Christological Categories

I was talking with the Pirate in an email conversation and was telling him about the various things I'm learning in Christology class. I love this class! So here's the chart he posted on his site, that i emailed him... so i'm taking it back. stupid stealing pirate! Here are super-condensed versions of three categories demarcated by color and font I think are really helpful:

This first category is marked Doctrines of the Incarnation


Ebionism-An offshoot of the Jewish form of Christianity that solves the Christological problem by denying the divinity of Christ altogether. This does not mean that Jesus is regarded as just another human being or a good rabbi. For the Ebionites, Jesus was the Messiah chosen by God, sent by God, and predestined by God to return in majesty to rule the Kingdom of God. Ebionism simply claims that in order to be Messiah and Risen Lord, Jesus did not need to be God.

Docetism-The Docetists did the opposite of the Ebionites and eliminated Jesus’ humanity. Jesus was really God and was only pretending to be a human being. His sufferings and death were appearances only.

Antiochenism- The Antiochenes affirmed both the full humanity and divinity of Jesus but tended to regard the two as capable of operating separately. Sometimes Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia (two major league Antiochenes) speak of “two sons” a Son of God and Son of Man. They attributed the miracles to Jesus the Son of God and the sufferings to the Son of Man. They wanted to insure that the divinity of Christ would in no way interfere with his humanity. The humanity has its own independent principle of growth and action. In its most radical form, Nestorianism, the Antiochenes even spoke of “two persons” in Jesus, leaving it unclear how the two are held together. Sometimes they spoke of the two being “married” to one another.

Alexandrianism- The Alexandrians also affirmed the humanity and divinity of Jesus but their stress fell on the unity of the two rather than the difference. Beginning with Clement and Origen (the two heavy weight Alexandrians), the tendency was to regard the divinity as dominating the humanity, even deifying it. The son of God is the governing principle of everything Jesus does.

The second category is related to the first, namely HOW the incarnation is understood. this could be called Models of the Incarnation and could be understood within any of the four categories up top.

Ontological Model- states that Jesus is made of different stuff that the rest of us. These are founded on the virgin births in Luke and Matthew and state that while Jesus does have our biology, if one were to do a biopsy one would find something different that is inherent in Jesus' make-up.

Psychological Model- based on the adoption of Jesus by God in Mark and John's gospels. This theory states that while Jesus is human just like the rest of us, he somehow had the mind of God and was concerned with what God was concerned with. This doesn't mean that he knew all things that God did as an infinite consciousness can't fit into a finite one, but that Jesus was prayerfully connected 100% of the time, where we are, at best, are connected 10% of the time and usually only when we're in prayer (and that'd be 10% of the time we're even in prayer too).

Agency Model- This model states that Jesus did the things that God would do and that his teaching or biology are of no importance, it is what he DID that was important. To have faith in Christ is to have loyalty to his methods and do what he did. This is largely taken from Paul's letters and understanding of Jesus.

The final four (so to speak) are the condensed versions of the atonement. these would be called Theories of Atonement:

Classical- (aka Greek, Patristic, Eastern): Jesus' resurrection enacts and manifests God's triumph over all the powers and principalities which hold humanity captive and oppressed. These powers could be cosmic (devil, death and demons) or psycho-social (addictions, compulsions, and all the -isms). Jesus is the conquering hero who vanquishes humanity's enemies and the crucifixion is the final (or at the very least decisive) showdown with these powers. It is "objective" even if no one believes it.

Latin- (aka Western, Anselmic): Jesus' death on the cross somehow atones for human sinfulness. Jesus satisfies the twin requirements of God's justice and mercy. Jesus is the sacrifice who takes away the sins of the world. This is also "objective" in that the relationship with God to humanity has been transformed by Jesus.

Subjective #1- (aka role model, example): Jesus provides an inspirational example of true human being. By internalizing the picture of Jesus, we can develop Jesus-like qualities. This is "subjective" in that Jesus' work has no impact if it does not inspire the transformation of individual's inner and outer lives.

