Jacques Dupuis: The Ongoing Debate

Abstract

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.