Thursday, September 21, 2006

Perspective

Joshua at Theologoumenon posted these two quotes from Moltmann and Barth:

“The cross of the Son divides God from God to the utmost degree of enmity and distinction”

Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, pg. 152 (originally published in 1972ish)

“But at this point what is meant to be supreme praise of God can in fact become supreme blasphemy. God gives Himself, but he does not give up being God in becoming creature, in becoming man. He does not cease to be God. He does not come into conflict with Himself…A God who found himself in contradiction can obviously only be the image of our own unreconciled humanity projected into deity.”

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1, 185-186 (published in 1953)

I look at Moltmann's quote as not so much a comment on Trinitarian thought (or his variation of Trinitarian thought), but about the perspective of Christ. In a sense, Christ was not God. He was man. This is what the cross represents--for death does not come to God.
But at the same time, it is difficult to get away from what Barth says in the end of the quote-"A God who found himself in contradiction can obviously only be the image of our own unreconciled humanity projected into deity.” Maybe by taking Christ as man, we are fashioning a man out of a God, but by seeing the cross as a fissure, as Moltmann does here, we are fashioning God out of a man. Isn't this what Christ is?

I think this discussion goes very well with
yesterday's quote by Moltmann. The cross of Christ, the Crucified God--sets a barrier, changes the viewpoint and brings God down to earth (but in the end raises him up) to his people, of whom he is one.

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