Subjective #2- (aka empathic): Jesus is a powerfully moving manifestation of the extent and depth of God's love for humanity. This potent demonstration has the capacity to elicit a loving response in the human heart. This is "subjective" view where Jesus' work is only successful if people are moved by this demonstration of God's love.

for example, i find myself being a psychological modeled Alexandrian that is a Classic Subjectivist #1 & 2. meaning, Jesus had the mind of God, was very human and yet the divinity shown through both through natural Charisma and presence as well as in hindsight. Thus the incarnation is projected by his followers back onto Jesus. I explained my atonement idea in this post and i talked about how i intersect many. for me, it boils down to the idea that if you aren't affected and experience Jesus then no biggie, you're still good. when told "Jesus loves you" many don't care... but i think the best response is to love him back. thus is one reason why i'm a Christian. hope that example helps. 

any questions?

My Thoughts on Atonement and Christus Victor

before we talk about atonement, we must first talk about who Jesus is and how i view him. to use Marcus Borg's idea, there is two Jesi, the pre-Easter Jesus and the post-Easter Jesus.

The pre-Easter would be the historical dude that you could have videotaped. He was Jewish mystic, healer, wisdom teacher, and prophet of the kingdom of God; he proclaimed the immediacy of access to God and God's kingdom; he challenged the domination systems of his time, was executed by the authorities, and then vindicated by God (Borg, 303).

In the decades after Easter, his followers spoke of his significance with the most exalted language they knew: son of God, Messiah, Lord, Light of the world, ect. This is the community's language about him. I, like Borg, do not think that these two need to be separated, and in fact, you can't separate them as they are inherent in the gospel narratives. the gospels are both testimony and memory; history as well as parabolic language (language of parable, metaphoric language). Thus the real Jesus is one who lived 2,000 years ago and was a Galilean peasant-teacher and the one who has shaped the lives of millions of people, many of whom claim to have met him and have a personal relationship with.

Both matter, both are true.

This would be the Alexandrian view of Jesus where he is both human and divine, but the divine overrides the humanity, just as it did in the gospels and in the historical community that called themselves Christian.


with that straight, i then head to atonement. As stated before, i used to throw people under the bus who subscribed to sacrificial atonement. i still think it's bad theology and bad history as it elevates one understanding and way of viewing Jesus over the rest. the substitutionary atonement i still have no room for as i think it's Vampire Christianity; interested in Jesus' blood and little else. I don't like sacrificial as it is often understood as God demanding death and thus having it be a part of God's plan for the salvation of everyone else. this misses the humanity of Jesus as well as the life he was willing to sacrifice for his beliefs, his passion which drove him to say the things he said and get him killed by the authorities of his time. they don't crucify people for no reason, they were enemies of the state, politically dangerous!

The substitutionary atonement model i understand now more than i did. i think becoming a parent has helped with this view. yet i don't see Jesus as a doormat or coward. He was akin to the archetype of the forceful, yet nonviolent, organizer. A grass-roots agitator calling for equity and fairness for all. The type that gets the gentry all riled up and the rich nervous. A force that needs removing or one we need to co-opt and normalize.

I also disagree with Christus Victor because i do not have angels or demons in my metaphysic. I have God with no devil. we do the job of temptation very well on our own with our own biological framework to have a dude in a red suit running around. Humans are inescapably subject to the temptation of evil. We get into trouble when we de-humanize or de-prioritize others and put ourselves first.

When we deny that we are captive, we conjure notions of social progress, romantic optimism, manifest destiny, all forms of human pride that overlook our fragility and limitation. yet on the other extreme, which Christians have been labeled more often than not, we capitulate to the tragic and doomed outlook on life. We lose hope.

The resurrection, whether understood metaphorically or literally, is resistance to the powers of death, a refusal to allow death to have the final word, which is where I connect to the Christus Victor model. The power of the cross subverts it's own nature as an instrument of death, harmful and oppressive, and instead becomes an intellectual, spiritual, and communal resource for radical change. God's presence is then with those who suffer, telling them that they aren't to be afraid anymore. No worries about death, that isn't the worst thing that could happen to you. The cross and resurrection are a two fold attack to the masochism of submissive suffering and the pride of unchecked triumphalism. it boldly reclaims common humanity, in this rubric there is no room for the other.

