Paul — himself a Jew, a Roman citizen, and the apostle of the Gentiles — implies that the distinction between Jew and non-Jew will disappear at the end of time — but not before. "I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin . . . For if the casting away of them [Israel] be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" The Jews, in the New Testament, are still God's means to save all mankind — just as they always were in the Hebrew Bible. The Jewish rejection of the Gospel has not altered their providential function, nor their prospect of redemption.
In grappling with this Pauline doctrine, two great German-speaking Jesuit theologians, Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, have contributed important but contrasting ideas. To Rahner we owe the idea of the "anonymous Christian", the person outside the Church who by God's grace attains salvation through following the dictates of his conscience. As we have seen, the Second Vatican Council implicitly adopted this idea of "inclusivism", stating in Gaudium et Spes that "the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery". Balthasar, however, is sceptical about what he calls "a superficial ecumenism". He rejects the notion of "an invisible church which would be the true Catholic church permeating all confessions, and a visible church which is just one of many variants of being Christian". However, for Balthasar even those who have turned away from God are not wholly beyond hope — because Christ has been there before them, having descended into hell after his crucifixion. "Even what we call ‘hell' is, although it is the place of desolation, always still a Christological place." Balthasar spent many years in dialogue with the great Jewish sage Martin Buber, and his struggle to make sense of the Epistle to the Romans influenced his entire theology of history. God's mercy, Paul tells us, embraces the whole Jewish people, not just the "remnant" who converted to Christianity. And this insuperable fact of the universality of God's mercy led Balthasar towards his most controversial teaching: that humanity as a whole, Jews and Gentiles, will ultimately be saved — that hell, in other words, is empty.
This doctrine of universal salvation finds resistance in Western Christianity, with its emphasis on free will and responsibility, but the hope that all shall be saved is an old one, expressed by the Greek Orthodox concept of apokatastasis, the eschatological "restitution" of all things. This is close to the Jewish notion of tikkun olam, or "healing the world". Rahner's doctrine of the anonymous Christian and Balthasar's doctrine of universal salvation offer contrasting but compatible solutions to the problem with which we began: the problem of truth.
Each of the last three popes has had Jewish interlocutors and friends among the rabbinate, but none has been closer than the relationship between Pope Francis and Rabbi Abraham Skorka. Francis, according to Skorka, "feels us [Jews] to be at the root of his belief". The two Argentines have found enough common spiritual ground to be able to live with the competing truth claims of their respective religions. Each of them, the Jesuit and the Jew, is confident that they are on the same side. Doctrinal orthodoxy matters, for without it neither would be sure enough of his own ground to be able to step onto the other's. But doctrine is not all that matters. There is a truth that respects and transcends doctrinal differences, the truth that Paul sought to articulate in his paean of praise to the Jewish people in Romans 9:4: "To them pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises . . ." No Christian ought ever to speak to or about Jews without such respect, never forgetting that Jesus was Jewish not only in flesh and blood but in his teaching. The imitation of Christ is therefore, in some unfathomable but deeply significant sense, the act of drawing closer to and identifying with the Jewish people.
In grappling with this Pauline doctrine, two great German-speaking Jesuit theologians, Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, have contributed important but contrasting ideas. To Rahner we owe the idea of the "anonymous Christian", the person outside the Church who by God's grace attains salvation through following the dictates of his conscience. As we have seen, the Second Vatican Council implicitly adopted this idea of "inclusivism", stating in Gaudium et Spes that "the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery". Balthasar, however, is sceptical about what he calls "a superficial ecumenism". He rejects the notion of "an invisible church which would be the true Catholic church permeating all confessions, and a visible church which is just one of many variants of being Christian". However, for Balthasar even those who have turned away from God are not wholly beyond hope — because Christ has been there before them, having descended into hell after his crucifixion. "Even what we call ‘hell' is, although it is the place of desolation, always still a Christological place." Balthasar spent many years in dialogue with the great Jewish sage Martin Buber, and his struggle to make sense of the Epistle to the Romans influenced his entire theology of history. God's mercy, Paul tells us, embraces the whole Jewish people, not just the "remnant" who converted to Christianity. And this insuperable fact of the universality of God's mercy led Balthasar towards his most controversial teaching: that humanity as a whole, Jews and Gentiles, will ultimately be saved — that hell, in other words, is empty.
This doctrine of universal salvation finds resistance in Western Christianity, with its emphasis on free will and responsibility, but the hope that all shall be saved is an old one, expressed by the Greek Orthodox concept of apokatastasis, the eschatological "restitution" of all things. This is close to the Jewish notion of tikkun olam, or "healing the world". Rahner's doctrine of the anonymous Christian and Balthasar's doctrine of universal salvation offer contrasting but compatible solutions to the problem with which we began: the problem of truth.
Each of the last three popes has had Jewish interlocutors and friends among the rabbinate, but none has been closer than the relationship between Pope Francis and Rabbi Abraham Skorka. Francis, according to Skorka, "feels us [Jews] to be at the root of his belief". The two Argentines have found enough common spiritual ground to be able to live with the competing truth claims of their respective religions. Each of them, the Jesuit and the Jew, is confident that they are on the same side. Doctrinal orthodoxy matters, for without it neither would be sure enough of his own ground to be able to step onto the other's. But doctrine is not all that matters. There is a truth that respects and transcends doctrinal differences, the truth that Paul sought to articulate in his paean of praise to the Jewish people in Romans 9:4: "To them pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises . . ." No Christian ought ever to speak to or about Jews without such respect, never forgetting that Jesus was Jewish not only in flesh and blood but in his teaching. The imitation of Christ is therefore, in some unfathomable but deeply significant sense, the act of drawing closer to and identifying with the Jewish people.
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