Ted Davis wrote:
>
> I won't try to define a "proper" theology in general, but I will comment on
> a few essentials (IMO) of a "proper Christian" theology, if I may say that.
>
> I cannot accept as legitimate a theology that is not based on the
> historical experience of the reality of the resurrection, by which I do not
> mean simply "appearances" in a Bultmannian sense: that the women went to the
> right tomb and found it empty, that Thomas touched the hands and side of a
> body that he had to admit bore the marks of a crucified man, that this same
> person could vanish as suddenly as he appeared, and that he appeared to
> literally hundreds of people at once (ruling out tall tales) and finally to
> a zealous Jew who hated him. *Starting* thus from the *historical*
> experience (I don't give a bad nickle for the claim that we can't speak
> "historically" about this, either it happened in which case it's historical
> or it didn't in which case it isn't) of a "risen" Lord, without the reality
> of which I find the first few months of church history to be most
> improbable, I move out to locate some of the non-negotiables of Christian
> theology. Minimally, these would include the recognition that the God of
> Jesus raised him from the dead, from which after a few centuries of
> reflection Christians concluded that he must have been God himself, or so
> close to God that he represented God fully; that he had given himself
> sacrificially for all of us (however much we may want to broaden their
> interpretation of it, how can we fault the biblical theologians for
> interpreting him as the lamb of God?); that God must have power over nature
> to accomplish this, and thus that the Jewish belief (arising no later than
> the Maccabeean period) that God had the power to make the world from nothing
> was correct; that (with Paul) our ultimate hope is grounded in this same
> Lord and his God, the maker of heaven and earth.
>
> It is on this basis that I cannot describe process theology--at least in
> its "orthodox" variety, in which God has not the power to create ex
> nihilo--as a "proper" theology at all. I see it facing some crucial
> problems and coming up short on all accounts. (1) If Christ is not raised,
> as Paul said, we are to be pitied and we have only false hopes. (2) If
> Christ is raised, then we cannot consistently deny God awesome power over
> nature: God must be the "author" of the "laws" of nature to accomplish this.
> But then God must have power enough to make the world, since the giver of
> laws establishes the properties and powers of matter. (3) Finally (as an
> extra-theological critique), if process is claimed to be more "scientific"
> than orthodoxy because (for example) a process view is more conducive to
> evolution, then let us ask whether process is more "scientific" if it cannot
> accept the clear implication of modern cosmology, to wit, that the one world
> whose existence we can verify--the only world whose existence we can ever
> "test" scientifically--has a finite age and thus appears to have been
> "created". Process dies in my view on the horns of this dilemma: to affirm
> that Christ is risen in the only sense that counts is to accept God's power
> as at least very great, if not "omnipotent", which goes against the
> fundamental assumption of process, that God can only persuade and cannot
> create; whereas to affirm that process is "scientific" is to accept the
> implications of modern cosmology, which also goes against the fundamental
> assumption. Resurrection and creation (even apart from scripture) cry out
> for a God that process cannot accept.
Ted -
I agree with virtually all that you say but an absolutely essential aspect is
missing. The one God raised from the dead, and with whom God is identified, is the
crucified. Speaking about the resurrection without the cross (& I realize of course
that you aren't _denying_ the cross) inevitably results in bad theology. If we take the
cross with full seriousness it means that we have to be able to speak of God together
with suffering and death, and in fact to begin our understanding of who God is with the
cross and resurrection. Classical theology made valiant efforts to do this but was
continually hampered by presuppositions of a timeless and immutable divine nature.
Process theology is able to speak of God's participation in suffering, an
insight which it owes at least in part to what Whitehead called "the Galilean origins of
Christianity." That is one significant advantage it has over traditional philosophical
theism.
"Process theology" narrowly defined does have serious problems. It cannot speak
of _creatio ex nihilo_ (& thus of genuine resurrection) & while it can speak of God's
participation in suffering, it sees the cross as simply one example of that rather than
as a unique divine act. But as I've noted, classical theism is also defective. What is
needed is a fully trinitarian theology which is both able able to speak adequately about
creation and about the Incarnation as part of God's own life. This is exactly the sort
of thing that theologians like Barth, Pannenberg, Moltmann, Juengel, Jenson, and LaCugna
have been doing for the past 70 years - though IMHO more attention in this area still
needs to be given to creation.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Apr 11 2000 - 17:06:14 EDT