Kościół na służbie Królestwa Bożego. Postulat regnocentryzmu według Jacques’a Dupuis

Abstract

The coexistence of numerous religions one by one arouses a question on their religious experience interpreted from the viewpoint of biblical revelation. The Holy Bible clearly states that God came to love all the people and sent His only Son to free them from the sin. This way Jesus as a messenger becomes a mediator between people and God. Catholic theology understood this mediation as the only one and continued by the Roman Catholic Church. All grace given by God to people were coming through Christ to the Church and then to the whole mankind. Non Christian religions may have served salvation to the extent that elements of grace they included were directed to the Church, the sacrament of complete salvation. Belgian Jesuit, Jaques Dupuis, disputed this understanding of mediation, first by differentiating terms the Church and the Kingdom of God, and then by depriving universality of the attribute of absoluteness. The proper perception of Jesus’ life and deeds reveals that He Himself never referred to the Church, the community of His disciples, as a continuator and aim of His teaching. Jesus was saying about the Kingdom of God and not about the Church. This latter, established after Christ’s resurrection, was to give up the teaching on God’s reigns for preaching the mystery of crucified and resurrected Kyrios. Dupuis separates the figure of history Jesus and faith Christ to consequently depict Jesus’ address on regnum Dei as a fundamental one. The Church and religions face this Kingdom, i.e. God Himself, and find their ultimate aim there. Regnocentrism would appear as an urging demand of change in theology itself and a new prospect of religious pluralism theology. The present manuscript points out several improper elements of this demand.