In this way, I'm Christus Victor. Death cannot defeat life, life will always carry on in some form. yet it always changes, it is impermanent. life adapts, grows, and leaves us behind, yet our children will go on and their children after them. that's why it is good to plan to the 7th generation in your actions. yet when we do act, we do so not fearing death yet understanding our limitations. In Jesus, the powerful tried to kill him and it didn't work. the worst evil could do was try to kill us and it never can kill us all. even when we die and we finally know what lies beyond, i believe we will all be welcomed in. this is where apokatastasis comes in. because i see God through Jesus, i see that even the forsaken, those outcasted and assured a place in hell are welcomed. the cross overturns all of our conventions. this is what it means when the gospels read "he died for the sins of the world" or "his life was ransom for many" (paraphrases from john and mark). as to what heaven looks like, that's as far as my metaphysic goes. heaven, yes, hell if we chose it and be it of our own making.



the problem then becomes when the church seeks cultural convention and prejudice over the radical message Jesus so passionately died for. this doesn't mean that i'm not patriotic, i'm just not nationalistic. i'm a Christian not because i'm after a ticket to heaven, or need to meet requirements for salvation. no, i'm after a community that seeks transformation of themselves into Jesus. I'm after a better world. a more just world, a more equitable world.

we are building up the new world. resistance is victory, defeat is impossible.

Bibliography


Bond, Susan. The Trouble with Jesus.


Borg, Marcus. Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary.


Weaver, J. Denny. The Nonviolent Atonement

Sacrifice and Christus Victor

I find that seminary has three parts to it. 1st you come in with your own ideas and are able to defend them, they are clear and boundaries are demarcated through experience in and of your local church. then you start considering other parts (this would be part two) and you start hearing the logic and views of your classmates. meanwhile you're in another setting with other ways of doing and view the Christian Tradition. This leads to confusion and boundaries start to bleed. the third stage is just before you graduate you realize what you used to believe and claim it again, only this time, more loosely as you're able to consider other points of view.

applying this to my understanding of atonement, it would look like this:

1. i came in thinking that these two models at hand (Jesus as sacrifice and victor) were awful and bad theology.In the words of James Allison, i thought that these atonement theories set up "God and his Son in some sort of consensual form of S&M- one needing the abasement of the other in order to be satisfied, and the other loving the cruel will of the Father." I would have claimed, as Allison does that these theories "have done more to contribute to atheism among ordinary people than any number of clerical scandals, and that if being a believer means believing this, then it is better to be among the non-believers."

2. I have examined these more closely and tried to consider their Christology and historical import as seen in the previous post on the matter.

3. Where I'm at now sees how others view and i even see a place where we intersect. an email conversation with DPS proved quite fruitful in coming to this conclusion. he suggested two books, Susan Bond's The Trouble with Jesus and J. Denny Weaver's The Nonviolent Atonement. DPS claimed that you can't be a universalist without being in the Christus Victor model, or believe apokatastasis without it in some form. it's just what form that is important. in the next few posts, i'll talk about my interactions with Bond and Weaver and where i stand. hope you'll stick around!

Christ as Sacrifice, Christ as Victor

In my previous post where i revealed how big of a heretic i am, i stated later that i would clean up some inaccuracies on my part. This is that later. This post will divide up the sacrificial model of Anselm and posit the real Christus Victor model. both models have their pros and cons, and i will cover both.

The image of Christ as sacrifice is super old, prolly one of the oldest. the images pop up many times in the New Testament, featured heavily in Hebrews but also in the synoptics. it is also in the early church liturgy yet notably absent in the Didache, which i find really interesting... but i digress.

while the Pirate tried his best to offer up helpful metaphors for me, my prof did one better and offered up a section of the movie Dead Man Walking.



there is a part towards the end where the convict confesses to the nun. he starts off with some bravado he has had the whole movie yet acknowledges that he was a coward and thus was a victim by this other bully. however, the nun gently presses him and he finally admits guilt and responsibility for his actions. the nun forgives and the convict seeks forgiveness and notes that while his life was no good, maybe it will finally be of some good as his victim's family may take some comfort in his death. it hurts the nun to forgive as she finds a connection with a soon to be dead guy and it will hurt to see him die. it hurts the convict as it completely deconstructs his carefully held and constructed identity as a tough guy.

