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The Death of Jesus: Its Universal Impact

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Louis Roy OP
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I am convinced that many reject this aspect of Christianity because it is misunderstood. Thus I would like to present it in a way that may bring its meaning to light. Many contemporary exegetes and Catholic theologians have renounced the ‘high Christology’ which underpins the doctrine of Redemption. However, if one purifies it of certain unfortunate interpretations acquired in modern times, the classic soteriology maintained by Catholicism may turn out to provide the best account of the Christian experience of salvation. Insights into this Catholic conception can also aid interreligious dialogue.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 83 , Issue 981 , November 2002 , pp. 517 - 528
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Helminiak, Daniel A., The Same Jesus: A Contemporary Christology (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1986), 259Google Scholar.

2 For this distinction between the causes and effects of Jesus’ death I am indebted to Anthony Akinwale, OP, a former doctoral student at Boston College, now a professor of theology at Ibadan, Nigeria.

3 Girard, Rene, Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World trans. Barm, Stephen and Metteer, Michael (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987), Book II, Ch. 2Google Scholar.

4 Girard, , I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, trans. Williams, James G. (New York: Orbis, 2001), 155–156Google Scholar,.

5 Several scholars have noted this weakness in Girard, notably Scubla, Lucien, ‘The Christianity of Rend Girard and the Nature of Religion’, in Violence and Truth: On the Work of Rene Girard, ed. Dumouchel, Paul (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), 160–178 and 269–279Google Scholar.

6 Schwager, Raymund, Must There Be Scapegoats? Violence and Redemption in the Bible, trans. Assad, Maria L. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987, reprint in New York: Crossroad, 2000), 82–91 and 200–204Google Scholar; Jesus in the Drama of Salvation: Toward a Biblical Doctrine of Redemption, trans. Williams, James G. and Haddon, Paul (New York: Crossroad, 1999), 177–186Google Scholar.

7 In Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, trans. Dych, William V. (New York: Crossroad, 1978), 282–283Google Scholar, Karl Rahner, while maintaining the notion of sacrifice, raises relevant critical questions regarding its various senses and implications.

8 Jesus in the Drama of Salvation, 225–228.

9 I cannot list them here, for lack of space. See Schnackenburg, Rudolf, ‘Sacrifice’, B. ‘New Testament’, in Sacramentum Verbi: An Encyclopedia of Biblical Theology, ed. Bauer, Johannes B. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), 803–807Google Scholar.

10 See Roy, Louis OP, Self‐Actualization and the Radical Gospel (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 53–56Google Scholar.

11 A text quoted by Moingt, Joseph, L'homme qui venait de Dieu (Paris: Cerf, 1993), 412Google Scholar; see the whole of his chap. 6, where he highlights, with fine nuances, God's design and the sacrificial import of Jesus death.

12 See Schwager, Must There Be Scapegoats?, 188–189. Schwager draws attention to these two biblical texts in the German edition of 1978. Girard does the same later in Je vois Satan tomber comme Veclair (Paris: Grasset, 1999), ch. 8; for title of English translation, see n. 4.

13 See Schwager, Must There Be Scapegoats?, 183–200; Jesus in the Drama of Salvation, 169–172.

14 Semmelroth, Otto, ‘Sacrifice’, Ill. ‘Sacrifice of Christ’ in Encyclopedia of Theology: The Concise Sacramentum Mundi, ed. Rahner, Karl (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), 1492–1495, at 1493Google Scholar.

15 Alison, James, Raising Abel: The Recovery of the Eschatological Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1996), 46Google Scholar.

16 Strictly speaking, one can sacrifice only to God, since this is an act of worship. Notwithstanding this traditional acceptation, we may say, with Alison, that the death of Jesus was God's sacrifice to us humans in the sense that the Father ‘gave him up for all of us’ (Romans 8:32).

17 Moore, Sebastian, ‘The New Convivium’, The Downside Review 111 (1996): 40–55, at 41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Maury Schepers, OP, ‘An Integral Spirituality of the Paschal Mystery’, New Blackfriars 82 (2001): 283–290, at 286Google Scholar.

19 Bezancon, Jean‐Noël, Dieu sauve (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, and Montreal: Bellarmin, 1985), 64Google Scholar.

20 See Roy, Louis OP The Passion of Jesus A Test Case for Providence’. New Blackfriars 79 (1998) 512–523CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 See Hefling, Charles C. Jr ‘A Perhaps Permanently valid Achievement: Lonergan on Christ's Satisfaction’, Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies 1992: 51–76, esp. 60–61Google Scholar.

22 I want to thank Harvey Egan SJ and Matthew Levering who helped me make this article clearer and more elegant.

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