After a break, I'm picking up some more on the theology of the late Colin Gunton.
Colin Gunton wrote two major essays on Christology, as well as other shorter essays. The first was Yesterday & Today: A Study of Continuities in Christology (1983, 2nd ed. 1997) and the second was Christ and Creation (1992). The latter was a shorter book, based on his 1990 Didsbury Lectures, which deals with perhaps what is missing from the first book - the relation between Christ and creation and role of the Holy Spirit.
The basic argument of Yesterday and Today is that 'a Christology that which is true to the claims of the Christian gospel requires a greater degree of continuity with the past' than it is given in some 19th and 20th century theology. The reaction to the Enlightenment was either to try and do 'christology from below' or 'christology from above.' In a modern era we are more preoccupied with temporal interests - how can this historical Jesus be eternal? Gunton argues that all the New Testament writers 'see [Jesus] as in some way or the presence of the eternal God in time' (125) and we cannot separate the historical from the theological - 'if we do not interpret him within his theological context, we do not see him at all' (125). Therefore, we find, 'the New Testament interweaves the temporal and eternal, seeing the one to be the locus of the other' (125) - 'that this life is both fully temporal and yet is the place where the eternal is present' (127). Gunton claims that 'Jesus of Nazareth is the logic of divine love, logic in the sense of spelling out and making present in earthly actuality its eternal reality' (133). He writes, 'Jesus of Nazareth is not simply an unprecendented irruption or intervention of God upon the stage of history. The love of God which becomes actual in this truly human and historical life is continuous with the love that operates throughout it ... The love of God which made the world is the same love as that which comes to it in person, albeit for now a different person.' (133). And a little later:
'[God] becomes flesh. This means the eternal love of God locates itself in time and space, and so become datable. The love of God has the shape and form - the logic - of what happened in the life of Jesus' (134)
There is much more to be said in terms of the content of this book, but space permits me. In Christ and Creation Gunton develops his emphasis on the humanity of Jesus - 'Christ the creature' is the title of lecture two - through an emphasis on pneumatology - 'if we are to understand the nature of the humanity of Jesus, it will be by attention to the part the Holy Spirit plays in his life, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension' (46). He argues 'the function of the Spirit in relation to Jesus is, accordingly, as the perfecter of his humanity' (50). In the baptism of Jesus 'the Spirit directs the life of Jesus in one way rather than another' (53). In The Christian Faith he says, 'The Spirit is the one who makes Jesus of Nazareth to be the particular human being that he is' (102). So when we claim 'he was without sin,' Gunton wants to suggest, this means Jesus was enabled not to sin by the Spirit.
This is only a small part of what Colin wrote on the subject of christology, but I think it presents some of the distinctiveness of his thought.
Further Reading
Yesterday and Today (1983)
Christ and Creation (1992)
'Two Dogmas Revisited - Edward Irving's christology', Theology Through the Theologians (1996)
The Christian Faith (chapters 5 and 6, 2002)
'And in one Lord Jesus Christ ... Begotten not Made'; 'Martin Kahler Revisited. Variations on Hebrews 4.15'; 'One Mediator ... the Man Jesus Christ,' Father, Son & Holy Spirit (2003)
I used to attend colin's seminars when I was at kings and as I recall he was turning his attention back to Christology at the time of his passing.
Posted by: fernando | May 10, 2005 at 07:15 PM