30 Facts About Gavin D'Costa

Gavin D'Costa was born on in 1958 and is the Emeritus Professor of Catholic Theology at the University of Bristol.

Gavin D'Costa was born in Kenya and immigrated to Great Britain in 1968.

Gavin D'Costa was educated at Goldington Junior School in Bedford, and afterwards at Bedford Modern School.

Gavin D'Costa has worked on the Church of England and Roman Catholic Committees on Other Faiths, advising these communities on theological issues.

Gavin D'Costa advises the Pontifical Council for Other Faiths, Vatican City.

Gavin D'Costa has published his poetry in a joint collection, Making Nothing Happen, and has had his poetry set to music by composer John Pickard.

Gavin D'Costa examined the work of key representatives of each of these positions: John Hick as a pluralist, Karl Rahner as an inclusivist, and Hendrik Kraemer as an exclusivist.

Gavin D'Costa defended Rahner's inclusivism that held to the universal love of God for all people as well as the necessity of Christ's grace for salvation.

Gavin D'Costa argues that pluralism only emphasized the universal love of God and that exclusivism only emphasizes the necessity of belief in Christ for salvation.

Gavin D'Costa has been a persistent critic of John Hick's pluralism approach.

Third, Gavin D'Costa tried to show that pluralism was internally incoherent, because it makes a privileged claim for its own position as the greatest truth.

Gavin D'Costa argues that there is no such position as pluralism; pluralism is technically a disguised form of exclusivism, either religious, or a form of modernity.

Gavin D'Costa relies heavily on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and John Milbank.

Gavin D'Costa develops this position in his Theology in the Public Square in relation to the importance of Christian theology taking a decisive public stance and developing a public voice, the latter mainly through the idea of a Christian University.

Gavin D'Costa argues for a form of "exclusivism", although he criticizes the categories of pluralism, inclusivism, and exclusivism.

Gavin D'Costa calls into question the prevailing definition of "religion", arguing that it is part of modernity's narrative and serves a certain rhetorical strategy related to the privatising of religion, and its reduction to cultic ritual acts robbed of their social and political significance.

Gavin D'Costa explores how Islam and Catholic Christianity might better contribute to the religious public voice and strengthen real debate in the public square, claiming that they might better preserve religious plurality than secular liberalism.

In Vatican II: Catholic Doctrines on Jews and Muslims, Gavin D'Costa turns to the authoritative Conciliar documents of the Catholic Church to establish what doctrines of God and God's activity are to be found that relate specifically to Judaism and Islam.

Gavin D'Costa defends the view that the documents are either novel, continuous, and reforming, but not discontinuous with previous doctrinal teachings.

Gavin D'Costa argues that invincible ignorance was crucial in moving to a positive attitude to other religions since they were no longer seen to explicitly and knowingly reject Catholic truth.

Gavin D'Costa rebuts the charge of Jewish deicide and the alleged guilt of the Jewish people, while acknowledging the Jewish foundations of Christianity.

From this doctrinal basis, Gavin D'Costa indicates some of the postconciliar theological developments that have followed are from the Council.

In Catholic Doctrines on the Jewish People After Vatican II, Gavin D'Costa continues his study of 2014 to trace the doctrinal trajectories related to three central questions regarding the status of Judaism.

Gavin D'Costa establishes the Catholic Church's formal move away from supersessionism to a position that holds the covenant made by God with his people, Israel, is viewed as valid and effective.

Gavin D'Costa argues that these previous teachings assumed the free and knowing rejection of the truth of Christ by the Jewish people.

Gavin D'Costa argues for a tentative minimalist Catholic Zionism while upholding the rights of the Palestinian people and their claim to a nation and state.

Gavin D'Costa has followed up on this work by bringing together Faydra Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew, and an international collection of Roman Catholics to reflect on the people, land and state of Israel.

Gavin D'Costa is critical of aspects of patriarchal theology and its social consequences, while being critical of elements of feminist theology.

Gavin D'Costa provides a close reading of Islam as presented through Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses and examines artistic representations of the trinity in Hindu and Christian culture.

Hick has claimed that Gavin D'Costa fails to recognize the hypothetical nature of the pluralist position and mistakes it for a religion.