Can Christian theology do without Jesus Christ?

The answer must be, by definition, 'no'. Christian theology, with its adjectival stress and distinction, must explore the gamut of questions and issues raised by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. While the approaches, from classical soteriological and Christological understandings to modern reinterpretations and even ancient heterodox understandings may vary, the centrality of the question(s) of Jesus Christ remains the preoccupation of every thinker and community. Within this range of approaches are different interests or stresses. The modern period, post-Enlightenment, has seen the issue of history become a major preoccupation of both historian and theologian (chapter 12). Pre-Enlightenment Christian theology asked a different set of questions in regard to the person and work of Jesus Christ, although it must be said that many solutions of the modern period find analogues in the pre-1750 period. This period had two major markers in its Christological and soteriological theology.

The first was a distinction, at least in form if not in function, between the doctrine of Christology (the person of Christ) and the doctrine of soteriology (the work of the person of Christ). While this distinction is mainly in form, the arbitrary placement of theological foci in order to answer specific questions, usually Trinitarian - the separation of the work (function) and identity (ontology) of Jesus Christ - for some commentators is a benchmark of a sterile scholastic style. It must be said, in defense of the scholastic approach, whether Catholic or Protestant, that this was not the intent of the theologians nor even necessarily a fair comment on how they did theology. The second marker in pre-Enlightenment theology is tri-fold theological understanding of Jesus Christ, in which a matrix of theological exploration with differing stresses can be understood. The idea that Jesus Christ reveals God is none other than 'not only that Jesus is divine but that God is Christlike' (A M Ramsey). The central theme that Jesus Christ is the bearer or manifestation of salvation is the second series in the gamut of pre-Enlightenment theology. The final aspect commonly found in pre-Enlightenment theology is concerned with the Christomorphic aspects of Christology - how Jesus Christ affects the redeemed individually and corporately as the Church. In all cases, Jesus Christ, no matter where one ends up, is somehow determinative.

Post-Enlightenment theology varies from the classical approach to Christology in that conceptually two factors are understood as given in any theological method. These two factors are the post-Kantian split of the noumenal and the phenomenal world. Since Kant, it has been commonly held, despite brilliant attempts to reconcile them such as in Hegel, that we cannot (even in inter-personal relations) ever 'know' something in its true essence or identity. Instead of the 'Ding-an-sich' or 'thing in itself' all we ever can know is how something or someone is known in the mediation of our perception. Or put in Kantian terms, the noumenal realm of the 'thing-in-itself' is unthinkable; that is not available except to the human mind as mediated through the phenomenal experiences of sense. We are unable to know the object without the imposition of the subject in the process of thought. While it remains disputed whether Kant is able to overcome this problem in his Critique of Pure Reason, the implications for theology are clear. In theology, we can never know the identity of Jesus Christ without going through the experience we have of him. This directly leads to the second benchmark of post-Enlightenment theology; namely, that the effect of soteriology is linked causally to any considerations of Christology. The dominant note, as we have earlier explored, is that the human experience of Jesus Christ, and thereby anthropology, becomes the proper preoccupation of theology. This, in turn, has opened theology to the charge of Feuerbach that theology is anthropology.

Finally, and not unrelated to the conceptual components of post-Enlightenment theology, mention must be made of the problematic of history in modern theology. The rise of historical consciousness raised the question of how exactly Jesus Christ was mediated to us. Some rationalists simply thought that the historical person of Jesus of Nazareth was merely the concatenation or best example of what could freely be understood through right thinking. In this case the origin of the Christian community is clustered around the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was able to articulate, in life and word, what all good people should infer or deduce. The church is a collective of those, albeit mixed with ancient superstitions, who think and see clearly. The German liberal Protestant movement followed a similar trajectory but added that Jesus the Nazarene did do something new in his function as the Christ. As the Christ, Jesus called into being a new community of people into existence who understood something radically new about God the Father and their relationship to God; namely the Fatherhood of God, brotherhood of Christ and the call to a higher righteousness of a love ethic. In both cases, the historical or positive aspect of Christianity - its origin in Jesus Christ - is important and accounted for but does so in such a way as to reduce the import of Jesus Christ beyond that of being the clarion call of a community. What the contemporary Christian encounters is not the direct revelatory presence of Jesus Christ but the continued effect of His unique understanding of God organized as or mediated in, albeit sometimes obscured and needing to be rediscovered (husk and kernel), the church. In this case, ecclesiology is as important as anthropology in determining Christology.
Nonetheless, in all forms of Christian theology the centrality of Jesus Christ, as the Jesus of history and Christ as faith, in all its complexity of form and function, is paramount. One cannot do Christian theology without addressing Jesus Christ.

