I have just been reading Geza Vermes’ book The Changing Faces of Jesus. Towards the end, in a chapter entitled ‘The real Jesus at the dawn of the third millennium’, he comments briefly on the process by which ‘Jesus, the religious man with an irresistible charismatic charm, was metamorphosed into Jesus the Christ, the transcendent object of the Christian religion’. The ‘existential religious manifesto of the real Jesus’ came to be displaced by ‘a programme steeped in metaphysical speculation on the incarnate Christ’s person and nature, and his relation to the eternal Son of God’, and so on. Vermes, not surprisingly, regards this as a regrettable development which came about chiefly because the Hellenistic thinkers who, from the end of the first century onwards, adapted Christianity for a Gentile culture, were ‘only superficially acquainted with the Jewish religion of Jesus’ (263-265). The implication, of course, is that such post-biblical christological developments are not to be trusted.
This is too big an issue to address here in detail, but it raises an important and very difficult question: how should we portray Jesus within a postmodern theology? I do not entirely agree with Vermes’ conclusions, but I think he is right to insist on the recovery of a thoroughly Jewish Jesus with a thoroughly Jewish purpose. But how are we to speak now of the ‘divinity’ of Christ? Are we bound to accept the formulations of the fathers, or is there a better way of conceptualizing this central aspect of historical Christian faith?
When I have had to explain these things, I have usually tried to highlight the process by which the early believers came to understand the significance of the person of Jesus both before and after his death. I am wary of a christology that presents itself as abstract theological definition. In a hesitant postmodern world it seems to me important that we do not delete from our christology the struggle to understand, the struggle to comprehend the active presence of God in the historical crisis that saw the emergence of the church. Should we then abandon the static ontological categories of the Chalcedonian definition and instead just tell stories?
What does the emerging church need to say about Jesus? I’d like to know what people think.
Reframing
Appropo of above: I always thought that there was no hermeneutical problem for Christ, in whose name the scriptures were written, ie. as written witness to him, that He (Christ) should not interpret the Hebrew scriptures in the way he wishes. What I mean is, I find it both refreshing and a mark of his divinity, that Christ should offer such a dazzlingly unoriginal re-interpretation of what has gone before. If, if he is divine , i should expect nothing less. The moment Christ goes beyond the original meaning of the text and I am interested. Psychologists have a name for this, or something like this effect, it is called reframing. What an intense reframing or personalizing of the truth Christ offers. But if we come with vestiges of interest we may not find this…..
Biblical and post-biblical interpretation
I see two different issues here. i) The interpretation / reinterpretation of the Jewish Scriptures by Jesus and the NT writers. The idea of ‘reframing’ may have something to be said for it. I think that the NT ‘interpretation’ of prophecy is often better understood as a reusing of prophecy (or of prophetic ‘types’) in a new eschatological context on the basis of contemporary prophetic insight (including, not least, the insight of Jesus). ii) Vermes’ question, however, relates to the post-biblical interpretation / reinterpretation of the NT. His argument would be that subsequent christological developments (eg. ontological theories of the incarnation, trinitarian formulae) go beyond both Christ’s own self-understanding and probably most of what is written about him in the NT.
By the way, if you log in, it makes it easier to follow the conversation.
I think Andrew is spot on, th
I think Andrew is spot on, that there is a key hermeneutical process going on, and for Vermes, with his built on foundationalist philosophy and methodology, we can’t trust “metaphysical speculation”!
But we can. One of the problems is we have lost the ability to trust metaphysical speculation, and devolved with Vermes into the historical critical method in an attempt to get back “behind” the text to what Jesus really understood and said about himself.
However if you reject foundationalism, and have another basis for your epistomology, “reframing” becomes a a contiguous and valid process. The locus for understanding of Jesus is, in my interpretation, built upon 2,000 years of interpretation, and there can be no truth without re-interpretation. The very process he wants us to suspect is actually the process that we can have confidence in!
