down. Miracles were nothing but signs. The historical transcendence of Christianity, with all the labor one may bring to support the concept of transcendence, still remains a sign, a semeíon, facing which man will have to choose⁶.

Obviously, what is important is to know the reference point for this sign. Indeed, it points to a transcendence, to something, which is in all religions, but above each particular religion. This means that the Christian truth is not only not fragmented in the other religions, but also in one form or another —different according to each religion— is precisely inside the other religions. Therefore, Christian truth not only shares its life with the other religions, but is also something more: that in which the positive truth of all of them consists. Christian truth {337} is the very outline of the truth of the other religions. Consequently, it is the very outline of the history of religions⁷. From a theological point of view, the other religions have only been willed by God insofar as they are, in a “de-form” and “ab-errant” way, the very realization of Christianity.

If the truth of Christianity consists in being the truth of the other religions, one may then ask what the other religions are with respect to Christianity.

B) The other religions with respect to Christianity. With respect to Christianity the other religions have a position, which from my own point of view can be enunciated with three concepts.

1) In the first place, the other religions carry in themselves, as a formal constitutive element of their own truth —what scholastic terminology would call— an intrinsic Christianity. Of course, this would appear in different forms. The form Christianity has inside Islam is not the same it might have in a Polynesian polytheism. Nevertheless, Christianity is always in some measure, precisely the intrinsic dimension immanent to every religion. Every religion is a “de-form” Christianity, and therefore, carries with it an intrinsic “form-ness” (Sp. “formidad”) —sit venia verbo— of a formally Christian character. The other religions with respect to Christianity are a Christianity intrinsic to all of them.

2) In the second place, the other religions are a “de-form” Christianity. However, What do we mean by deformity? It is not the case of a deformed {338} Christianity; that would be grotesque. “De-form” is not the same as “deformed”. To be deformed is the result of an act of deformation; to pretend that the other religions have been produced by a deformation of Christianity would be an historical absurdity, something to be denied absolutely. However, this does not stop them from being “de-form”, which is a different matter altogether. What happens to this characteristic of “form-ness”, which religions have, happens also with the word “form”. All things have form, which is no impediment for the use of the word “form” to express a particular characteristic of some of them: that they are “beautiful” (Tr. note: old Sp. “form-osas”, beautiful). This is what happens with Christianity: all religions have a “form-ness”, but the formal and full “form-ness” is precisely the very Christianity. This can easily be seen in the case of martyrdom. There is no doubt whatever that Christianity recognizes many different types of martyrs before God, as I detailed above. “De-form” is precisely the result of an “ab-errant” way, but it leads to the Christian God in an “ab-errant” way, and therefore, intrinsically carries the Christian truth in its deformity.

3) In the third place, the other religions are an ignored Christianity. There has been a lot of talk about an anonymous Christianity, but we have to start from the initial point of departure, and consider the question theologically and historically, to confirm that actually the truth of Christianity is the outline of the intrinsic truth of all the other religions. Then it will be possible to make final statements about the anonymous characteristic of Christianity in the other religions.

Intrinsic, “de-form”, ignored, this presence of Christianity in the depth of the other religions is what precisely brings about the historical transcendence of Christianity. If we take these three moments at one and the same time, {339} intrinsic Christianity, “de-form” Christianity, and ignored Christianity, it means purely and simply that Christianity is the truth incorporated into all the other religions. Just as it has incorporated all the other individuals in the objective body of Christ, analogously, by this dimension of its own, Christianity has incorporated in its depth, at least inchoatively, all the other religions. The body incorporates, and in addition it incorporates historically.

________________
¹ From this point on we follow the text of the 1971 seminar.
² In the 1965 Madrid seminar Zubiri said: “Consequently, the Christian religion is not only a religion in which the Christian feels himself dragged by God, but it is the case of God himself becoming a historical moment of religion, an intrinsic moment of human history. God himself takes us to God”.
³ Zubiri will soon explain this term in the pages that follow.
⁴ Ireneus had already given the name of “martyrs” to the innocent boys murdered by Herod in Bethlehem (cf. Adversus haereses, lib. III, ch. XVI, no. 4, in Patrologiae cursus completus, series graeca, vol. VII, ed. J.-P. Migne, Paris, 1844, c. 924). Tertullian mentions baptism of blood as secundum lavacrum (cf. his Liber de Baptismo, ch. XVI, in Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina, vol. 1, ed. J.-P. Migne, Paris, 1844, c. 1217). Ciprian even affirms the baptism of blood of the catechumens substitutes for the regular baptism (cf. Epistola ad Jubaianum de haereticis baptizandis, ep. LXXIII, no. XXII, in Patrologiae cursus completus, series latina, vol. 3, ed. J.-P. Migne, Paris, 1844, cc. 1124-1125).
⁵ For example, in the two 1965 seminars on religion.
⁶ Zubiri said in the 1965 Madrid seminar: “the alleged comparative proof for the historical transcendence of its superiority is not a proof for the truth of Christianity. Christianity in history suffers from the same vicissitudes Christ suffered when He performed miracles in Israel.”
⁷ In the 1965 Madrid seminar Zubiri said: “Christianity is not only the true religion in history. It is even more: it is the very truth of the history of religions.