here's the kicker: in the view of sacrifice, God would be both the nun and the convict. the cross is the symbol of the connection between human guilt and divine perfection, love and empathy and repentance. Jesus as both divine and human becomes the rep of humans who need forgiveness as sinners and God who needs to forgive the wrongs done. Hurts humanity and God and the anguish on the cross symbolizes that.

this metaphor i can support more so than before. it gets strange when we ascribe Jesus as a substitute for us, as that gets legally strange, but to see Jesus as symbol of humanity, a representative of us, then that i can buy into. this requires a notion of a corporate self which Anselm and the early church would be operating with, yet we here in the Western 21st century might not get... but maybe, there are some connections for us.

just think of it like the government or sports team. if the government declares war on our behalf, then we are at war as a whole, whether we agree or not. if you listen closely to sports fans, they'll say strange things like "We WON!" but they weren't even on the team! They id. so closely that the team becomes the symbol for the city and everyone in it.

what does this say about God? the incarnation is a must in this theory. many divergent theologians come together here and state that this doesn't make God angry or any such thing, but those like Paul, Karl Barth, and even Paul Tillich (with his uber-abstract God) states that God is loving and merciful.

so in this instance the cross = the fact that love hurts. pain is the price of being in relationship and we are called to participate in this love and grace NOT thank God we got a substitute and we're off the hook and we can just believe and be fine (and buy Hummers, screw over the poor, and benefit from other's hard work, while giving those outside our faith a really hard time). i like this because i am in pain often due to my relationships... i'm always screwing something up or saying the wrong thing. even on this blog, i take pains to speak to others both inside and outside my faith tradition. there's a lot of forgiving and reconciling that goes on at a regular basis around here. this process involves sacrifice on both parts... of time to write responses, of giving up or questioning long held assumptions... so i understand this better now than the other...

the other view being, Gustaf Aulen in Christus Victor states that Christ as sacrifice is completely wrong! Aulen is Lutheran and so he went back to Luther and found that Luther too, didn't like this view held by Anselm. while this view is also scriptural and early "creedal" church Aulen was the first to give it a name.

Christus Victor = Christ victorious over sin and death and the devil. that is the "package" plaguing humanity and we need liberation from. this is heavily dependent on the Fall, original sin, and the idea of an objective and personified evil. the whole problem with the world is that we are at war, life is conflict, a battle between good and evil, angels and demons. Everyone else is pushed around by evil until Jesus comes and conquers it.

the best film to convey this idea is Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. take note of this "garden" scene. I've never watched the movie and doubt i will, and if you haven't all you need to do is watch this:



this is the whole movie in miniature. Jesus in agony, the devil being creepy, and humans behaving badly (either chickening out like the disciples or being corrupt like Judas and the Sadducees, or violent like the Romans).  God needs to win back humanity as we are powerless to do it ourselves. So God disguises Godself and is "born to die" and the devil, being smart in all other things in the domination of the world, doesn't recognize God in human form. So when the devil goes to claim another tasty soul, BAM! it's God who kicks some ass, liberates humanity and rules supreme.

this is Jesus as the Trojan Horse. Jesus as the fish hook, humanity is the bait, and when the devil latches on, it's curtains for him. the fishhook is an ancient symbol for Christ. so is Christ the boxer or Christ the gladiator.

here evil is an external presences where in Dead Man Walking, evil was internal. and isn't that the case, that laws and systems can be corrupt and unjust and thus catch people up in the cogs? aren't there things in society that you rail against stating "this isn't the way it's supposed to be!" but are powerless to change?

well that's me playing the advocate for this theory. i still have more problems with this one than with the sacrificial model.

critics of Aulen raised objections stating that he is just a failed manacheist or Zoroastrian, which his dueling Good-God/Bad God. this would make him a polytheist! plus what kind of creator lets evil sneak into the world? that's rather incompetent. and doesn't God take God's sweet time in making the correction? why didn't God just nuke evil from the start? and if Christ conquers sin/death/devil then why do we still have crappiness/death/and evil?

