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Towards a Comparative Christology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

John Carmody
John Carmody*
Affiliation:
The Pennsylvania State University
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Abstract

This article speculates on opening Christology to categories from the comparative study of religion. First, it describes the taxonomical work of scholars like R. Otto, M. Eliade, and G. Van der Leeuw, suggesting how such might be applied to New Testament data. Next, it studies Jesus as a numinous figure, concluding that he manifests the holy in the peculiar modality of love. “Holy Love” to Jesus' signal relation with God. It concludes that such insights are complementary, if not superior, to those from ontological approaches.

Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , Fall 1974 , pp. 15 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 1974

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References

1 See Davis, Charles, Christ and the World Religions (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971)Google Scholar; Panikkar, Raymond, The Unknown Christ of Hinduism (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1968)Google Scholar; Schlette, Heinz Robert, Towards a Theology of Religions (New York: Herder and Herder, 1966)Google Scholar. All three books have helpful bibliographies.

2 See Wach, Joachim, “The Place of the History of Religions in the Study of Theology,” in Types of Religious Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), pp. 3–29Google Scholar. Briefly, my distinction between “theology” and “religious studies” (including comparative, historical, or philosophical studies) is that theology begins with faith and religious studies does not.

3 See his Religion in Essence and Manifestation (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963), pp. 191-241 and 650–667Google Scholar respectively. See also Wach, , Sociology of Religion (London: Kegan Paul, 1947), pp. 333ff.Google Scholar

4 See The Idea of the Holy (New York: Oxford University Galaxy Books, 1958)Google Scholar. For some Christian applications, see The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man (London, Lutterworth Press, 1943)Google Scholar.

5 Paul Tillich comes to mind as a theologian who has consistently been shaped by a theory of religion (as the domain of “ultimate concern”). Just before his death, however, Tillich expressed the desire to rework his whole systematic theology, because of his contact with Mircea Eliade and the history of religions. See The Future of Religions, ed. Brauer, Jerald C. (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), especially pp. 80–94Google Scholar.

6 Perhaps the most celebrated reconception of Catholic theology recently is Lonergan's, BernardMethod in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972)Google Scholar. Lonergan conceives theology as a reflection on religion (pp. 170, 267, and passim)–and quite completely disregards non-Christian religions.

7 See especially The Idea of the Holy, pp. 1-40.

8 See, for example, The Sacred and the Profane (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961)Google Scholar.

9 See Eliade, M. and Kitagawa, J., eds., The History of Religions: Essays in Methodology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959)Google Scholar; Van der Leeuw, op. cit., pp. 671-675; Smith, Jonathan Z., “Adde Parvum Paro Magnus Acervus Erit,” History of Religions 11 (1971), pp. 67–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 See note 4.

11 See New Testament Theology, I: The Proclamation of Jesus (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971)Google Scholar.

12 See Simon, Marcel, “Remarques sur la soteriologie du Nouveau Testament,” in The Saviour God: Comparative Studies in the Concept of Salvation Presented to Edwin Oliver James, ed. Brandon, S. G. F. (Manchester University Press, 1963), pp. 144–159Google Scholar.

13 On the tremendum part of the disciples' response, see Mark 16:8; Matthew 38:4-5; Luke 24:5; Acts 9:7. On the fascinans part, see Matthew 28:8-9; Luke 24:32; John 20:17. On the dialectic of not knowing and knowing that the Risen One is Jesus, see John 21:4, 12-13; Luke 24:16, 31-32; John 20:15-17; Luke 24:36-43.

14 See note 12.

15 See Eliade, , The Sacred and the Profane, pp. 123-128, 201ff.Google Scholar, and the critique of Altizer, Thomas J. J., Mircea Eliade and the Dialectic of the Sacred (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), especially pp. 59–73Google Scholar.

16 See, e.g., Williams, Daniel Day, The Spirit and the Forms of Love (New York: Harper and Row, 1968)Google Scholar.

17 See Nygren, Anders, Agape and Eros (New York: Macmillan, 1937–1939)Google Scholar; Spicq, Ceslaus, Agape in the New Testament (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1963 ff.)Google Scholar.

18 Matthew 5:43-48; Luke 7:36-50; John cc. 13-17.

19 See Voegelin, Eric, “Ewiges Sein in der Zeit,” in Anamnesis: Zur Theorie der Geschichte und Politik (Munchen: R. Piper & Co. Verlag, 1966), pp. 254–280Google Scholar. This is applied to Christology in his article, “The Gospel and Culture,” in Jesus and Man's Hope, II, ed. Miller, D. and Hadidian, D. (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, 1971), pp. 59–101Google Scholar.

20 Theatetus, 176b.

21 See Tillich, Paul, Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1958)Google Scholar. See also Bowker, John, The Sense of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973)Google Scholar.

