Actualism and Incarnation: The High Christology of Friedrich Schleiermacher

Abstract: Defining Schleiermacher's Christology simply as ‘low’ is inadequate, and based on a neglect of the crucial role that actualism plays in his theology. However, accounts that see his Christology as so high as to be docetic are equally unhappy. This article shows that there is a different way to read Schleiermacher's theology, one that avoids both views. By looking at how Schleiermacher's Christology proceeds in both ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ directions, it shows that through correctly understanding Schleiermacher's actualism we are able to see that, for Schleiermacher, Christ is the one who reproduces God's pure act of love through his own God‐consciousness. Christ, then, exists as pure activity and so, for Schleiermacher, is God incarnate. The article then addresses two common objections to Schleiermacher's Christology: that Schleiermacher's Christ is not fully human; and that, if Christ is pure act, what of the passion? The piece closes with an account of the relationship of Christology and Trinity.     

The Twofold Life of the Word: Karl Barth's Critical Reception of the Extra Calvinisticum

Though the extra Calvinisticum has played an historically important role for Christology, the doctrine has been criticized not only by Lutherans and modern Christologies ‘from below’ but by some Reformed thinkers as well. This article examines the place of the extra in dogmatic thinking about the incarnation: specifically, Karl Barth's critical response to his own tradition. After examining the differences between Lutheran and Reformed construals of the relationship of the Logos asarkos to the Logos ensarkos I take up Barth's views on the extra, which over the course of his career moved from enthusiastic affirmation to a sharp critique. Finally, I suggest that Barth's mature Christology retains the best of both Protestant positions by correcting a critical inconsistency in Reformed thought. He does not reject the doctrine of the Logos asarkos, but he does suggest a way in which this is related to the life of the Logos ensarkos that marginalizes the former. Barth is right not to discard the extra, but also that it has been misused in how it is deployed in dogmatic theology.     

Spirit and Incarnation: Toward a Pneumatic Chalcedonianism

The Holy Spirit has often been used to define an alternative to Chalcedonian Christology that, by replacing the Word with the Spirit as the locus of Christ's divinity, is better able to honor Christ's humanity. Such alternatives not only display a serious misunderstanding of Chalcedon, but also exacerbate the problem they seek to address by accentuating Christ's difference from other human beings. While an orthodox Christology will see the Spirit as present in every one of Jesus' actions, this should be understood as a vindication rather than a rebuttal of Chalcedon.     

Mysterium Christi: the Christologies of Maurice de la Taille and Karl Rahner

Abstract: This article argues that Maurice de la Taille's theology of created actuation by uncreated Act constructively develops Karl Rahner's Christology. The first part gives an account of de la Taille's theology of created actuation by uncreated Act through an examination of the three supernatural communications of the hypostatic union, beatific vision and sanctifying grace. The second part dialogically integrates the insights of de la Taille's theology with Rahner's Christology. The article demonstrates that de la Taille's theology could develop Rahner's Christology. This conclusion raises the question of the value of scholasticism as a method of theology.     

THE INSPIRATION OF GOD AND WOLFHART PANNENBERG'S “FIELD THEORY OF INFORMATION”

Abstract This paper will examine the implications of an extended “field theory of information,” suggested by Wolfhart Pannenberg, specifically in the Christian understanding of creation. The paper argues that the Holy Spirit created the world as field, a concept from physics, and the creation is directed by the logos utilizing information. Taking into account more recent developments of information theory, the essay further suggests that present creation has a causal impact upon the information utilized in creation. In order to adequately address Pannenberg's hypothesis that the logos utilizes information at creation the essay will also include an introductory examination of Pannenberg's Christology which shifts from a strict “from below” Christology, to a more open “third way” of doing Christology beyond “above” and “below.” The essay concludes with a brief section relating the implications of an extended “field theory of information” to creative inspiration, as well as parallels with human inspiration.     

Christology and Anti‐Humanism

This article engages the current anti‐humanist or post‐human ethos from the point of view of Christology. Invoking Alain Badiou's claim that “the man of humanism has not survived the twentieth century”, it argues that the death of “the man of humanism” ushers in a situation in which the Christian proposal can be clarified in two crucial ways: (1) Christology is the core of Christian anthropology, and therefore must be the first and last word of the Church's formulation of her answer to the question that is every human life; (2) there is no neutral “human” ground in which the Church can carry on a discourse about “humanism” or “natural law”. The current situation thus forces a theological decision: either the death of man or the God‐Man.     