Aulen wasn't dumb, not by any means. if good comes from some cosmic "font of goodness" then why can't the bad come from a similar font? what would it mean if it came from the same font? entropy exists much like the south did after Gettysburg. They couldn't win, yet they still fought. same with many isolated islands on the Japanese side in WWII. They knew they lost yet fought into the mid-50s anyway.

so Aulen states that Good Friday shouldn't be the focus (like in those sacrificial folk), Saturday shouldn't either because that's when Jesus is turning over hell, but Easter is the true V-day. Worship them should be a victory celebration and proclamation until the cosmos and humanity catch onto this fact.

i don't like the spiritual warfare motif. i think Aulen had to have written this before the 20s because after he saw the Nazi conspiring with the Lutheran church, i don't think he would have held that view. the church is just an agent of institutional evil as anything else out there and with the European Catholic scandal going on, i really don't feel the need to argue this point.

i don't like the idea of God tricking or deceiving nor the idea of God being indebted to evil or Satan or some how accidentally letting evil into the world. i really don't think there is a perfected shalomic state we were supposed to be in from the start, i think we're supposed to grow and constantly work toward that goal.

and then insert the objections i had in the last post to this one... although i find myself more at peace with the sacrificial model now than i have been in a long, long time. once penal substitution is ruled out, i'm cool with it. Christus Victor, however, is a super-hero story transposed onto the scriptures. God the good defeats the evil Satan, evil genius and ruler of this world. i don't remember reading anywhere in the scriptures about how the devil came into being. that is more Catholic oral tradition than anything else. i wonder where that stuff came from.

Where I'm At:  I'm more of a Trinitarian than i thought. I like the play of internal and external evil, but i'm not choosing one over the other. i think both are problems we gotta deal with both individually and corporately. i'm not a dualist (or duelist in this case) and see how good people do bad things and bad people do good things and how good can come out of bad and vice versa. so i see how both models can't cover everything, but what system or theory can?

Satisfaction Theory and Christus Victor

In this post i will reveal how big of a heretic i am, but before i do i would like to focus on a little picture i found at CollegeHumor.com as a preface.

The Satisfaction Theory along with Christus Victor are considered the prime view of the atonement. The Satisfaction Theory is called the "classic view" by Aulen and it was best articulated by Anselm of Canterbury in the 1100s. It is the one i have the most trouble with and I've always pushed against it. Even in Catholic school where I pretty much accepted everything the teacher said, when it came to this view of atonement and even the doctrine of original sin, i questioned pushed and just couldn't accept it. One or two times a letter went home with my mom, but I always got A's in religion. so i kinda feel like the kid who the teacher is writing about who is bucking authority. so this post seeks showcase the "classic view" briefly and put in my two cents on where i have trouble with it. the purpose of this post is to seek understanding of this view and have someone address the plot holes within this theory. i'm open, but skeptical.

Aulen states that the subject of the atonement is absolutely central in Christian theology and it is directly related to the nature of God (page 12). Indeed, i think this is correct because every religion sets up a problem for the world and then provides the solution. in the 'classic view' the problem is that humankind is sinful and sin affects the order of the universe. God needs satisfaction for this but humans can't provide it, because God and sin are supposedly infinite and humans are finite. So God in Christ reconciles the world by becoming human and satisfying the justice needed.

Christus Victor however, states that humanity is in bondage to sin/death/devil and the solution is for God/Jesus or God in Jesus to come down and destroy sin/death and free captive humanity from sin/death/devil. I do the slashes as this is the whole package facing mankind and has some important nuances within it. that being said, i'll lay out where Aulen gets this idea.

Irenaeus is the first dude to really tackle this problem. granted the images of atonement are indeed found within the gospels (specifically John) and the epistles (specifically Paul, Hebrews, and Peter) and the early hymns and liturgies of the church. why? well, it is my prof Lee Barrett's idea that theology is parasitic on religious life. the life, hymns and songs, happen first, the emotional/subjective experience; and then along comes theology to figure out what it all means. kinda like science (WARNING WARNING: science analogy about to be used! ;-)) where events occur naturally and the scientist comes along later to establish the how's and why's; the purpose of the subjective action.

