Dostoewskij’s words, with all their provocative force, have remained unimpaired: "The crucial point of the issue is this: can a man imbued with modern civilisation, a European, still believe; believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ the Son of God." All faith in fact consists exactly in this. The affirmation regards to the divinity of Jesus Christ, involves accepting His redeeming work as the culmination of the mystery of incarnation. Therefore to question whether today’s man is still ready to believe in the Son of God is the equivalent of asking whether he is ready to accept that the redemption brought by Christ Himself is addressed precisely to mankind, to his personal existence which involves him directly in a definitive choice regards to his life.

It is impossible to ignore that the problems concerning the uniqueness and universality of Christ’s redeeming work are not a modern issue. Ever since Jesus of Nazareth started to preach publicly, announcing that God’s promise had been fulfilled in Him and that the Kingdom was visible in His person, objections regards to His words appeared and are initially witnessed by texts concerning the New Testament such as those by the Apologist fathers. Furthermore in the history of theology there is also, with all its contraposition, Lessing’s theorem, according to which it is absurd to imagine that it is possible to express and summarize in one particular historical subject the whole universe and eternity. The present theological era, which once again examines the same problems, is instead characterised by a changed cultural context that imposes the in-depth study of differentiated thoughts. The first element to emerge consists in the problem of truth. It is obvious that after Nietzsche, who carried nihilism to its highest levels, there is an absence not only of an attempt to reach the truth, but also of the possibility itself of any uniqueness of truth, and, therefore of its universality. The metaphysical instance disintegrates and with it also the speculative possibility of means capable of clarifying the Christian claim. The second element is determined by inter-religious dialogue which has progressively led to an outlining of a framework for a "theology of religious pluralism".

Hence the attempt to clarify the singularity of the Christian event compared to the various issues present in other religions, both monotheistic and not, so as to try and understand its redeeming importance outside Christianity.

Dominus Jesus, in examining issues that are today affected in many circumstances by incorrect interpretations, shows the need to strongly emphasise the uniqueness and universality of Christ’s redeeming action. While on one hand the Declaration invites theologians to "explore the if and how" elements of other religions are part of the redemptions plan, on the other it reaffirms that "The universal redeeming will of God One and Trine is offered and fulfilled once and for all in the mystery of the incarnation, death and resurrection of the Son of God" (see DJ 14). Starting from this point of faith it is necessary to elaborate those parts of Christology, which allow one to grasp the unique and universal value of the redemption enacted by Christ, not only in the context of the current inter-religious dialogue, but also as a proposal of renewed comprehensibility for the believer who question himself regards to the contents of faith. Hence the importance of once again discovering reasons that emphasise, first of all, Jesus’ self-awareness when faced with the mystery of His presence in the world and the mission received from the Father. The existence of the Son of God is however perceived within the Trinitarian process in which total giving corresponds to full acceptation in the pericoresis of entrusting oneself to the other in the fullness of love that gives all.

On the same wavelength it is necessary to try and understand the reason for redemption and the uniqueness of this act. The Apostle Paul start to answer our questions when he says: "He did not even spare His own Son, but gave Him up for all of us; must not that gift be accompanied by the gift of all else?" (Rom 8,32). This verse can be found towards the end of the Eighth Chapter in the Letter to the Romans. Paul, who up to then had expressed himself also using an erudite tone in his language, seems to prefer to abandon it so as to express the mystery he wishes to speak of, using the language of a hymn.

The rhetorical question in the previous verse throws us straight into the heart of the issue: "When that is said, what follows? Who can be our adversary if God is on our side?" (v. 31). What is hidden if the words "when that is said"? The Apostle of course returns to what he had previously stated in the Letter, meaning the redeeming act accomplished in us by God through Christ in the Spirit bestowed upon the believers. According to Paul, mankind always find himself facing God and it is in this state that he is called upon to provide an answer especially when he experiences suffering and incomprehension.

It is the revelation that presents the kenosis as the ultimate form of God’s love in the act of redeeming mankind. This remains as the irreplaceable paradox of the Christian revelation against which every thought that does not welcome the logic of love will clash. The kenosis remains as the real mystery of God in the act with which he enters history and redeems it. The cross in fact as a last event simply makes obvious the consequences of the incarnation through which the Son of God becomes man in the Virgin’s womb. It is with reason that von Balthasar writes that: "The event of the crucifixion can only be considered within a Trinitarian framework and can only be interpreted within the faith" (see Teodrammatica, vol IV: L'Azione, Milan 1982, 297). In that innocent man nailed to the cross, who shouted to God questioning His abandonment at that hour, "the entire distance between the Father and the Son" (Ibidem, 297) is revealed. In that act in fact, the Son brings upon Himself sin and alienation from God and in the eyes of mankind appears to have lost the Father who abandons Him in the hands of the world and the darkness of death. Faith however can understand the mystery that is hidden here because it knows that life itself in God Trine (immanent Trinity) is experienced as an eternal and absolute giving of self, in which the abandonment of self only takes place in view of the generation of the Son. The Father is a father for the very reason that he holds nothing back for Himself, but gives all of himself to the Son. In this act He does not destroy Himself, because His very essence is self-donation for love. Equally the Son is a son because He possesses divinity as the full and complete acceptance of all that is offered to Him. Together they emanate Love as a Third Person because, using Bonaventura’s words, God "has not yet given everything in all the ways He can give". The emanation of the Holy Spirit therefore does not mean that the Father has not given everything generating the Son, but that He has not yet given everything together with the Son.