There is for me a key christological concern, that if we assume christ had full knowledge of his divinty and aspects of the trinity, etc… would he really have been human too? Christ’s humanity has been functionally obliterated in most christological constructions.
For me the idea of christ being fully human and divine, yet not understanding who he was until after his death and resurrection, enable me to embrace his humanity.
For example, for many christians, modern christology leave them thinking that christ overcame sin by being divine, he was God after all…therefore in my spiritual formation to overcome sin, I must become more like God.
What if christ overcame sin because he was fully human in the way you I were meant to be, and relied on the Holy Spirit fully and completely. So for me to overcome any sin, I have to be more human, like christ and rely on the Holy Spirit…and I do that because he did, and resides in me helping me to…
Enough ramblings…thanks Andrew for all your work on the site. :-)
Metaphysics and Metaphor
Abstraction is something that we do all the time, building models of the world with a focus on specific areas as significant. For example, to define a baby, as against an adult, we would focus on the areas of difference rather than the areas in common.
Theological abstraction is more risky because it presents itself from a variety of sources, bible, intuition, philosophical, etc. but the function, as with, for instance, Chalcedon, is largely to define what cannot be said rather than what can (cf Bonhoeffer, Christology).
The benefit of this kind of process is that it makes clear dangers of one-sidedness (e.g. docetism). The danger is that it can lose sight of the living person of Jesus.
Curiously, something similar happens with Socrates. The early Socrates is very much a vivid personality, a real person, but as time goes on, he becomes little more than a means of presenting ideas (of Plato), and the engaging individual vanishes beneath abstractions (cf Popper, Open Society).
Why not go back to the beginning and start again?
This is a fair point, though I doubt that this is how most people read the classical christological statements. I would also suggest that even this negative form of definition might be better done using more biblically and historically appropriate language and concepts - and if this needs to be rationalized or updated in order to make sense of the Christ in our own world, why not do so directly rather than by means of a tortuous detour through classical christology?
Christological plurality
I am wondering if, in postmodern context, we can speak of or anticipate arriving at any single or even consensual Christology. We could, perhaps, limit the word “Christology” to the process involved, and not to the results of any particular Christological reflection.
It seems to me inevitable that there will be any number of postmodern “Christologies” (to butcher the language a bit) that will have in common a committment to living the life that Jesus offers us. If we see Jesus as a giver of life, then we can only have that life by living it.
It also seems to me that much of the NT originated as varying streams of the Jesus movement sought to frame out that life for their respective communities. We can learn from them, but we cannot duplicate their particular social context or way of seeing the world. We must, therefore, exegete, translate, and contextualize not only the texts themselves, but also entire ideas, concepts, and cosmologies.
If you believe, as I do, that the Bible reflects a plurality of perspectives (however synthesized they may be) and also an evolution of theological and cosmological speculation, then it is a critical error to assume that such an evolution stopped at one point or that such plurality can or should be eradicated (as is the case in Catholic Neo-scholasticism and Protestant fundamentalism).
In true PoMo fashion, the way forward involves going back. I completely agree that Jesus must be recovered (as much as possible) in Jewish context. I think we must work to understand how the ancient world employed narrative and metaphor, sign and symbol, and how they told stories. Every culture has myths of origin, and Christianity (which I think can rightfully be called a culture) is no exception. These stories are not intended to give us arcane information about the past (though they are often assumed to do just that, and may indeed have an historical referent) as much as they are intended to foster identity.
Our task, then, is to honor those stories while we undertake the task of understanding Jesus in his original context, that we might use both to translate Jesus’ call to life to our own time and place.
Christology and history
Theo, I would agree, virtually as a matter of principle, that a postmodern (and probably any) christology must be pluralistic and that we should be fully aware of the progressive, dynamic factors involved with regard to both biblical teaching and the development of a contemporary understanding of the person of Christ. But the current emphasis on describing an historical Jesus is driving a bit of a wedge between the human figure and the exalted Christ.
