David Opderbeck has written two blog posts (one and two) at Jesus Creed discussing the fate of those who never hear the Gospel by considering Catholic theologian Gavin D’Costa’s contribution to the subject in his book, Christianity and World Religions: Disputed Questions in the Theology of Religions.

David asks: An initial question:  can those of us who are Protestant learn anything from Catholic theology?  In particular, what can we learn from Catholic theological method in relation to hard questions?

One of the things that has struck me lately as I look more at the history of the Church is the obvious fact that it didn’t start at the Reformation. Even today though, there are some aspects of the way that Catholic scholars go about things that I think are useful. Catholics can tap into a long and deep theological tradition. Many American Evangelicals end up doing theology in vacuo, which can not only lead to shallow theology, but ironically also to heretical beliefs. Catholic scholarship also seem to have a history of deeply intellectual discussion of some of the hardest issues in Christianity. They might not always get it right, in my opinion, but it seems like I can always find some sort of statement from the Catholic church on pretty much any issue.

In the second post, David opens up the discussion on D’Costa’s consideration of what happens to those people who die having never heard the Gospel. D’Costa uses the doctrine of “Limbo of the Just” (based on 1 Peter 3:18-4:6) to work within the limitation of the doctrine of Extra Ecclesiam nulla salas – “There is no salvation outside the Church.” Interestingly, Extra Ecclesiam is not only relevant for Catholics, where the “Church” is the Roman Catholic church, but also for Protestants, where the “Church” is considered in the broader sense to be the “invisible” body of those who have faith in Christ. Read David’s post for more of the details.

David asks: Can we make use of a theological method in which traditions not explicitly mentioned in scripture inform our thinking?  Does that fact that the early Church Fathers wrestled with the problem of “good” or “just” pre-Christian people, and devised a solution, help in your wrestling with problems such as the fate of the unevangelized?  Are you surprised at how the first few generations of Christians interpreted 1 Peter 3-4?

I think extra-biblical traditions can be useful, but I generally try to keep three things in mind:

1. Tradition is still just that, something that has been passed down to us, it is not Scripture.
2. Traditions that are not explicitly taught in the Bible should at least not contradict accepted biblical teaching.
3. Traditions that originate close to the Jesus and the Apostles should be especially considered.  Those who had reasonably certain access to apostolic and eye-witness knowledge outside the Bible are of great importance.

I find it at least comforting that those issues that I often wrestle with are ones that concerned people throughout Church history. It is helpful for me to be able to say “Okay, let’s look at what somebody who was only once or twice removed from the Apostles did with this issue?”. They’re obviously not infallible, but I think we have to take the early Church fathers and mothers seriously.

Being Protestant, my personal understanding of this sort of Limbo has always centered around the idea that the saints of the Old Testament had faith in the coming Christ. This faith brought them into salvation, but that since the Kingdom of God was not yet established, they waited until the consummation of their Limbo in the death and resurrection of Christ.

David describes a key to D’Costa’s proposal:

a participatory ontology in which temporal, situated human beings participate in the life of the eternal, cosmic Christ. This participatory ontology is one way in which D’Costa explains how the descent of Christ on Holy Saturday can be effective for unevangelized people living in the dispensation of the Church, after the Resurrection.

I think there may be something here, but the big question for me is, how? How does somebody participate in the life of the eternal, cosmic Christ when they have never heard of Him, or what He’s done, or what He’s going to do? It seems to me that any such participation must be necessarily superficial and so I wonder about its salvific effectiveness.