Christology and Heresies in Christian History

Jesus Christ: Past, Present & Future

Christology My friend Simon, circa A.D. 2003: - Jesus was God, Jesus was God, Jesus was God The definition of Chalcedon, A.D. 451 - THEREFORE, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son,our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the Godbearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us. (Translation from Bettenson, Henry.Documents of the Christian Church.Oxford Univ. Press, 1947, p. 73)

Christology and Heresies The positions now characterised as heresies get progressively more complicated over the first few centuries of Christian history What, if anything, seems wrong with these? Docetism: Jesus is divine, the physical body of Jesus was an appearance, a costume. Jesus only seemed to be human. Modalistic Monarchism: God is incarnate in Jesus; God exists in different modes - as Father, then as Son, then as Spirit. Arianism: The pre-existent Logos, the Son (not simply God) is incarnate in Jesus; as the Son, the Logos derives from the Father, and is an elevated but created being ( There was a time when he was not. ) Apollinarianism: Jesus has human body and sensitive soul, but the Logos takes the place of Jesus rational soul Nestorianism: Jesus has two complete natures: human and divine; so there are two substances ( hypostases , or persons ) in Jesus, corresponding to his two natures divine and human

Concerns and constraints in Christology

Concerns and constraints in Christology Two (concrete) questions: 1. John 1 says that Jesus is the Word, and that the Word was with God in the beginning ? Did Jesus remember being with God in the beginning when he was first born? When he was 12? When he was 30? If so, how? If not, why not? 2. Does God have a mother? If not, then how can Mary be said to be God s mother? Can Mary really be said to be Mother of God? 3. If Jesus was God, who was he praying to? This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

Concerns and constraints in Christology Two (abstract) questions: 1.What drives Christological reflection? 2.What constrains it? This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

Concerns and constraints 1. To preserve monotheism; 2. Revelation Jesus reveals God; 3. Salvation; 4. Worship 5. Narrative

Communicatio idiomatum A way of speaking about Jesus, practiced since the 2nd century. E.g. The Son of God was crucified Mary, Mother of God God has suffered; a man created heaven and earth; a man died; God who is from all eternity died; the boy who nurses at the breast of the Virgin Mary is the creator of all things. (Martin Luther)

Christology in the New Testament

Christology in the New Testament For discussion: Read a few of the texts together; Have a think about what each one is (and is not) saying about Jesus, and about Jesus relationship with God; Are there any interesting differences between them? What questions do they leave you with, about the Christian understanding of Jesus?

Christology in the New Testament As O Collins points out, the early Christians made use of existing Jewish images, themes and concepts from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) to make sense of who Jesus was, and what had happened in and through his life, death and resurrection. One interesting question is about early Christian belief in/about Jesus and Jewish monotheism

Christology and monotheism An important question for NT scholars: how did early Christian belief about Jesus emerge from, and within, Jewish monotheism? How could first century Jews have affirmed that Jesus was God, whilst maintaining their monotheism? - Were they likely to have had a low Christology at first, because of their strict monotheism (perhaps with Jesus as an exalted, but human Messiah, or some kind of intermediary spiritual being)? - Or did they risk betraying their monotheism in the affirmation that Jesus was Lord : did they claim that there were two gods? - Or, was there something about their monotheism that was utilised to make entirely new, high Christological claims about Jesus?

Christology and monotheism This was not just a theoretical issue! The Jewish position with in the Roman Empire was problematic, because they refused to participate in any traditional cultic practices on the grounds of monotheism but Christian Jews claimed the same exceptions, but whilst seeming to worship one God andJesus (the Lord ).

Christology and monotheism Often it has been assumed that the first Christians, e.g. Paul, did not consider the possibility that Jesus could actually be God. E.g. Young, The Making of the Creeds: the God of the Jews had always had his servants, prophets, kings, angels to reveal his will and proclaim his word, to be sons . The Messiah, or the supernatural agent of God who would officiate at the end of the world, was a special but perhaps not dissimilar case. It was the one God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that Jesus Christ revealed, Paul never questioned that, no matter how great the honours granted to the Son whom God had sent into the world, and whom God had raised from the dead. [. . .] Something like this attitude must account for the fact that the question was not an explicit issue for the writers of the New Testament. (Young, p. 34).

