Mark Dyer argues for a 'high' Christology.
In the Preface to the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine (4th Edition: 1988), the editors advise clinicians to behave with the same degree of curiosity as a young child: to constantly have the question 'Why?' on their lips. Actually, human beings often behave in this way. Why is there 'something' rather than 'nothing'? Why is there a small very blue planet orbiting an average star, floating in the vastness of the cosmos? Why is there a self-conscious, ape-like animal, inhabiting that planet, able to perceive its own existence, to marvel at what it perceives, and asking such questions? Until quite recently, that 'ape' often sought answers to such questions in theistic religions.
In her contribution to Time and Tide: Sea of Faith beyond the Millennium, Karen Armstrong writes:
'The Sea of Faith Network was founded to meet the growing conviction that the God of Western classical theism is dead and can no longer give men and women the sense of transcendence and ecstasy they seek and need… People may reject traditional ideas about God but the quest to find some ultimate meaning and value in life continues. Religion is natural to human beings.' (2001, p 22)
Self-consciousness comes at a cost: for, at some stage in our individual lives, we become aware that we die. We may be the only animal which is aware, in advance, of its own mortality. To add misery to that awareness, sometimes death visits us catastrophically, or prematurely. The classic 'Problem of Evil' has resisted all attempts at a theodicy; and frequently it may be best to agree with Susan Sontag (1990) or Stanley Hauerwas (1993) that to seek any 'meaning' in suffering is a mistake: an error frequently encountered in the 'religious'.
Yet, as Karen Armstrong recognises, "we are meaning-seeking creatures, and need to engage in an effort to find some shape and pattern in our otherwise amorphous existence" (p 22). In Western classical theism, many of us seek this 'shape and pattern' in the life and teaching of one towering, though complex, historical figure: Jesus, the Jew from Nazareth.
Lloyd Geering (2014) cites an occasion, in 1983, when he was delivering one of his lunch-hour lectures, Jesus Reconsidered. He was describing the effect of modern biblical scholarship on our understanding of Jesus of Nazareth, when someone shouted, 'You have taken away my Lord!', and ran from the room. Lloyd continues, 'By showing that the Christ figure was the creation of early Christian imagination, modern biblical scholars have taken away the living Lord of traditional Christian devotion.' But is this correct? Was 'the Christ figure', simply, the creation of early Christian imagination? And need that imply that Jesus may no longer be viewed as God, embodied?
Certainly not in the view of contemporary biblical scholars and theologians such as Jack Spong, Jürgen Moltmann, Jonathan Knight, and many others. They claim that it is to the three-thousand-year history of the Jews, before Jesus' birth, to which we need to turn, if we are to make sense of Jesus of Nazareth. For, whilst modern scholarship is correct in viewing 'faith in Jesus as Lord' as a developmental process, firstly, that process was remarkably quick off the blocks following an 'Easter event'; furthermore, it had a pedigree far, far older than 'early Christian imagination', incorporating elements from Jewish messianic expectation, the Jewish concept of 'wisdom', and prophecy. Not without good reason, the prophet Isaiah is referred-to as The Fifth Gospel (Sawyer, 1996).
Israel conceived of its history as linear: the most significant act in its election being the revelation of God's will at Sinai (Exodus 19 & 20). However, once the Covenant between Yahweh and the Jews had been established, Yahweh continually 'walked' alongside them, speaking through the Torah and the nebhi'im (prophets).
Developing from A N Whitehead's Process Philosophy, there exists a school of thought called 'Process Theology', whose principal exponent in the Twentieth Century may have been the Jesuit priest and anthropologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). Teilhard de Chardin up-dates Paul's centrality of Christ, envisioning him as the key figure towards which evolution has been working since the beginning: and sees Christ as now, anticipating our future.
Since SOF emphasises religion as being a human creation, and, implicitly accepts a post-Darwinian version of human evolution, perhaps a 'God-in-process' as evolving alongside humanity, both as subject and object, might fulfil two functions. Firstly, such a conception would be faithful to the Hebrew, and post-Easter, 'developmental' records: and, secondly, it could provide a reasonable way for a theist to sit, uncomfortably, within the SOF network. If God made Man in his own image; is there anything wrong in Man returning the favour? It may be that 'a-theism' represents an evolutionary advance on 'theism': but I hope to show that it is not unreasonable to retain theistic religion.
In claiming to be a 'Christian', one needs to be aware of some modern strands of research which would envisage Jesus as simply a Jewish eschatological teacher, who 'suffered and died under Pontius Pilate', but who then underwent a transformative process, at the hands of the primitive and early Church, which brought about a metamorphosis from the human being, Jesus, to the One worthy of worship (eg Vermes 2009, and Ehrman 2014). Ehrman and Kent emphasise, as historical fact, that the earliest followers of Jesus thought they were seeing Jesus, risen. Furthermore, most scholars acknowledge the pivotal role of the Easter events to account for the drastic change in Jesus' followers.