Explore the use of one of the New Testament title for Jesus. What are the implications of speaking of Jesus in this way?

By now an astute reader will detect the theme in theological method that over-stressing leads to problems and that theological history (or tradition) is a continued series of proposals and counter-proposals in working to the asymptote that is our description of God. The multiplicity of descriptions of both God and Jesus Christ is an inherent corrective to this propensity towards overstressing. The New Testament is no exception to this generality with its multiple descriptions of Jesus such as those given: messiah, Son of God, Son of Man, Lord and God. In addition, there are numerous other titles or descriptive references used of and by Jesus such as good shepherd, lamb of God, servant, bread of life and so forth. Taken all together they begin to frame an understanding of God in Christ. Of course, they also only begin to explore the majesty that is Christ Jesus, whom we now see dimly but will one day see clearly.

What we will do in this section is to summarize each of the five major titles associated with Jesus and to place them into a theological tradition found elsewhere in the broader text.

Messiah:
That Jesus of Nazareth was thought to be the 'messiah' or 'Christ' by the early church is without dispute. Nor is it disputed that the term was conferred, with different meaning, on other persons by various groups around the time of Jesus. Messiahship in the ancient near Eastern world, even within Judaism, was a slippery term. One major difficulty is that at its broadest the term has a double meaning and expectation, one secular and one spiritualized. Often they intermixed, but there remains two poles in the concept. The first is predominantly secular, or as secular as Judaism could be, in referring to the anointing of a king or priest (again the conflation). The messiah was to be a king, sometimes as in the case of the zealots, a king who would drive out foreign oppressors and restore the national borders and supremacy of Davidic times. Messiah was a political liberator. Running alongside this understanding was a 'spiritual' motif, combined with an eschatological or apocalyptic vision of the messiah. Whether a divine being or a mere human person fulfilling a prophetic role, the messiah was to announce or enact the kingdom of God, the end of the world and the beginning of the new. When married to the political construct this would lead to a king-priest-prophet model that seemed to be more normative in the ancient near East, particularly the period preceding Jesus. What is common in both understandings is that somehow the messiah is 'anointed' by God, or equated with God, for a task associated with an equally fluid concept of the kingdom of God. This, in turn, has two major considerations for theology.

First, messiahship is an extension or fulfilment of God's revelation and relationship to Israel. The Messiah is Judaism's messiah. This remains a burning question in Christian theology, especially in dispensationalist or supersessionist theologies (pp 123, 566-567). Second, and more broadly, it raises the question of the interaction between secular structures and Christian life. Is the 'kingdom of God', enacted by the messiah, a real place in human history? For example, liberation theologies can overstress the real location of the kingdom, the importance of transforming unjust societies and in living in just societies ignoring or distressing the more internal or personal aspect of the kingdom in the life of the individual and in the church.

Son of God:
One would expect that such a title as this would lead to the equivocation of divinity to Jesus. Again, there is a range of use within the bible from the sense of 'belonging to God' in the case of Israel or the Hebrew kings, to the very unique Johannine or Pauline application of divinity ascribed to Jesus on account of the resurrection. It is this latter notion that tends to dominate Christian theology. Only Jesus is the 'Son of God' while the church become 'children' due to his very unique ontological relation and work on the cross. The stress in variation of the title's interpretation is found particularly in the Arian controversy (pp 357- 360).

The major theological use of the term is found in theologies that opt for an equivalency to the Old Testament use of 'belonging to God'. In this instance, the stress, as in liberal Protestantism, is that Jesus is a special, but not necessarily unique, manifestation or example of 'sonship' granted to all persons. While this is simplifying more complex arguments, it does show how the move from an exclusive of unique ontological relation in Christology to a more general Nestorian or symbolic presence motif (pp 365, 368-370) can bias Christology.