The End of the Incarnation: John Owen,Trinitarian Agency and Christology

Recent interpreters of John Owen incorrectly argue that Owen's trinitarian theology undermines the doctrine of inseparable operations (Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa). On the contrary, this article argues Owen upheld this doctrine like his Reformed Orthodox contemporaries, using the incarnation as a test case. Owen maintained the incarnation was an undivided act of the Trinity, which had its appropriative terminus on the Son alone – a pattern of thought he extended to the Spirit's work on the Son's humanity. Owen's creative use of the tradition is an example for contemporary theologians who would emphasize the Spirit's role in Christology.     

Christology in the Meeting Between Science and Religion. A Tribute to Ian Barbour

While Ian Barbour's methodological contributions to science and religion and his use of process metaphysics are often noted, it is also important to consider his own theology of nature as a significant contribution to Christian theology. This article calls attention to both his reformulation of Christology and to the way Christology functions in his understanding of divine action. It goes on to suggest that Christology is important for three aspects of continuing work in science and theology     

THE CHRISTOLOGICAL FOCUS OF VLADIMIR SOLOV'EV'S SOPHIOLOGY*

Vladimir Solov'ev (1853–1900) is one of the major influences on Sergii Bulgakov's “sophiology” and has been praised by both Hans Urs von Balthasar and John Milbank. However, his theology has often been read as a mere “religious philosophy” unduly influenced by Gnosticism and German Idealism. The article argues that Solov'ev's theology is more accurately understood as a unique form of Christology which integrates Gnostic and Idealist thought into Chalcedonian orthodoxy. Solov'ev's most important contribution is a sophiological reading of Christology which attempts to found the created on the uncreated without collapsing one into the other or ontologically juxtaposing them.     

CHRIST AND EVOLUTION: A DRAMA OF WISDOM?1

Abstract This paper argues that a genuine engagement of Christianity with evolution needs to include a discussion of Christology. Further, it develops a particular approach to Christology through a theo‐dramatic account of incarnation. The somewhat static post‐Chalcedon theological categories of divine and human natures are hard to square with contemporary evolutionary accounts of human origins. Once the divine Logos is portrayed in the active categories of Wisdom it becomes easier to envisage divine and creaturely wisdom coexisting in the person of Christ. I argue, in particular, that a focus on God's agency through a modified version of Hans Urs von Balthasar's account of theo‐drama invites participation and affirms human agency in a way that grand narratives do not. More particularly, drawing on examples from hominid evolution, contemporary discussion of paleontology and cooperative evolutionary theories, I suggest that the most convincing accounts of evolutionary biology fit into this theo‐dramatic account more readily than alternatives. As such, in the spirit of Robert Boyle, this paper deliberately blurs the categories of revealed and natural theology by arguing that we can make sense of the former through concentration on the latter.     

God,Time, and Eternity

Abstract

Theologian Karl Rahner holds that in trinitarian theology and evolutionary conceptions of Christology and anthropology, personhood emerges as a dynamic function of being-in-relation. Integrating Rahner's insights with neuroscientist Terrence W. Deacon's recent work on emergence provides a fresh framework for interpreting and developing Rahner's understanding of the manner in which created being subsists dynamically vis-à-vis infinite Being as such (the analogia entis), how one might conceive of God's creative activity or grace at work in evolutionary processes, and how Homo sapiens has evolved to bear the imago trinitatis—image of the Trinity—in a unique way.     

The Chalcedonian Logic of John Wesley's Christology

This article addresses John Wesley's theology of the person of Jesus Christ. Against those who have discerned either a Monophysite or a Nestorian trajectory, it argues that Wesley's Christology as a whole conforms to a Chalcedonian grammar, displaying certain Alexandrian–Lutheran tendencies in particular. It does so in three stages. First, it examines Wesley's emphasis on Christ's divinity, his ostensible reservations about Christ's humanity, and his view of the hypostatic union in the context of dogmatic christological traditions. Second, it situates his christological emphases within his deistic ideological context. Finally, it briefly illuminates the connection between Wesley's thought on Christ's person and his theology of Christ's work.     