It will be interesting to see how far the historical-apocalyptic understanding of Jesus will take us in the direction of a fully developed christology. NT Wright has flagged the question:
The following paragraph from later in the book (page 653) suggests how Wright thinks an answer to that question might emerge:
But I wonder if perhaps we should allow ourselves less scope for pluralism in the reading of the gospels than in developing models and metaphors to explain the relationship between the exalted Christ and the Father. Historical investigation must remain tentative and critical, but New Testament christology is ‘speculative’ and ‘mythicizing’ in a way, and to a degree, that is not true for the synoptic gospels (it is open to debate to what extent John’s gospel is an historical or a christological text).
At least, it seems to me that at the moment what is required is for historical analysis is a high degree of critical rigour. To some extent (eg. along the line of apocalyptic mythicizing) this carries over into christology, but the problem with evangelical christology has perhaps been a lack of creativity and imagination.
Christology and History
This is an interesting discussion especially due in part to the postmodern critique of Christianity. However, I wonder if it is a useful discussion in the sense of attempting a contemporary re-articulation of Christology. Does this not breed a certain notion of superiority on our part?
The articulation of an ontological Christology was formulated by the early church fathers in the context of competing theologies. In spite of the growing contemporary belief that Christian history was written by the victor, those competing theologies were at times a majority. Take for example the Arian controversy. A significant number of eastern Christians, if not the majority, were Arian in their beliefs. Constantine mustered the first council in Nicae (325 A.D.) to discuss the heresy propagated by Arius; namely, that Christ was inferior to the Father. Arius wrote, “Even if He is called God, He is not God truly, but by participation in grace…. He is God in name only.” We see the strength of this movement in the realization that it was very missionary in nature. Similarly, its strength was not simply spiritual, but political as well. It is at the time of Augustine’s writing of ‘The City of God’ that the Arian Christian Alaric sacks Rome in A.D. 410 and the beginning of the political fall of Rome ensues.
Other heresies emerged as well and just like Arianism, most dealt with Christological issues. The second council held in Constantinople (AD 381) convened to affirm the creed developed at Nicae and to argue for the third person of the Trinity. The third council (Ephesus, AD 431), while giving Mary prominence as the Mother of God, denounced the heresy promulgated by followers of Nestorius. The fourth council assembled at Chalcedon in A.D. 451 to define the Trinity. At Constantinople in A.D. 553 the fifth council convened to deal with the issue of Monophysitism. The sixth council gathered once more at Constantinople in 680 A.D. to conclude that there are “two natural wills and two natural operations indivisibly, inconvertibly, inseparably, inconfusedly” in Christ.
Thus, it was in an environment of controversy that the great Christological statement of Chalcedon was formulated. While many would object to the “Greekness” of the formulation, it nonetheless remains as a great testimony to the nature of Jesus Christ.
While ontological Christology states Christ’s nature as God, it is functional Christology that connects him with us. It is this connection with us that helps us understand God’s heart for humanity. It would seem that we need to think in terms of communicating a functional Christology in terms that the emerging culture can identify with.
John Calvin
Pietism Vs Scholasticism
I don’t know that all Fundamentalist are as you described, although I agree it is probably a safe generalization.
Scholasticism- the Jesus movement will go forwad with the process you described. They we will all come to different conclusions, because our cosmological view is based on personal spectrum of experiences, even if is is apply to an entire culture,—to say that will we all go through this scienitific type process and end up in the same place is laughable.
Pietism - pietism will follow the way of Schleiermacher and lose their way because their point of reference will not start with the Holy Scriptures.
Both, However, have one thing in common, they both look inside themselves for a point of reference. Remember to be truly postmodern (God Help Us) is to jettison Scripture, Rationalism, and Tradition as points of reference and to look inward. When humans look inward for guidance, the doctrine that they will come up with will be a doctrine of self. They will not find Christ There!
God Bless!