Son of Man:
This is perhaps the most misunderstood Christological title in the bible. Most assume it to be the equivocation of humanity to the divinity espoused by the Son of God title. Only one of its usual meanings can be thought of in such terms, and even here it is tenuous at best. It does not in its normative sense appear to be connected with the humanity of Jesus. The term has a definitive eschatological meaning, found in prophetic and apocalyptic writings such as Ezekiel and Daniel, as the person who inaugurates the end of history and the coming of judgment. R Bultmann is perhaps the person most associated with this view of the eschatological figure who is the 'Son of Man'. What is important in its normative use is the connection between the inauguration of the new kingdom and judgment. The 'Son of Man' brings the message of the judgment of God on human history. Bultmann thought that the ascription of this term to Jesus was a misnomer for the early church, that Jesus himself was looking for the coming of the 'Son of Man'. This remains disputed.

One theologian who has worked with the term in its semi-eschatological sense is George Caird. Caird's thesis that the church was right to ascribe the title to Jesus is derived from his understanding that Jesus' suffering on the cross vindicates God's judgment on humanity by stressing Jesus' unity with humanity. One reading of this is to emphasize the commonality of the experience of suffering, a reading of Jesus common (but not exclusive) in the work of theologians such as J. Moltmann.

Lord:
This title is almost without question an ascription of divinity to Jesus or the equivocation of YHWH to Jesus in the minds of the early Jewish-derived church. It is thought to be one of the oldest Christian confessions, even pre-Pauline, being a direct transposition by the church of the Hebrew 'tetragrammaton' YHWH to Jesus of Nazareth.

The dominant theologian to revitalize the title in theology is Karl Barth. By focusing on the term 'Jesus is Lord' Barth makes all theology categorically a reflection on the revelation of God through God in Christ. That God is the Lord is a statement on the freedom of God above creation and humanity; that Jesus Christ is Lord is a statement on the freedom (election) of God to persist in and seek relationship with humanity, even despite humanity on account of Jesus.

God:
Within the strict monotheistic worldview of Judaism the application of this title, explicitly or implicitly in worship, to Jesus the Nazarene is a proof of his divinity to the early church. More important to the church and to theology is the relation of this title to the function of savior. In Old Testament terms only God was the savior and for Jesus to be ascribed this role was a claim of divinity. In being God, Jesus was also the savior. This fits with the worship of Jesus, the most distinctive thing that the early church did. Finally, this means that Jesus as savior reveals God, especially in Johannine terms.

It is this equivalency of 'God' to 'savior' that strikes to the heart of Christian difference and distinction. If Jesus is the savior, what is the relationship of that God to those who are saved? Or in other terms, is that role of savior a distinct role, borne out of Jesus' unique status as divine, or is it in a commonality or essence which we share as images of God wherein Jesus is either an example or representation? Finally, the question of what are we saved from becomes important. The New Testament use seems to preclude the latter by stressing that in his role of savior Jesus Christ has done something that no person except God could do.

Summarize the main points of difference between the Alexandrian and Antiochene approaches to Christology.

These two approaches to Christology, while seemingly an ancient debate, still continue in contemporary theology. Modern theologians have revisited the Alexandrian-Antiochene split, albeit in 'new' terms of anhypostasia and enhypostasia. Our entrance into the question is then to reframe the question in modern terms.

Anhypostasia corresponds to the Alexandrian school in affirming that Christ is not a human person but a divine person who assumed general human nature without assuming human personality. In Christological terms, there is really no human hypostasis in the incarnation, merely the elevation of an impersonal or abstract 'humanity' so that the persona of the Son is only the persona of the divine logos. The strength of this position is that it seems prime facie to be an answer to how Christ can be God and human without being two separate individuals. There is only one individual, the divine logos, into which a general or impersonal humanity is subsumed. British theologian D M Baillie thinks this cypto-Alexandrian position is found in the work of R C Moberly, L Hodgson and E Brunner. Of particular note is Brunner's work, which is associated with strong personalist tinges.

