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“All in all, D’Costa should be commended for writing an excellent book. This work is a wonderful contribution to the conversation regarding Christianity and non-Christian religions. I highly recommend it for all persons interested in the theology of religions, as well as any Christian looking for new ways to understand the possibility of salvation for non-Christians.” (The International Journal of Public Theology, 1 December 2012)
"I warmly encourage readers in each to take it up and read." (One in Christ, July 2010) "[D'Costa] finds convincing substantiation for his position in biblical, patristic, and medieval Christian doctrine." (CHOICE, September 2009)"For a generation which is reasserting its Catholic identity, this thesis may serve a valuable purpose, calming the anxieties of those who, admirable, have managed to maintain an interest in the salvation of non-Christians yet are as hard put to win converts as their more pluralist co-religionists." (The Way, January 2010)
"His gazetteer of these regions at the edge of the eschatological map is fascinating. The closing pages are as perceptive a meditation on what the dereliction of the cross can and cannot mean as we might expect to find in a first-rate book devoted entirely to that subject." (Chruch Times, December 2009)
Table of Contents
Preface ix
Part I: Charting the Territory: Theology of Religions 1
1 Early Map Making 3
Introduction 3
Pluralism 9
Inclusivism 19
Exclusivism 25
2 Changing the Angle: Recent Maps 34
Some Criticisms of the Threefold Typology 34
Comparative Theology 37
Postmodern Postliberalism 45
Part II: The Making and Meaning of Religions 55
3 Modernity’s Story 57
Introduction 57
Modernity’s Story about Religions 58
4 An Alternative: The Secular Construction of the Sacred Modernity as the Establishment of a New Ruling 74
Religion 74
Conclusion 102
Part III: Religions in the Public Square 103
5 Whose Religion and Which Public Square? 105
The Public Square 105
A Taxonomy of Secular Modernity and Postmodernity 107
6 Christian and Muslim Public Squares 128
Roman Catholicism, Modernity and Religious Plurality 128
Islam, Reasoned Debate, and Religious Plurality 136
Part IV: Christ’s Descent into Hell 159
7 Old Doctrines for New Jobs 161
Introduction 161
“The Descent”: Introduction to the “Circles of Hell” 165
The Limbo of the Just and the Unevangelized 167
8 Further into the Inferno 188
Purgatory and the Non-Christian 188
The Children’s Limbo 194
The Descent into Hell 201
Bibliography 212
Subject Index 225
Index of Works 233
