1983 Articles

Theocentric Christology

Knitter, Paul

This article explores how Christian theologians in their encounter with other religions are moving from a Christocentric Christology which affirms Jesus as the final, definitive and universally normative revelation of God to a theocentric Christology which stresses the universal revealing activity of God and confesses Jesus as a universally relevant but not necessarily definitive and normative expression of that revelation. Such a theocentric Christology is traced in the works of John Hick, Raimundo Panikkar, Stanley J. Samartha and in the writings of theologians engaged in a dialogue with Judaism (John Pawlikowski, Monika Hellwig) and of first world liberation/political theologians (Rosemary Ruether, Tom Driver).