Brunner's argument pivots on a distinction between the 'personality' of Jesus, seen in history as the one who prays and has faith, and His 'Person' which is a hidden above-history mystery. The problem here is that Brunner is hard-pressed to explain how the divine Son experiences the type of life that the gospels speak of Jesus enjoying. Or more simply, it seems that the intercourse between God the Father and God the Son is that of a shared 'mind' or a single 'subject'. What then does one make of Jesus in his life of prayer and faith? What does one make of the intercessionary role of Jesus on the cross and as the high priest after the ascension? There is no dialogue between Father and Son but simply a monologue. One moves perilously close to doceticism. Equally problematic is the introduction of sin. Sin, according to Brunner, is the mystery of the human person, implying that to be human is to be a sinner. If Jesus were not a single person, but an impersonal humanity (his Person is deity), then this would indicate that Jesus could not redeem that which he did not assume. This leads directly to the Apollinarian heresy and defeats the purpose of the Alexandrian school that any Christology must be reflected in soteriology.

Running opposite to the Alexandrian position is the Antiochene position, known in modern theology as enhypostasia. This position, deriving from Leontius of Byzantium and John of Damascus, thought that the humanity of Christ is not an independent personality but rather finds itself personalized in the logos. Human nature is personalized, often misread as completed or realized, in the process of assumption by the divine Logos. In this case, the humanity of Jesus is not merely 'human' but fully human in that it has been restored to its original destiny of complete fellowship (meaning concord with or dependence on the divine will and life). In this position, the human person 'Jesus' is circumscribed by God in the incarnation, made truly personal by adopting the same motif of complete dependence on God. By extension, this is given to all those in Christ. The dominant stress, as in Brunner, is that fallen humans exist in a state of corruption or misplace destiny and that redemption is the restoration of obedience or destiny with God. God must come as redeemer and mediator, uniting divinity and humanity once more. Theologians who adopt this position include Karl Barth although with his usual careful delineation.

The difficulty with this position is that it seems to argue that there are 'two' centers of consciousness in the incarnation, and that the assumption of flesh was the assumption of sinful flesh, due to it being a single human being. This latter notion becomes problematic in that it may lead to the consideration that humanity is ontologically sinful. In this case redemption is not renovation but recreation, the return of humanity to another essence. This, then, turns the question back to the original difficulty of what 'humanity' do we really have if it is to be re-created into another different form or essence? Are we 'less-human' now, and in what terms of either ontology or relation?

The Antiochene-Alexandrian split represents two extremes in considering the nature of the incarnation. The Antiochene position, corresponding to the enhypostasis position of today, is concerned with a moral or exemplar aspect of Christology searching out the ground of how Jesus Christ can be a model of faithful living. It is keen to preserve the 'perfect conjunction' of the two natures of the incarnation - the assumption of a specific human person called Jesus - and often refers to 'watertight' compartmentalizing of the two natures held together in the mystery of God's will. It fails at the point of its strength: the separation of divinity and humanity in the Christ seems arbitrary and prone to psychological or ontological modeling of consciousness. The Alexandrian position is equally concerned with soteriology, but in a more abstract manner. It is interested in the ground of soteriology; or how does humanity, not just Jesus, get lifted or elevated into the divine life. Its strength is also its weakness; by considering the nature of a general humanity in the incarnation, it tends to underplay the specific or unique nature (and role) of Jesus Christ in that drama of redemption.

What theological insights are linked with the belief that Jesus Christ is 'God incarnate'?

The Chalcedonian formula of 451 is a remarkably flexible definition of the twin poles that 'the source of salvation must be God; the locus of salvation must be humanity' (M Wiles), as understood in the incarnation of God in Jesus the Nazarene. Chalcedon insisted on the two natures of Christ, that Christ was both divine and human, while accepting a multitude of conceptions as to how this was either possible or played out in Jesus Christ. It was prescriptive in terms of its limiting effect; Christology held two natures in Jesus Christ but the description of that event was left ambiguous. The wisdom of Chalcedon is that no one model is able to adequately treat the great mystery of faith. Several approaches are given as helpful to understanding the mystery of the incarnation, each with a strength in emphasis and each with a corresponding weakness. They are: Exemplar or Degree Christology; Symbolic Christology; Presence Christology; Substantial Christology; Kenotic Christology and Mediatorial Christology.

