By Schubert Ogden
...
Panel | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||
|
Panel | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unmigrated-wiki-markup||||||||
\[Revisionary christology\] is also open to the theological objection of implying that Jesus is other and less than even the earliest christology of witness asserts or implies him to be. By making Jesus himself the primary norm of appropriateness instead of the primal source of all norms made fully explicit, one reduces him to but one authority among others, even if the primary such authority. Thus he becomes the Jesus _with_ whom we believe in God, instead of the Jesus _through_ whom we believe in God \ -\- one who is a mere man, on the same level as ourselves, even if first and foremost among us, instead of one who is infinitely more than a mere man, on the same level with God, even if also distinct from God as the decisive re-presentation of God's gift and demand. As far as I am concerned, it is this strictly theological implication that reveals the most serious inadequacy in the typical procedure of revisionary christology. Even if the historical objection could somehow be met by adducing primary as well as secondary sources about Jesus, there would still be the decisive objection that the Jesus attested by the Christian witness is infinitely other and more than the so-called historical Jesus (111 f.). |
The other important point at which, I am convinced, I am, in my own way, trying to uphold something that Maurice is keen on is the distinction he draws between "a gospel of facts" and "a gospel of notions" (The Kingdom of Christ, 1:10). Unless I'm mistaken, this is his way of distinguishing – in my terms, following Bultmann – between "the that' and "the what," and between "self-understanding/understanding of existence," on the one hand, and ''world view," on the other. And recognizing this is also the key to making sense out of his otherwise merely question-begging and questionably meaningful statements that "creeds" are "facts," while "dogmas" are merely "notions," or "opinions." Clearly, creeds are no more facts, or no less notions, than dogmas are, unless they're taken – as Maurice and I both argue they are to be taken – as "direct address," the gift/demand of a self-understanding/understanding of existence, rather than the "indirect address" communicating a world view. "The most awful and absolute truths, which notions displace or obscure," Maurice argues, "are involved in facts and through facts may be entertained and embraced by those who do not possess the faculty for comparing notions, and, have a blessed incapacity of resting in them" (1:10). In my terms, "facts," which is to say, existentially significant facts, mediate self-understanding/understanding of existence, which is something importantly different from "symbolizing ideas." This is the conceptual background of Maurice's question about Christianity – namely, whether it "shall be a practical principle and truth in the hearts of men, or shall be exchanged for a set of intellectual notions or generalizations" (2:44).
...