The act of love as a "giving all", as one can see, does not annul divinity, but reveals and makes manifest the fullness of giving as a full and total participation with the person to whom all has been given. Here we understand the words spoken by Jesus: "All I have is thine" (John 17,10); the expression of the Son’s self-awareness of the full participation of the divinity. God therefore cannot be thought of in the Arian manner, as existing before this self-expropriation and self-donation to the Son, as if He wished to hold back something for Himself so as to exist as a Father for the Son: "In the love of the Father there is an absolute renouncing of being God only for Himself" (Ibidem, 301). The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are a Love of total self-giving as a positive form of love that accepts in freedom without pretending to wish to be the other (Teodrammatica II: Le persone del dramma. L'uomo in Dio, Milano 1978, 248). It is here that one may observe the form of filial obedience as the essence of love. For the very reason that this love is "unjustified", hence without a reason, and only the fruit of itself within the freedom of giving, it possesses a plausible meaning and full credibility.

Faith sees in this first and original kenosis the foundation and the culmination of the mystery to which it abandons itself, and it is in fact from here that the possibility and reality of the history of redemption begins. It is in that "giving all", as the Father, and in that "receiving all", as the Son, that the gift from God to mankind is founded, and therefore also the origin of the Son’s sending to the world as a form of "separation" from the Father so as to lavish his love on mankind and thereby saving it. It is these elements of love, as an unconditional and free absolute, which allow it to be acknowledged in the world as a love that is unique and belongs only to God. If this were not the case, the Logos would have to abandon its claim of singularity and place itself at the same level as the logoi of other religions, philosophies or atavistic teachings.

When however this divine Trinitarian love is offered to mankind and its history, just as it exists in infra-Trinitarian life, then the world is provided with the ultimate criteria for recognising and adhering to love. The Son interprets the Father in the Holy Spirit as love that gives all of itself, hence its claim of being the supreme and ultimate authority is combined with the request for faith’s obedience to Him; this obedience also in fact manifests and expresses love. This is love that cannot be measured by anything or anyone if not by the love of the Father that is "the intimate essence of God" (Teologica II, 118); it is the love of freedom that calls to full sharing as a form of redemption. Bonaventura has clearly identified this condition when he wrote in his Itinerarium mentis in Deum that: "Ad Deum nemo recte intrat nisi per Crucifixum".

The image of redemption, as one can observe, shines in the beauty of the crucifix. Hence a further theological consideration becomes apparent: only the Son can reveal God’s love, and therefore, it is only in and for Jesus Christ that redemption takes place. The passion and death of Jesus in fact, as the expression of absolute abandonment, require the form of absolute closeness and intimacy. The full donation of self can only take be bestowed by He who possesses Himself in His intimate divine nature; only this way, may God remain in His supreme immutability and freedom. Jesus Christ expresses this dimension in a unique way and for this reason presents Himself as the criteria for redemption for all mankind in all time. If it had all come to an end with the death on the cross, we would no doubt have reached an extremely high level of speculation. With reason Mark the evangelist placed on the lips of the centurion, therefore of a non-believer, the declaration of faith: "No doubt but this was the Son of God" (Mark 15,39), because he had seen Jesus die "in that manner", thereby giving all of Himself. Christ’s death changes the meaning of death for mankind and indicates a new practicable pathway. Once again it is the Apostle Paul who says: "Death is swallowed up in victory" (1 Cor 15,54). The non-sense of death is therefore overcome by death for the love of Christ, who frees death from "corruption" turning it into a "passageway" that leads to real life. And this life which is redemption is not further delayed in time as an uncertain and confused waiting, but becomes the present in the today of those who are converted. On this subject the brief conversation on the Golgotha between Jesus and the thief who repents is extremely important: "This day thou shall be with me in paradise" (Luke 23,43). Christ’s redeeming act is encountered in personal history as an answer to the contradiction of suffering and death that affects mankind in its historical present. The effectiveness of redemption thereby involves mankind in a process of faith that requires conversion so as to achieve a new sense of death.

The reason for which we discuss the event of the crucifixion in such radical terms is because we are certain that resurrection exists. The mystery does not allow itself to be fragmented, but preserves its indissoluble unity, the source of uniqueness and singularity. Death does not require faith; death appears in its drama and violence; but resurrection requires a kind of certainty that only arises from faith.

It is this faith that exists within the framework of redemption and allows us to understand how one man "died for all mankind"