Reference: Christianity
[NOTE: In color are Vinaire’s comments.]
Christian theology was born to explain the mystery of the preternatural power of selfless love and crystalline joy, which the disciples experienced in the presence of Jesus.
It was not the disciples’ minds that were first drawn to Jesus. Rather, we have seen, it was their experience—the experience of living in the presence of someone whose selfless love, crystalline joy, and preternatural power came together in a way his disciples found divinely mysterious. It was only a matter of time, however, before Christians felt the need to understand this mystery in order to explain it to themselves and to others. Christian theology was born, and from then on the Church was head as well as heart.
Christian theology was born to explain the mystery of the preternatural power of selfless love and crystalline joy, which the disciples experienced in the presence of Jesus.
Forced in this brief survey to choose, we shall confine ourselves to Christianity’s three most distinctive tenets: the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the Trinity. The very names of these doctrines warn that our discussion will be theological, so before going further we should say something about this discipline. The modern mind is more interested in psychology and ethics than theology and metaphysics. This means that people, Christians among them, tend to appreciate the ethical teachings of Jesus more than the theological arguments of Saint Paul. However little they may care to live by the Sermon on the Mount, they at least respect it. Doctrines like those we are about to discuss, on the other hand, seem tedious if not incredible and at times annoying. Even New Testament scholars sometimes fall into step with this mood to the extent of trying to draw a sharp line between the “religion of Jesus” and “the religion about Jesus,” between the forthright ethics of Jesus and the convoluted theology of Paul, between the human Jesus and the cosmic Christ, with strong insinuations that in each case the former is the nobler.
The Christian theology puts forth the doctrines of the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the Trinity. These are quite convoluted compared to the forthright ethics of Jesus.
Notwithstanding the fact that even scholars can succumb to the view that religion’s essence is ethics, the view is mistaken. High religion always includes a summons to the upright life, but its eyes are not fixed primarily on that summons. Faith’s focal attention is on a vision of reality that sets morality in motion, often as a by-product almost. Religion begins with experience; “belief, ritual, and spiritual experience, and the greatest of these is the last.” Because the experience is of things that are invisible, it gives rise to symbols as the mind tries to think about invisible things. Symbols are ambiguous, however, so eventually the mind introduces thoughts to resolve the ambiguities of symbols and systematize their intuitions. Reading this sequence backwards we can define theology as the systematization of thoughts about the symbols that religious experience gives rise to. The Christian Creeds are the bedrock of Christian theology for being the earliest attempts by Christians to understand systematically the events that had changed their lives.
Theology is the systematization of thoughts about the symbols that religious experience gives rise to. Faith’s focal attention is on a vision of reality that sets morality in motion.
We may begin with the doctrine of the Incarnation, which took several centuries to fix into place. Holding as it does that in Christ God assumed a human body, it affirms that Christ was God-Man; simultaneously both fully God and fully man. To say that such a contention is paradoxical seems a charitable way to put the matter—it looks more like a blatant contradiction. If the doctrine held that Christ was half human and half divine, or that he was divine in certain respects while being human in others, our minds would not balk. But such concessions are precisely what the Creeds refuse to grant. In the words of the Creed of Chalcedon, Jesus Christ was “at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man…of one essence with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one essence with us as regards his manhood, in all respects like us, apart from sin.”
The doctrine of the Incarnation holds that in Christ God assumed a human body, it affirms that Christ was God-Man; simultaneously both fully God and fully man.
The Church has always admitted that such assertions are opaque; the question is whether this is the last word on the matter. Actually, we can ask the same question of science. The anomalies of frontier physics provoked Haldane to his famous mutterance that “the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” In more than one field, it appears, reality can be too strange for logic to comprehend. And where logic and evidence clash, it seems prudent to stick with evidence, for this holds the prospect of leading to a wider logic, whereas the opposite approach closes the door to discovery.
Where logic and evidence clash, it seems prudent to stick with evidence, for this holds the prospect of leading to a wider logic.
In suggesting that it was evidence that forced Christians to their logictaxing assertion that Christ was both human and divine, we are of course speaking of religious experience—intuitions of the soul concerning ultimate issues of existence. Such evidence cannot be presented with an obviousness that will compel assent, for it does not turn on sense reports. But if we try we can arrive at at least an intimation of the experiential leads that the Christians were following. When in the year 325 the Emperor Constantine convened the Council of Nicea to decide whether Christ was of the same substance as God or only of like substance, three hundred bishops and their attendants came rushing in a frenzy of excitement from all over the empire. They must have presented a strange sight, for many of them bore empty eye sockets, disfigured faces, and limbs that were twisted and paralyzed from the Diocletian persecution they had endured. Obviously, more than forensics was involved in their deliberations.
The evidence in this case is the interpretation of the religious experience that made Christians declare that Christ was both human and divine.
