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Human Diversity and Salvation in Christ

  • Grace M. Jantzen (a1)
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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.

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

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

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.

page 581 note 3 I Clement 36. 1–2.

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

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

page 582 note 3 Abbott, Walter M., S. J. (ed.), The Documents of Vatican II (New York, The America Press, 1966), ‘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).

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

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

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

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

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

page 586 note 2 Cf. Camus, , The Plague (Eng. ed., Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1960), pp. 208–9: ‘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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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Religious Studies
  • ISSN: 0034-4125
  • EISSN: 1469-901X
  • URL: /core/journals/religious-studies
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