Degree Christology:
Degree Christology shares similar themes with the Antiochene concern to consider how Jesus is a model of pious life. The thrust of this understanding of the incarnation is that Jesus, however one considers the hypostatic union, is not a different kind of person than any other but rather enjoyed, due to some relation to divinity, a different degree of personal holiness or piety. Divinity may be located in personal awareness of destiny or identity, awareness of higher values or truths of Spirit, or in the inner life of Jesus. In this latter case, particularly in Schleiermacher and liberal Protestantism, there is thought to be a high degree of similarity between divinity and humanity usually rooted in a notion of imago dei. The incarnation is not the entrance of God per se but the making known of what has already been available across all time and places in human religious experience. What is important to note is that there is a notion of substantial presence, something in Jesus Christ, which we share, which points towards the fullness of truth as found in the life of Jesus.

The major difficulty with this position is that it tends towards making Jesus just a human, leading towards ebionitism and Pelagianism.

Symbolic Christology:
A modern spin on degree Christology is 'symbolic Christology'. Its major voice is Paul Tillich and his decision to by-pass the historical Jesus completely by referring to the incarnation as a 'symbol'. The degree Christological position stresses the importance of Jesus as a historical figure in whom there is a substantial presence of God. It is Jesus' specific call (and, for some, work) that brought forth the church, which, in turn, continues that original substantial relation. Tillich transmutes the historical into an abstraction of 'Christ', merely being a manifestation of 'new Being' or universal human possibility achieved without (although it did but needn't not have), in theory, specific reference to Jesus the Nazarene. The difference from degree Christology as a whole is that, for Tillich, Jesus is non-essential; only God saves and brings forth 'new Being'. Jesus the Nazarene, it follows, must have had no substantial or unique relation to God in this case, if he can be regarded as irrelevant to the whole process of symboling. In the thought of inter-faith theologians such as Paul Knitter, one then can look for other 'symbols' of Christology in other faiths. Christology is the affirmation that humans can relate to the transcendent and thereby form a common bond of humanity. In Knitter's understanding to be 'saved' is to share a common understanding of the importance of working together for common good (soteriocentrism), not a belief in afterlife. All faiths, he argues, at some level, share this common symbol of Christology.

The weakness here, as in degree Christology, is the propensity to de-divinitize Jesus in favour of a cosmic principle of divinity common to all. The unique ontological relationship of Jesus Christ to the Trinity is lost.

Presence Christology:
The rejuvenation of biblical studies, especially the Old Testament, has led to a recent manner of understanding the presence of God in Christ based on the notion of Jesus as the bearer of the Holy Spirit. Using the title 'Messiah' as its leitmotif in conjunction with new understandings of Jewish apocalyptic and messianic belief the theory understands Jesus the Nazarene as being adopted or anointed by the Holy Spirit. The central passage is Jesus' baptism, the locus of this divine imposition by God into Jesus. Jesus is the example of indwelt existence, which is reproduced, and here is a major issue, in some measure in his followers. Jesus as the manifestation of the Spirit of the Lord is the opening of the possibility of like existence for others, a sharing of his inner life with God.

Another permutation of this position is given in W Kasper who hopes to avoid the problem of adoptionism inherent in the position. Kasper tries to circumvent adoptionism by stressing that the resurrection is the validation of the continued and unique presence of Spirit in Jesus. This, he thinks, avoids the problematic of adoptionism that fails to justify divinity in Christ as all one can say is that at some point Jesus was a 'vessel' or 'prophet' but not divine. The resurrection, as seen in the New Testament, is the confirmation that Jesus was God's Son. Kasper thinks that the resurrection is an affirmation of the continued presence of Spirit in Jesus, and hence not of his 'adoption' by God but intrinsic and unique divinity.

As noted in the work of Kasper, this tends towards adoptionism with the resultant consequences for Trinitarian theology expected.