The Nicene decision that Christ was “of one substance with the Father” claimed something about both Jesus and God. Note first its initial claim about Jesus. Among the many possible meanings the word “God” carries, none is more important than “that to which one gives oneself without reservation.” In saying that Jesus was God, one of the things the Church was saying was that his life provides the perfect model by which to order human life. Slavish imitation of details is never creative, but insofar as Christ’s love, his freedom, and the daily beauty of his life can find their authentic parallels in our own we are carried Godward, for the traits are authentically divine.
In saying that Jesus was God, one of the things the Church was saying was that his life provides the perfect model by which to order human life.
This much is obvious. But as we enter more deeply into the doctrine of the Incarnation we must prepare ourselves for surprises. To begin with, though the Christian announcement of the Incarnation—a God-man—was as startling to its day as it is to ours, the shock attaches to different poles. Because we find disturbing the thought that a human being can be divine, we find the shocking feature of the Incarnation to be what it says about Jesus, that he was God. But in its own world, where the dividing line between the human and the Divine was perforated to the point that even emperors routinely claimed to be divine, a struggling sect’s claim that its founder was divine raised few eyebrows. What else is new? would have been the common retort.
We find the shocking feature of the Incarnation to be what it says about Jesus, that he was God.
The Incarnation claimed that there was something newsworthy in the Christian message; namely, its proclamation of the kind of God that God was, as demonstrated by God’s willingness to assume a human life of the form that Jesus exemplified. That willingness, together with the character of Jesus’ life, added up to a different understanding of divinity than the Mediterranean world had known. In the Christian view God was concerned about humanity; concerned enough to suffer in its behalf. This was unheard of, to the point that the reaction to it was disbelief followed by alarm. In the eyes of threatened conservatives, such blasphemy, coupled with the Christians’ radically egalitarian social views, justified persecution to stamp out this new sect. That Christians were aware of the novelty of their theology is illustrated by the fact that they seldom referred to God without stipulating that it was “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” that they were talking about.
In the Christian view God was concerned about humanity; concerned enough to suffer in its behalf. This added up to a different understanding of divinity.
As for what the Incarnation asserts about Christ, here too we are surprised. For what we find is that instead of wasting many words on Jesus’ divinity, the Creeds assume that their primary task is to argue his full humanity. This ties in with what was just said about the casual overlap of divine and human in Greco-Roman understanding—the Olympic deities, quasi-human, quasi-divine, formed the religious backdrop. The Christian Jesus did not fit into this framework. We have seen that in his case the divine/human overlap was not one of compromise—somewhat human, somewhat divine. It was the conjunction of stark opposites: absolute divinity overlapping complete humanity. And because in the Church’s experience it was Jesus’ full humanity that was in danger of slipping from their grasp, so rapidly was his divinity moving to the fore, it was that humanity that the Church’s first Creed set out to affirm.
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and buried….
It is most surprising to see God attributed with full humanity.
How casually this Apostles’ Creed touches on Christ’s divinity! As early as the second century this point no longer had to be argued; it was assumed. The burden of the Apostles’ Creed, carried by the words we have romanized, was to insist that Christ was man as well. He really was born, it says; he really suffered, he really died and was buried. These incidents were not just make-believe, a sequence through which God merely feigned to brush with the human estate; that notion was later targeted as the Docetic Heresy. Christ endured these experiences as fully as we do. He was “truly man.”
And is it true? And is it true,
(John Betjeman, Christman)
This most tremendous tale of all…
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
God was not feigning to be man. God, as Christ, really was born; he really suffered, he really died and was buried.
It is not difficult to see why (at cost of immense logical awkwardness) the Church felt that it needed to retain Christ’s humanity. A bridge must touch both banks, and Christ was the bridge that joined humanity to God. “God became man that man might become God,” was Irenaeus’ way of putting the matter. To have said that Christ was man but not God would have been to deny that his life was fully normative and to concede that other ways might be as good. To have said that he was God but not man would have been to deny that his example was fully relevant; it might be a realistic standard for God but not for human beings. The Christians could have relaxed one claim or the other and salvaged logic, but at the cost of betraying their core experience.
The core experience of Christians required that it needed to retain Christ’s humanity.
Turning to the doctrine of the Atonement, we know that its root meaning is reconciliation, the recovery of wholeness or at-one-ment. Christians were convinced that Christ’s life and death had effected an unparalleled rapprochement between God and humanity. In the words of Saint Paul, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19). Two metaphors have dominated the Church’s understanding of this occurrence. One, legalistic, runs as follows: By voluntarily disobeying God’s order not to eat of the forbidden fruit in Eden, Adam sinned. As his sin was directed against God, it was of infinite proportion. Sins must be compensated for, otherwise God’s justice would be compromised. An infinite sin demands infinite recompense, and this could only be effected by God’s vicarious assumption of our guilt and payment of the ultimate penalty it required, namely death. God made this payment through the Person of Christ and the debt is canceled.
The doctrine of the Atonement is about reconciliation. God’s vicarious assumption of our guilt and payment of the ultimate penalty through the Person of Christ has brought about this reconciliation between him and humanity.