Irenaeus was the first to articulate that the early church looked at Christ's death and resurrection and said "hey, i kinda feel forgiven. let's sing about it!" Irenaeus picks up on the Pauline and Johannine writings and sees there's some direct connection with the thought of Christ as victor over sin and death. The devil has some objective existence, lord of sin and death, and having deceived mankind in the garden has gained dominion over them. God being perfectly just, somehow honors this pact and seeks to free humanity from it. Since God finds mankind under the condemnation of the Law, God delivers mankind from the powers of evil and reconciled the world to Himself [sic] and God becomes both the reconciler and the reconciled.

Aulen traces the thoughts of Irenaeus through the patristic traditions and through Protestant thought as well. adding to this idea through fancy nuances like God attains his purpose by internal, not external means, he overcomes evil not by an almighty fiat but by putting something of his own through a divine self-oblation (Great Catechism ch. 26). all of these thoughts rest on the doctrine of the fall and a dualistic understanding of the world where "darkness cannot endure when the light shines nor can death remain in being where Life is active."

there is the start of my problems.

1. if the fall is not in the Jewish understanding of the story of Genesis, then how can this stand? if Genesis is just a story, then how can it have any genetic binding on the souls of people?

2. how did this concept of the devil come into being? where in scripture is the fall of Satan? where can i find this story in rabbinic thought? Islam has a cool story of Ibis and how in parts Ibis/Satan is a jinn or jealous of God's love for humanity or even working on behalf of God to tempt the faithful and test them (like in some strains of Judaism). is the devil co-equal with God? is this some Zoroastrian version of Christianity?

3. I don't agree with the dualistic idea that darkness can't be around light. aren't they not connected? isn't it the shadows that define light? aren't life and death two aspects of a spectrum and while we live we are yet actively dying, subjecting to the natural law of entropy?

so those are just the start of my questions. i have other concerns too, like the idea of how we were ransomed by God yet many weren't aware of the fact we were in bondage in the first place! shouldn't a memo have been sent to all the other religions?

Dear Pagans, Buddhists, Hindus, Shitos, Taoists, and Gentile-masses,

Hi, this is God. Not god or gods, but the great beyond that all of your avatars point to. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but y'all are in bondage. But don't worry! I'm coming down there and atoning for your sins and freeing you from Satan, who got a little too attached to his work. This will both be really cool, cause I'll give you things like the beattitudes and some parables, as well as get to fire Satan (which will be great cause now it'll give another angel a chance to win the office's March Maddness Bracket, Gabriel is really excited at this). Oh, one caveat, you have to believe both that you're in bondage and that this guy Yeshua of Nazareth is me (which he'll never come out and say directly, cause you know, I'm freaky mysterious like that).

Eternal Love,

-G.

In class we're going to discuss this and hopefully i can get some clarity and some help connecting the dots. Aulen didn't help here. in fact, he made it worse. too many assumptions going into this theory for it to hold up in light of science and what we know about the world today. it is too reliant on tradition and an outdated metaphysic of angels, demons, and heavenly hosty sorta stuff.

i can affirm the basic concept of a Divine Love which cannot be imprisoned in categories of merit and of justice and thus breaks them into pieces. THAT i get! that is what i feel these images and metaphors point to but fear that they are hopelessly outdated and bear really bad fruit. Just read the Proverbs of Ashes to see what the model of self-sacrificial love can do... esp. in terms of sexism! but that subject is a whole other post. i think that's enough ranting for now.

Atonement

English royalty behaving badly! starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, about a love story that spans decades. something goes wrong and lovers are separated.



this movie is all about the idea that objectivity is a myth and all history is revisionist. there is the question of culpability as well as the ambiguity of guilt.

the most interesting thing is how Atonement doesn't happen through religion, or even in the real world. it happens through art. art is the new medium of forgiveness... the new priests are the artists and the creative imagination being the tool that can heal a fragmented world.

always look to see why the story is being told.. is it out of guilt, kindness, or "hey this is funny/cool/sad!" i loved this movie because i'm all about art! finally a movie that puts poetry back to what it was! the teacher of humanity and the balm for our souls... that's in Gilead? i dunno.. check out this film.. and i heart Keira