Christology and monotheism So it could be that the question of how worship of the exalted Lord Jesus was compatible with monotheism was only carefully considered in the face of criticism from outside, in the second century (e.g. by the Apologists like Justin Martyr and Tertullian). Christianity was presented as a strict monotheism and a high morality, together with an assurance of life after death for the faithful. Little wonder that enquirers and doubters, not to mention opponents, would soon raise questions about the being and status of this Jesus Christ in relation to God. So the logos theology may have been developed quite late, as a way to meet this challenge

Christology and monotheism But this position has been challenged by Richard Bauckham, who suggests that the implication of the New Testament texts is that Jewish monotheism had already been used to claim divine identity for Jesus: the intention of New Testament Christology, throughout the texts, is to include Jesus in the unique divine identity as Jewish monotheism understood it. [. . .] They include Jesus in the unique divine sovereignty over all things, they include him in the unique divine creation of all things, they identify him by the divine name which names the unique divine identity, and they portray him as accorded the worship which, for Jewish monotheists, is recognition of the unique divine identity. (Bauckham, 1999: 26).

Christology and monotheism Bauckham gives a powerful reading of 1 Corinthians text in his argument: Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that no idol in the world really exists , and that there is no God but one. Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth as in fact there are many gods and many lords yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Cor 8: 6) Here Paul seems to echo the Shema : Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. (Deut 6:4).

Christology and monotheism So, according to Bauckham, even though we don t find in the New Testament a systematic account of what it could mean to say that Jesus, a man, was God, we find a distinctively Jewish way of identifying Jesus as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: - God alone creates all things; Jesus is the one through whom all things are created; - God alone rulesall things; all things have been handed to Jesus, who rules with God. This amounts to an identification of Jesus with God (different to thinking in terms of nature or essence ).

Christology and monotheism Contrast between two approaches: 1. What is the nature of God? what is it for God to be God, similar to question like what is it for a dog to be a dog? Answer could be: to be unchanging, uncreated, all-powerful, one, etc. 2. Who is God? who is the God we worship Answer: The one who created all things; who rules all things So early Jewish monotheist Christ-followers asked: who is Jesus? and answered the one through whom all things were created , etc.

Christology for today According to Walter Kasper, three tasks for Christology today: 1. Must be historically determined: It [the belief that Jesus is the Christ ] is derivable neither from human nor social needs; neither anthropologically, nor sociologically. Instead, it has to preserve a real and actual unique memory, and to represent it here and now. It has to narrate a real and actual story history and to bear testimony to it. (Kasper 2011: 8) In other words, we have to start from something particular (the real life of Jesus), as opposed to some theory, e.g. about human nature, social life, etc. We should not expect Christology to conform to some independently- derived account of human needs or problems.

Christology for today This also means that Christian theologians cannot ignore historical questions, or problems: The historical questions have to be answered if the scandalous reality of faith in Christ is to be taken seriously. As soon as one tries to do that, there is not such thing as a trouble-free area some kind of belief pure and simple or a simple Christian faith. It is not enough to examine these questions purely from a historical angle. We have to inquire into the theological relevance of the historical aspect. (Kasper, 2011: 8) There are theological reasons to be concerned with questions about the historicity of the gospels, even though these can appear scandalous to some, at first sight.

Christology for today 2. Must be universally responsible On the other hand, it is a particular story that demands to be interpreted in the light of the full range of human concerns and questions, it is a living tradition that must be preserved in creative loyalty : Christology inquires not just into this or that existent, but into existence in general. [. . .] in Christology we are ultimately concerned with the Christian understanding of reality in the broadest sense of the word. (Kasper, 2011: 9) So to understand fully what it might mean to say that Jesus is Lord we have to re-consider all facets of our understanding of the world.

Christology for today 3. Must be soteriologically determined This means resisting two opposed tendencies: - On the one hand, mediaeval theology had a strong tendency towards separating the doctrine of the person of Jesus from doctrine of the work of Jesus. This means that talk about the divinity and humanity of Jesus can end up seeming largely theoretically, and existentially insignificant; - On the other hand, a reaction to this tendency does the opposite: only concerns itself with what Jesus is for me , i.e. focuses only on the work of Jesus (what Jesus does for us), and eventually, what Jesus means for us.

Christology for today In contrast, Kasper suggests that the ontological side of Christology follows from the functional side: It can be shown that there are soteriological motives behind all the Christological pronouncements of the early church. Both the defence of the true divinity and that of the true humanity are intended to ensure the reality of Redemption. (Kasper, 2011: 10). This means that we need ways of understanding the nature of Jesus that are in harmony with our understanding of what Jesus means for us and vice versa. This is what we are trying to do today!