Theological Studies

Vatican II has more than a simple historical interest. What truly counts is comprehending its contemporary relevance and bearing its heritage within ourselves today. If we focus on the council's governing ideas and adopt the Council Fathers' method of posing problems rather than limiting ourselves to commenting on the texts' conclusions, we can apply this heritage beyond what the council says to the questions that are ours today.

This article relates the itinerary of Vatican II's exhortation to Catholics to practice prayerful Scripture reading. In 1961 the Preparatory Theological Commission treated Bible reading in a cautionary and admonitory mode that highlighted guidance by the Magisterium. But the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity insisted that pastoral ministers should introduce the faithful to devout reading of Scripture leading to personal encounters with God. The conciliar encouragement of lectio divina deserves appreciation and further application as a pastoral consequence of Vatican II's Dei verbum.

The article investigates religious experience in relation to the hermeneutics of desire and interreligious dialogue. After summarizing Schleiermacher's thought on religious experience, the article presents some ideas on religious experience in light of the insights of several contemporary thinkers. Robert Doran's proposal for a hermeneutics of desire is enlisted to help clarify the nature of religious experience. The article concludes by suggesting that further study of the notion of desire, especially as it relates to religious experience, holds out some promising possibilities for interreligious dialogue.

Since the promulgation of Vatican Il's Dei verbum, exegetes and theologians have paid scant attention to the subject of biblical inspiration and the theology of inspiration. The author argues that developing a theology of inspiration first requires location of the doctrine within its proper context, namely, the doctrine of revelation. Next, inspiration needs to be carefully distinguished from revelation so as to clarify how the word of God may be said to find expression in human words.

The article evaluates what seven authors (from Terrence Merrigan in 2005 to Keith Johnson in 2011) have written about Jacques Dupuis's theology of religions. Dupuis died in 2004, but the debate about his views continues vigorously. When discussing the mediation of salvation, some, like Dupuis himself, attend to the church's prayers for “others.” But neither he himself nor his critics appreciate how such prayer, being inspired by love, enjoys some efficient causality, and not merely moral and final causality. Nor have other authors yet recognized the significance of Christ's priestly mediation for the theology of religions.

Building on the theology of Jon Sobrino, the author constructs a Christian spirituality of reconciliation that empowers the human person to confront the challenges of entrenched socioeconomic conflict with honesty, hope, and faith in God's reconciling promises. Such a spirituality, he argues, urges Christians to engage in a mission of mercy that becomes practical in the transformation of oppressive structures, the restoration of personal relationships, and the pursuit of a Christian Utopia.

Theologians disagree on whether Christians can know what in particular God wills. Appropriate decisions often conflict with decisions God seems to want us humans to make. Methods of discernment are numerous and fallible. Spiritual writers depict discerners as passively receiving God's will or discovering God's predetermined plan. As an alternative, this article proposes that an illuminating, mutual love relationship with God requires humans to codetermine God's will for themselves and others. They respond to the Spirit who frees and leads by attraction.