22 Denzinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, no. 301.

23 See Sociology of Religion, pp. 341-344.

24 For the conviction that religious studies can deal with the objective question of God's existence and nature, see Wach, , The Comparative Study of Religions, ed. Kitagawa, J. (New York: Columbia Paperbacks, 1961), pp. 27–58Google Scholar.

25 See his De Constitutione Christi4 (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

26 See ibid., pp. 57-82.

27 See Cobb, John B. Jr., “A Whiteheadian Christology,” in Process Philosophy and Christian Thought, ed. Brown, D., James, R., and Reeves, G. (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1971)Google Scholar.

28 See Malmberg, Felix, Uber den Gottmenschen (Basel, 1960), p. 37Google Scholar. Also, Schoonenberg, Piet, The Christ (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), especially pp. 50–105Google Scholar. Neither comes from the angle of comparative studies, however.

29 “A technical term denoting the christological theory which claims that the divine Logos assumed human nature in general but was not incarnate in a real, concrete, individual man. The human nature was abstract or logical rather than individual and concrete, hence the phrase ‘the impersonal humanity of Christ.’ The position is often attributed to Cyril of Alexandria.” Harvey, Van A., A Handbook of Theological Terms (New York: Macmillan, 1968), p. 21Google Scholar. I intended to use this term as a characterization of Aquinas' position (based on the etymology of “no person”), but then decided, in view of historical specifications like the above, that this could be confusing. Aquinas certainly wanted to maintain a specific and concrete human nature in Christ. Thus, I have referred to his position as “no esse,” to focus on the only thing he did deny to Christ's humanity.

30 See Rahner, Karl and Vorgrimler, Herbert, Theological Dictionary (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965), p. 161Google Scholar.

31 See ibid., pp. 192-196.

32 See Lonergan's, De Deo Trino, II: Pars Systematica3 (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1964), pp. 249ffGoogle Scholar. On pp. 257-258 Lonergan does say: “Ita ad statum gratiae constituendum requiruntur (1) Pater qui diligit, (2) Filius propter quern Pater diligit, (3) Spiritus sanctus quo Pater diligit atque donat, et (4) ipsi justi qui a Patre propter Filium Spiritu sancto diliguntur atque donantur, qui consequenter gratia sanctificante orantur, unde fluunt virtutus et dona, unde sunt justi et recti et prompti ad actus in ordine ad vitam aeternam recipiendos eliciendosque.”

33 See Karl Rahner's efforts to place the Incarnation in the line of every man's fulfillment by God—e.g., Theological Investigations, IV (Baltimore: Helicon, 1966), pp. 107–112Google Scholar.

34 See De Verbo Incarnate3 (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1964), pp. 45–63Google Scholar.

35 Acts 4:12.

36 On the difficult question of conciliar language, see the still useful terminological study of Prestige, G. L., God in Patristic Thought (London: S.P.C.K., 1959)Google Scholar.

37 See De Constitutione Christi, pp. 62-71.

38 For an example of Thomism as a creative metaphysics, see de Raeymaeker, Louis, The Philosophy of Being (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1961)Google Scholar. A good neo-thomist work, of course, is Lonergan's, own Insight (New York: Philosophical Library, 1957)Google Scholar.

39 See De Constitutione Christi, pp. 9-13.

40 See note 19. For the Platonic roots of this theory, see Carmody, John, “Plato's Religious Horizon,” Philosophy Today 15 (1971), pp. 52–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 See Bornkamm, Günther, Jesus of Nazareth (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), p. 57Google Scholar.

42 See Lonergan's, Method in Theology, pp. 95ff.Google Scholar

43 See De Verbo Incarnato, pp. 19-23.

44 Another way of saying this: all of Jesus' being is stamped by his relation (of dependence and reception) to the Father. He is the human “filiation” or “verbal self-expression” of the Father.

45 See, e.g., Lonergan's, De Deo Trino, II, pp. 115ffGoogle Scholar. Also, Rahner, Karl, The Trinity (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), pp. 68ffGoogle Scholar. Rahner criticizes Lonergan's “metaphysical subtleties.” See pp. 81-82.

46 I do not mean to endorse the “homo assumptus” theory. Though it has merit, it seems at least to border on docetism. See Lonergan, , De Constitutione Christi, pp. 129ff.Google Scholar; Schoonenberg, op. cit., pp. 66ff.

47 See Lonergan, , Method in Theology, pp. 101–124Google Scholar. Also his “The Future of Christianity,” The Holy Cross Quarterly 2 (1969), pp. 6–8Google Scholar.

48 E.g., John 1:1-14; Col. 1:15-20.

49 Lonergan's preferred conception. See Insight, pp. 657-669.

50 I would argue that Holy Love is especially apt for the God who forgives, saves, reconciles, atones—for the God who takes the suffering, law-of-the-cross form of redemption that Jesus lived out. And if the. “Exultet” is right in suggesting that the “felix culpa” is the deepest mystery in God's plan, such characteristics are more deeply representative of God than his “being.”