The problem, in holding such a view, is that – whilst Chalcedon may not have settled matters until 451 CE – there is evidence that, 'what the Church thought and said about Christ' (Christology) had been formulated long before that date. As I plough my way through the magnum opus of Richard Bauckham (2017), I see the need to remember that, with regard to the earliest canonical documents of the primitive Church, eyewitnesses were still around to be consulted. Indeed, Bauckham feels that Peter himself was a prime source for Mark's Gospel; and does not exclude the possibility that the naked young man, who deserts Jesus at the time of his arrest, may have been the Gospel's author. However, modern biblical criticism has certainly demonstrated the need to separate the 'Jesus-of-history' from the 'Christ-of-faith'. As Geza Vermes expresses it:
'Traditional Christianity does not stop at this portrait of the human Jesus, but overlays it with the majestic image of the Christ of faith arising from the mystical meditations of Paul and John and the Hellenistic philosophy of the Greek Church Fathers.' (2009 p. 58)
Ehrman views this 'overlaying' as having two varieties: 'adoptionist Christology', and 'exaltation Christology'.
Scholars write of the twenty years between the death of Jesus, and the first Christian writings (30-50 CE) as the 'tunnel period'. It is odd, nowadays, how modern scholars will accept as 'evidence' comments and records written in the similar 'tunnel period' of historical figures, from Alexander the Great to Alexander of Tunis, but frequently dismiss as 'evidential' the writings of the primitive and early Christians; particularly when they are 'awkward':
- The 'I have come' sayings attributed to Jesus, in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke; which, in their Jewish context, may be suggestive of 'pre-existence'.
- In Mark, Matthew and Luke, Jesus says and does things which are the prerogative, uniquely, of Yahweh, the God of Israel. And – when he says and does these things – they provoke one, of two, possibilities: either, worship, or accusations of blasphemy.
- The Jewish life-setting of Jesus would have drawn a clear line between Creator and 'creature'. Yet, in Luke 24, when the Disciples offer προσκυνησις – proskynesis (reverential prostration) – it is clearly worship that is due, uniquely, to God (cf Acts 10: 25-26).
- We also need to call on the witness of Saul, the Pharisee. Saul was active as a Pharisee during the time of Jesus' ministry, and during the 'tunnel period', when Vermes and Ehrman envisage so much 'development'. In his own conversion, Saul brings with him the rigid Jewish boundary between Creator and 'created cosmos': indeed, it is vital to his own theology (see Romans).
- Some scholars (e.g. Ehrman and Bauckham) also detect, within our earliest extant New Testament writings, evidence of 'pre-literary traditions': in Ehrman's view these reveal, at best, an 'adoptionist Christology'. However, what are we to make of one of these 'pre-literary traditions' found in Philippians 2: 5-11; which, if it does not entirely claim divinity for Jesus, comes very close to it?
For traditional Christology God is objective; and is 'being', independent of humanity. Its historical presuppositions include the Jewish belief that Yahweh reveals himself to Israel, and 'walks' alongside her; the messianic expectations of the Old Testament (sufficient to enable Moltmann to claim Christology = messianology!); or the pre-existence of 'wisdom' in Jewish tradition. There are also the uses to which various 'titles' are subjected in the Old Testament: alongside 'Messiah', we have 'Son of man', 'Son of God', Son of David, and Lord. All such titles have their own aetiologies; but there is not room to discuss them here.
Of course, many contemporary religious thinkers start from the premise that 'God does not exist' (as a separate, objective being). Iris Murdoch goes on to claim that, 'What we need is a theology which can continue without God' (p 511). I believe this is where Jesus comes in. In the Christian tradition, Jesus 'embodies' God, literally. He made (makes?) God a living God. Whatever Jesus' conception was of himself, in relation to his Father, after the Passover event, his impact on those around him came from their conviction that, in encountering him, they were encountering the 'divine' person. Jesus, thus, is able to remain the pivotal, and relevant, reference point in our search for 'God-ness', and 'good-ness', today. He is able to provide Karen Armstrong's 'shape and pattern' for us today.
For this member of the SOF network, he continues to provide the finest picture of ultimate reality. I am perfectly content to use the shorthand 'God' for this 'ultimate reality', and to conceive of my individual – and humanity's – developing revelation and awareness of God as an evolutionary process: as 'God-in-process'. But, I also see the person of Jesus of Nazareth as pivotal in my understanding: because Jesus is the culmination of the miracle of Yahweh's relations with the Jews… until the final eschaton.
References
BAUCKHAM, Richard, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (Eerdmans, 2nd Edition, Grand Rapids, 2017);
EHRMAN, Bart, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (HarperCollins, 2014);
GEERING, Lloyd, Reimagining GOD (Polebridge Press, Salem, OR, 2014);
HARRIS, Ian, Creating God: Re-creating Christ (St Andrew's Trust, New Zealand, 1999);
HAUERWAS, Stanley, Naming the Silences: God, Medicine, and the Problem of Suffering (T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 1993);
KENT, Jack, The Psychological Origins of the Resurrection Myth (Open Gate Press, London, 1999);
KNIGHT, Jonathan, Christian Origins (T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 2008);
MOLTMANN, Jürgen, The Way of Jesus Christ (SCM Press, London (translation) 1990);
MURDOCH, Iris, Metaphysics (Vintage Books (Penguin), London, 1992);
SAWYER, John, The Fifth Gospel: Isaiah in the History of Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 1996);
SONTAG, Susan, AIDS and its Metaphors (Penguin, 1990);
VERMES, Geza, Searching for the Real Jesus (SCM Press, 2009).
Mark Dyer is a retired nurse and teacher; who has been a member of SOF for three years.