Substantial Presence:
This is the position of the Alexandrian school, an affirmation of divinity or divine nature-substance in Christ. It is important in its effect on other areas of theology such as Mariology and sacramental theology. The assumption of materiality in the incarnation meant, in the instance of Mary, that she was the 'bearer of God'; in her womb God dwelt and therefore matter was not inherently antithetical to Spirit. In fact, it is the opposite; flesh is orientated towards divinity leading to theopoiesis (p 432). Likewise sacramental theology, the presence of Spirit in bread and wine, is linked to the substantial presence of the incarnation. A key notion in the substantial Christology is that of participation, in which God by assuming human flesh has enabled humanity to participate in the divine life in terms of ontology or being.

The difficulty here is a conceptual one, the problem of identifying the nature or the ground of the substance-essence that mediates humanity and divinity. It tends to lead towards a pantheist or panentheist understanding of creation.

Kenotic Christology:
In some German and later British circles the fact that in the gospels Jesus never used certain divine attributes such as omnipotence and omnipresence was noted as being important to understanding the union of the two natures. Using the Lutheran communicatio idiomatum (Luther expanding its use from merely Christology to sacramental theology see pp 364-365, p 527) as a starting point kenotic thinkers such as G Thomasius argued that Jesus 'emptied' himself of certain attributes of divinity that are incompatible with being a man, while retaining other aspects (usually the moral perfection or holiness of God) that are 'hidden' and not necessarily incompatible with being human. Of course, the post-ascension Christ need not make this distinction as here divinity totally infuses Jesus' humanity (as in Luther's sacramental theology, for example, in which the body and blood of Jesus are everywhere). Thomasius understood the humiliation of the incarnation as the voluntary laying aside of some aspect of deity in order to stress the humanity of Jesus. The ascension is the exaltation of Jesus, the restoration of the laid aside divine attributes. This, of course, leads one to reconsider the nature of immutability in God in regard to God's becoming human.

The major issue in kenotic theology centers on the nature of divinity when 'humiliated'. It seems to be 'less-than-divine' indicating not only the possibility of change in God (one corrupt way of understanding immutability) but also that the nature of divinity is altered by the incarnation.

What is meant by speaking of Jesus as the 'mediator'

Each of the above 'systems' of Christology share commonality with the 'Christ as mediator' model of the incarnation in that each assumes that somehow Jesus as the Christ mediates God to humanity. This is the broadest use of the term Christ as mediator. The form of mediation or the mechanism of that mediation can vary as above. The key stress is that Jesus Christ is somehow the revelation of God, whether abstract or in personal terms. Jesus, in other words, mediates information between a transcendent God and finite humanity. However, the term mediatorial Christology is more specific, although it does contain epistemological effects of revelation. It classically means that Jesus mediates or creates the possibility for salvation.

The magisterial reformers are excellent examples of this soteriological understanding of the incarnation. In the magisterial understanding of human will the human person is incapable of thinking correctly after God. Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and humanity in that he not only bridges the gap between human inability and divine perfection but also in what belongs to Jesus Christ properly is transferred to humanity. The forensic application of Jesus' perfect obedience, his substitionary action on the cross and his on-going present heavenly ministry all mediate between God and humanity that which could not be won by human effort alone. God's pleasure in Christ, the divine promise that death would not hold Jesus, is given to those in Christ. The person and work of Christ is the ongoing work of mediation between God and humanity, the continual gifting the redeemed with that given to the Son by the Father due to the Son's continual intercession and past obedience to the cross. Mediation, then, is not merely the impartation of information of the divine but becomes the offices, administered by the Holy Spirit, of Jesus as king, prophet and high priest based on his work of obedience on the cross and the divine pleasure therein which is given to humanity and the church.

The primary issue with this understanding of Jesus Christ is that it tends towards an individualistic or subjective understanding of salvation - Luther's 'gracious God towards me.' For many theologians, Jesus as mediator must include the epistemic notion of revelation, the notion of salvation but also a further addition of a theology of nature or participation. In this way Jesus Christ is the mediator not only between God and humanity, but between God and creation itself.