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Chapter 14
Christologies in the Late 20
th
century

The so called theological renascence had lost its momentum
The changing of the theological climate the stirring in the roman catholic church expressing herself in
the second Vatican council and in the outpouring of the new theology both before and after the council.

A. Existentialist Christology
Barths allies

Rudolf Bultmann - great influence in systematic theolog
The right philosophy existentialism and analysis of human existence
Existentialist interpretation is at the same time demythologizing it translate the new Testament out of
Objectifying mythological language in which much of it is expressed in language which expresses a new
possibility of human existence.
THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES - composed of churches which acknowledge J.C. as God
the SAVIOR
Jesus Christ as God Son of God or Word of God
Christ as God is a description of him in the sense of an objectifying statement about his being or
whatever it expresses his significance for the believer.
BULTMANN OBJECTIFYING - it is n just confession of faith like the confession of Thomas
It need not to be objectifying but it would have participatory
BULTMANN Jesus is the bearer of the word or rather he is the bearer when he proclaims the
imminence of the Kingdom of God, and then he is himself content of the word in the apostolic
preaching. In the trasitional language Jesus was not called bearer theotokos and Jesus ho is in his person
was the word.

GOGARTEN
SECULARIZATION - - it is historicization, the bringing of everything into the age or saeculum
Everything is already determined and there was no place for human responsibility and creativity
Ike Bultmann he disassociate himself from the liberals and has no interest in reconstructing the
historical Jesus
DEMYTHOLOGIZING he used it just like bultmann
CHRISTOLOGY - Jesus was the first human being to accept full responsibility before God and
therefore the first to break with the confusion between God and the world with its consequent idolizing
of the world or of innerworldly being.

PAUL TILLICH
Starting point existentialist
Correlation method of Correlation critical self examinatiuon task of the theologians is to listen to
the question arising out of the cultural situation and to rethink the tradition in response to the questions.
Ultimate Concern - - quest for meaning
TWO WAYS OF TALKING GOD
Existential and defined God in terms of the attitude of the the believer as ultimate concern
The ontological and defined God as Being itself. a reality prior to experience
Heidegger - Being is not in turn as object, for being is not one of the beings indeed- , for those who
are concern for beings God might be called as NOTHING.
Jesus Christ is both historical fact and the subject of believing reception
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The universalization of Christ as a savior figure significant to all human beings
In the second way we see Jesus in his symbolic rather than his historical reality and we have to see him
in both ways if we want to understand his place in Christianity.
There is revelation outside of specifically Christian tradition.
Jesus Christ is the final revelation but not isolated event but stands in a revelatory history which includes
many preparations.
He speaks about biblical picture of Jesus as the Christ. symbol verbal icon

George Tarvard it is not biblical historical or theological enough it is not clear enough.

B. ROMAN CATHOLIC CHRISTOLOGIES After Vatican II

Karl Rahner
Foundational Thomism transcendental Thomism
Philosophy began as an attempt of reconciling the Copernican revolution that Kant claimed to brought
about Philosophy when he claimed away in speculative metaphysics to the critically examination of our
human powers of knowing to a transcendental inquiry into the conditions of knowing.
TRANSCENDENTAL THOMISM philosophical anthropology an understanding of the human being
as a finite creature who is nevertheless conscious of moving toward an infinite horizon
Man is Spirit he lives his life in a perpetual reaching out to the Absolute in openness with God.
19
th
century Protestantism the sense and taste of the infinite Schleimacher , the religious a priori
Troelsch
Task is to demonstrate that the positive openness for a revelation which God may possibly give is a
part of essential constitution of man Man must posses being absolutely through the luminous word
The spirit is applied to the Human being he finds himself situated before being in its totality which is
infinite]
Spirit is desire ( dynamic openness) for absolute being every operation of the spirit can be therefore be
understood only as a moment in the movement towards absolute being as toward the one end and goal
of the desire of the Spirit.
THE ANTHOPOLOGY AND THE CHRISTOLOGY is closely related
Christology is the transcendent anthropology and Anthropology is deficient Christology.

Chalcedon
The question of the person of Jesus Christ
Creeds and other formulation of belief are historical utterance arising out of a definite historical situation
Rahner - the history of theology has been as much a history of forgetting as a history of learning.
Chalcedonian dogma is a condensation and the summary of everything without the remainder of which
wehear in the scriptures about Jesus Christ and about the Son.

For rahner God is continuously communicating himself both in and to creation- Jesus Christ is the
Climax of the process of communication Incarnation is the beginning of the divinization of the world
as whole.

The Idea of Incarnation

Edward Schillebeeckx
He constructed a of the ministry of Jesus
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Christology Jesus is the proclaimer of the Kingdom of God liberating his hearers from constricting
idea of God and the human community; accompanying the teaching is the acted parable of Jesus own
life, his healings and exorcisms and his table fellowship both with his disciples and with sinners and
social outcast of various kinds.
The view of a prophet

Pierre Teilhard Chardin
Sees the evolution as a vast ordered process moving as believes toward a goal.
Eschatology the omega-point the gathering up and the fulfillment of all things in a spirit culmination
Christology Christ is not the only the end and the anticipation of the end, he has like every other
novelty been hidden in the past coming into the world.
It is not only the human race but the while material cosmos that is destined to be incorporated in the
body of Christ.
JESUS Christ does not refer only on the individual human being who has called in that name but in the
Chris event, the social reality is the inspirer and the center

C. LIBERATION THEOLOGY

John Sobrino
Jesus as the liberator and savior is similar in meaning
The relation og belief and action is is very complex

Two stages in Enlightenment
Liberation in the human reason from theological domination
Associated with Marx championed with the liberation of the whole person from a religious outlook
that supported.

The starting point of Chirstology must be in the historical Jesus - reflec