The Christology of Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen re-visited from the perspective of Scandinavian Creation Theology

This article is a response to Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen's Christology from the perspective of Scandinavian creation theology. Starting from the identification of a common post-liberal horizon, together with similar challenges from anti-liberal theology, the author enters into a critical examination of Kärkkäinen's systematic theology elaborating on the possible contributions from Gustaf Wingren. First, the significance of creation as horizon of understanding for Christology is discussed. Second, the relationship between anthropology and Christology is investigated, with a special focus on theological resources to transcend the dichotomies and the zero-sum game that places God and humans in opposition as competitors.     

The Promise of an Actualistic Pneumatology: Beginning with the Holy Spirit in African Pentecostalism and Karl Barth

Christians in the developing world are sending a clear message to all who will listen: more attention needs to be paid to the Holy Spirit than ever before in the history of Christian thought. This essay explores what African Pentecostalism could teach Karl Barth and in particular how the actualistic Christology that Barth is known for can be applied to concrete acts of the Holy Spirit. The essay employs James Buckley's distinction between what Barth says versus what Barth shows to demonstrate profound possibilities that exist within Barth's thought for beginning theological reflection from the concrete acts of the Spirit.     

LETTING REALITY BECOME REAL: On Mystery and Reality in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics

In Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Ethics the notion of reality plays a central role. The present article focuses on the ethical implications of the Chalcedonian Christology underlying this concept. This approach is tied to the debate on the relationship between the universal and specific identity of Christian social ethics in public discourse. In the opening section the article outlines the pertinence of this debate with regard to Bonhoeffer's Christological ethic. In the following section the article analyzes Bonhoeffer's concept of reality and the implied Chalcedonian traits. With this foundation established the article raises the question about its social ethical implications. The final part of the article argues that Bonhoeffer's ethics and ecclesiology cannot be separated from each other, explaining why Bonhoeffer's notion of reality leads to an assertion of the church's role in letting reality become real. In the light of Bonhoeffer's notion of reality the last section argues for the reconciliation of Christian witness and participation in public discourse.     

Luther and the Eucharistic Controversy

Luther wrote That These Words of Christ … Still Stand Firm to teach people what they should believe about the Lord's Supper and to refute the arguments of his opponents. Luther saw the devil as responsible for the rejection of Christ's substantial presence in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. The disagreement concerning the eucharist rested on the opposing exegesis of key Scripture texts and had implications for Christology and the understanding of the relationship between theology, science, and human reason. Luther believed that his opponents taught a heretical position that endangered people's souls, and so their ideas could not be tolerated.     

NOT EXPLANATION BUT SALVATION: SCIENTIFIC THEOLOGY, CHRISTOLOGY, AND SUFFERING

The view that Christian belief is explanatory is widespread in contemporary theology, apologetics, and philosophy of religion and it has received particular impetus from attempts to correlate science and Christianity. This article proposes an account of explanatory thinking in theology based on the principle that theological explanations should be disciplined by the internal logic of Scripture. Arthur Peacocke's biologically construed Christology and Alister McGrath's argument that suffering is an anomaly in the Christian explanatory scheme are shown to yield theological results which are inconsistent with this principle. This article's theological argument complements philosophical criticisms of the view that religious belief is explanatory.     

The Contemporary Relevance of Schillebeeckx's Political Theology: On Ecclesial Participation in the Saving Work of Christ

In this article I explore the relation between God's absolute governance of the world and ecclesial dominion over other communities in a shared political forum that seeks the greatest good of all. On this question I compare the positions of Colin Gunton, Robert Jenson, and Edward Schillebeeckx as representatives of three distinct political theologies. Whereas Gunton's reservation regarding the participation of the church's politics in divine governance shows excessive deference to human sinfulness, Jenson on the contrary tends to absorb God's Rule into ecclesial politics. Drawing upon Schillebeeckx's Christology, I argue that God's absolute Rule is compatible with ecclesial sovereignty; however, this does not allow for unilateral ecclesial dominion over others, inasmuch as God's Rule is disclosed as forgiveness.