Derecho Internacional y Derecho Civil: Una Teoría de Acción Comunicativa Para Difundir el Evangelio

In On the Recently Discovered American Indians (1538), Francisco de Vitoria states that there is natural communication and society among all human beings. Forty years later, in Lima, the Jesuit José de Acosta, in On the Salvation of the Indians (1576), writes a report about how to put into practice this communication through peaceful preaching. It is a kind of communication treatise, in which he also denounces the practice of forcing conversions. To Acosta, successful communication of the gospel to Indians signifies a willing shift of beliefs and actions, based on what he considers natural reason. This philosophical and theological discussion shows that there is a normative interweaving between ius gentium, ius civile and ecclesiastic law, and that a contemporary theory of communication has a lot to learn from the paradigmatic and partially failed case of communicating the gospel in America.