Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T07:25:30.540Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Human Diversity and Salvation in Christ

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Grace M. Jantzen
Grace M. Jantzen
Affiliation:
King's College, University of London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

What must I do to be saved? And is what I must do the same as what you must do? The Philippian jailor in the book of Acts received a most peculiar answer to the question: ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ’, said St Paul, ‘and you will be saved.’ In the context, this hardly seems appropriate. The jailor was not asking how he could be assured of a place in the next world, or how he could be reconciled to God or have his sins forgiven. His was a cry of quite unreligious desperation: was there any alternative to suicide, now that his prison was no longer secure and he had failed in his duty? The curious thing about the story is that it is recorded, not as an example of over–zealous bad manners, but as ultimately the right answer for even the jailor's situation. When Paul instructed him further, he and his household were baptized: the writer clearly intended the story to show that Paul's initial response was exactly right, and that belief in Christ brought salvation to the jailor and his family.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , December 1984 , pp. 579 - 592
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 580 note 1 Schillebeeckx, Edward, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (Eng. ed., London, Collins, 1979), p. 20.Google Scholar

page 581 note 1 Cf. Schillebeeckx, Edward, Christ: The Christian Experience in the Modern World (Eng. ed., London, SCM, 1980).Google Scholar

page 581 note 2 Cf. Pelikan, Jaroslav, The Christian Tradition, vol. I: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (roo–fwo) (Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1971), p. 143.Google Scholar

page 581 note 3 I Clement 36. 1–2.

page 582 note 1 Irenaeus, , Against the Heretics, 3. 18.Google Scholar

page 582 note 2 Clement of Alexandria, , Paedagogus, I. 5.20.4.Google Scholar

page 582 note 3 Abbott, Walter M., S. J. (ed.), The Documents of Vatican II (New York, The America Press, 1966)Google Scholar, ‘The Church’, p. 35; cf. ‘Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non–Christian Religions’.

page 583 note 1 Cf. Nineham, Dennis, The Use and Abuse of the Bible (London, Macmillan, 1976).Google Scholar

page 584 note 1 Origen, , Contra Celsus, 1. 31.Google Scholar

page 585 note 1 Cf. Cunliffe–Jones, Hubert (ed.), A History of Christian Doctrine (Edinburgh, T & T Clark Ltd, Edinburgh, 1978), p. 106.Google Scholar

page 585 note 2 Cyprian, , Epistle 73. 21.Google Scholar

page 585 note 3 Sacramentum Mundi, vol. 5, p. 407.Google Scholar

page 586 note 1 Irenaeus, , Against the Heretics, 3. 325Google Scholar; cf. Clement of Alexandria, , Proterpticus 1. 8.4Google Scholar; Athanasius, , Against Arius 1. 38 and 3. 20.Google Scholar

page 586 note 2 Cf. Camus, , The Plague (Eng. ed., Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1960), pp. 208–9Google Scholar: ‘It comes to this,’ Tarrou said almost casually, ‘what interests me is learning how to become a saint.’

‘But you don't believe in God.’

‘Exactly. Can one be a saint without God? – that's the problem, in fact the only problem, I'm up against today…You know, I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with the saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. What interests me is – being a man.’

‘Yes, we're both after the same thing, but I'm less ambitious.’

page 587 note 1 Balthasar, Hans Urs von, Man in History: A Theological Study (London, Sheed and Ward, 1968), PP. 50–1.Google Scholar

page 588 note 1 Hume, David, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.Google Scholar

page 588 note 2 Locke, John, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, I. II. 9.Google Scholar

page 588 note 3 The phrase is Collingwood's, R. G.; The Idea of History (Oxford, Clarendon, 1946), p. 91.Google Scholar

page 588 note 4 Phillips, D. Z., ‘Belief, change, and forms of life’, in Crosson, Frederick (ed.), The Autonomy of Religious Belief (London, University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), pp. 65–6.Google Scholar

page 588 note 5 Cf. Wiles, Maurice et al. , Christian Believing (London, SPCK, 1976), p. 9.Google Scholar

page 591 note 1 Thompson, F. F., ‘A judgment in heaven’.Google Scholar

page 592 note 1 Cf.Trigg, Roger, The Shaping of Man: Philosophical Aspects of Sociology (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982).Google Scholar