hedrick@topaz.ARPA (Chuck Hedrick) (03/16/85)
Based on a response to my previous message, I think some people on this list may have a misunderstanding as to what Christians mean when they say that Christ is God. This is not surprising, since the obvious meanings of the words are heretical. By the way, I am going to base my comments on doctrines that all Christians hold in common. (At least all Christians who claim to be orthodox. Such groups as Mormons, Quakers, and Christian Scientists are not part of this broad concensus. But conservative denominations definitely are.) I will not intentionally say anything that is peculiar to "liberal" Christianity. If we say "Jesus is God", what can we mean? We seem to be saying that this human being who lived 2000 years ago is the immortal, invisible, omniscient, omnipotent, creator of the universe. One of the first guesses would probably be that we mean he really isn't a human being. That is, he is really just God in disguise. That meaning was tried out in the early centuries, and was finally ruled a heresy. The next obvious guess is that we mean Jesus is a sort of a cross between a man and God. Maybe he is visible, but he still knows everything. Maybe he died, but he can still do anything. This is the demi-god approach, and was also ruled to be a heresy. (The Bible is very clear that when he wanted to get something unusual done, he prayed to God. Being God's son, he was very sure of getting a response. But as a human being, he didn't himself have superhuman powers.) By the way, both of these positions are refered to as Docetic, from a word which means "appears". That is, they say that Jesus only appears to be human. So what do we mean? Since some of you are going to suspect that I am giving you a view that comes from my own liberal imagination, let me start by quoting the definitive document, the Definition of Chalcedon, written in 451: "[Christ] is perfect both in deity and also in human-ness; this selfsame one is also actually God and actually man, with a rational soul and a body. He is of the same reality as God as far as his deity is concerned and of the same reality as we ourselves as far as his human-ness is concerned ... this one and only Christ -- Son, Lord, only-begotten -- in two natures; [and we do this] without confusing the two natures, without transmuting one nature into the other, without dividing them into two separate categories, without contrasting them according to area or function. The distinctiveness of each nature is not nullified by the union. Instead, the "properties" of each nature are conserved and both natures concur in one "person" and in one entity. They are not divided or cut into two persons, but are together the one and only and only-begotten Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ." [from John Leith, Creeds of the Churches, which was based on a translation by Albert Outler. This left the words "hypostatis" and one occurence of the word "prosopa" untranslated. I have translated them as "entity" and "person".] What I think this definition is trying to say is that there are two separate things going on in Christ. On one level, there is a normal human life, to which the normal limitations of humanity apply. However on another level, we are to see Jesus' actions as the actions of God. I believe that this is another case of separate levels of explanation, something that I have discussed in a previous note. As you may recall, I believe that events can be understood both on the physical level, as the result of physical law, and on the spiritual level, as part of God's plan. So we can expect to see both physical explanations, and explanations in terms of God's will. Each explanation alone may appear to explain the event totally. However I consider both explanations to be true, in their own realm. I think that is what the Fathers meant in the statement that I quoted. They are saying that two separate things are going on, and we must do justice to both of those things. Those two things are a human life and God's self-revelation and self-sacrifice. In my view, God used this particular human life to reveal himself. This is not quite the same thing as being a prophet. God reveals his message to a prophet, and the prophet says "Thus says the Lord..." In the case of Jesus, we believe that Jesus' life (and death) was itself a revelation of God. That is, we believe the Jesus' actions are also to be seen as God's actions. But that isn't because there is something supernatural about the man Jesus. It is a matter of God's intention. God arranged things to make it so. Of course it also involves complete obedience on Jesus' side. As an analogy, one may think of a novel in which one particular character represents the author. If we could enter the world of the novel as one of its characters, we wouldn't see anything different about that character (at least not if the novel is well written). Rather his role as representative of the author is something external to the book itself. It is a congruence between that character and the author. Similar, I believe that Jesus is the character that God has chosen to represent him in the world. His acts are considered to be God's. None of this discussion is present in these terms in the New Testament. However it is consistent with the portrayal of Jesus in the New Testament. On the one hand, Jesus is always shown as human. He prayed to God for strength to face his trials. His miracles are done, not using any superhuman powers of his own, but are demonstrations of the power of God. The Gospel according to John, which contains the highest claims for Jesus of any of the gospels, also shows Jesus saying that his followers will have the same relationship to God that he does. On the other hand, the New Testament sees Jesus' actions as God's. Jesus forgives sins, which only God can do. And his death on the cross is seen as God's self-sacrifice. I am inclined to think that Christians should be careful about making the statement "Jesus is God". While it is true, it is almost certain to be misunderstood by anyone other than another Christian (and sometimes even then). The problem is that the alternatives aren't so good, either. "Jesus is God's representative" is likely to make us think of our representatives in Congress, or perhaps someone like a prophet. This is not quite what we mean either. The safest terminology I can think of is "Jesus' actions are God's actions."
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/18/85)
Chuck Hedrick wrote an interesting article. (now I know what you think of Arianism, but what about monophysitim? you may hit that heresy yet...) However, it was te epitome of the article that should have been posted to net.religion.christian and not net.religion. oh well. I still want net.religion.christian.flame! Laura Creighton utzoo!laura