Where the mind had a different cast—in the Middle Ages especially—this understanding of the Atonement carried weight, but Christendom’s presiding metaphor on this topic has been release from bondage. The bondage Christ released humanity from was sin, which means that we have no choice but to tackle this unpalatable subject.
Christendom’s presiding metaphor on this topic has been release from the bondage of sin.
We can begin by noting that though the word is usually used in the plural, suggesting thereby specific acts—a catalogue of misdeeds or rules that have been broken, perhaps those of the Ten Commandments—Christians find in its singular, “sin,” something deeper: a disconnectedness or estrangement from God. It is the heart’s misplacement; a disalignment of our affections. Augustine, making this point in a positive vein, said, “Love [God] and do what you will.” When there is wholehearted love for the All, for the universal good we might say, then the will wants that good and needs no rules. For the most part matters are otherwise; concern for ourselves sabotages our love for others. And yet we do not truly like ourselves very much. Our hearts are drawn to something larger, beyond the narrow confines of the ego.
When there is wholehearted love for the All, for the universal good we might say, then the will wants that good and needs no rules.
Thus the bondage that imprisons us is attachment to ourselves, with the fear and guilt that trail in its wake. Put the other way around, our bondage results from our estrangement, our sin or sunderment, from full participation in the divine life. Being excluded from such participation doesn’t feel good. Paul had the openness and honesty first to see this and then to admit it: I feel wretched, he said. Prisoners always do. A good part of their wretchedness springs from their helplessness; by definition they can’t free themselves. So Paul continues: “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 14:15). He is admitting that he is trapped, which realization leads to his desperate cry that we have already quoted, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 14:24). In whatever words it is the cry that every alcoholic has repeated. If there is to be a liberation, it will have to come from without, or better, from above: a higher power. It was the Christian witness that the Power that works the liberation, and restores the self to the ground of its being, is Christ. One could equally say that it is God, but Christians add that in this instance God’s purpose was accomplished by Christ.
It was the Christian witness that the Power that works the liberation, and restores the self to the ground of its being, is Christ.
The third key Christian doctrine that we shall consider is the Trinity. It holds that while God is fully one, God is also three. The latter half of this claim leads Jews and Muslims to wonder if Christians are truly monotheists, but Christians are confident that they are. As water, ice, and steam, H2O assumes states that are liquid, solid, and gaseous while retaining its chemical identity.
The third key Christian doctrine is the Trinity. It holds that while God is fully one, God is also three.
What prompted the Christians to this atypical view that God is Three-in-One? As always in such matters, the notion had an experiential base. The theological doctrine of the Trinity was not set in place until the fourth century, but the experiences that it impounds are those of the earliest Church; indeed, they generated that Church. As full-fledged Jews, Jesus’ disciples affirmed Yahweh unquestioningly. But as we have seen, they came to see Jesus as Yahweh’s extension in the world, and as his life and mission grew in vividness they began to accord to his person a distinct region within the divine. This meant that in their religious imaginings they could now apprehend God either directly or by way of his Son, though in fact the two were so closely joined that the result was the same. And then came Pentecost, which brought a third visitation. While they were all together in one place,
suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:1–4)
Early Christens came to see Jesus as Yahweh’s extension in the world, and while they were all together in one place, the felt themselves filled with the Holy Spirit.
The secular mind would say that the disciples first reified this experience, turning it into a thing, the Holy Spirit, and then personified that reification, thereby generating the third Person of the Trinity, but the disciples would have rejected this explanation. Jesus may not have said, “the Father will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth”; the assertion appears in the last of the Gospels to be written, in John, and is therefore disputed. But if the words were attributed to Jesus, it was because they reflected the disciples’ understanding of their Pentecost experience. What they there witnessed, they were persuaded, was the dramatic arrival of a third party to the divine assembly, the Holy Spirit.
It was through God’s extension as Jesus that one was filled with this Spirit of truth that stayed with one forever.
This is how the disciples were brought to their understanding of God in three Persons; but once that understanding was in place, they projected it back to the beginning of time. If the divine “triangle” has three “sides” now, it must always have had three sides. The Son and the Holy Spirit had indeed proceeded principally from the Father, but not temporally. The three were together from the start; for after the multiplicity in the divine nature was brought home to them, Christians could no longer think of God as complete without it. We have noted that the other two Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Islam, object to this theology, but Christians love it. For love is a relationship, they say, and love is incomplete without others to love. If, then, love is not just one of God’s attributes but instead God’s very essence—and it may be the Christian mission in history to claim just this point—at no point could God have been truly God without having relationships, a requirement that was met “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4) through the three Persons’ of the Triune God loving one another. “The Godhead is a society of three divine persons, knowing and loving each other so entirely that not merely can none exist without the others, but in some mysterious way each is what the other is,” a theologian has written.
The other two Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Islam, object to this theology, but Christians love it.
The Nicene Creed put it this way:
We believe in one God the Father almighty,…
and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,…
and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Life-giver,…
who with the Father and the Son together
is worshipped and glorified.
Goodness and love are inherent to the concept of divine.
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