Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vsgnj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T14:58:50.347Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The sacrifice of the Holy Christ in an unholy world

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2023

Katherine Sonderegger
Katherine Sonderegger*
Affiliation:
Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, VA, USA
*
E-mail: ksonderegger@vts.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In much modern christology, the notion of the incommensurate governs the relation of divine to human in Jesus Christ. In christologies influenced by Austin Farrer, and more distantly, by Nicholas of Cusa, the incommensurability of the infinite to the finite makes the idiom of paradox congenial, even necessary. Such demanding and unrelenting emphasis upon diastasis echoes a more ancient preoccupation with holiness in a fallen and unholy world. In Israel's scriptures, and in their lasting influence in the patristic era, the transcendent holiness of God threatens to prohibit the presence of the Holy One in the midst of unholy people. A record of this threat can be seen in the alien, fragmentary and unrecognisable Gospel portraits of the holy Christ to a sinful world. Yet the doctrine of the incarnation demands a divine presence to sinners and a sinful cosmos, a ‘making flesh’ as well as an ‘assuming flesh’. The concept and practice of sacrifice is proposed as a form of relation between deity and humanity such that the holy Christ can dwell and abide in an unholy world.

Keywords

christologyGospelsholinesshypostatic unionincarnationsacrifice
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 76 , Issue 1 , February 2023 , pp. 1 - 9
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Schweitzer, Albert, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, trans. Montgomery, W. (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1911), p. 401Google Scholar.

2 Sanders, E. P., The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Allen Lane Penguin, 1993), p. 192Google Scholar.

3 Of course, as attentive readers know by now, I can't be persuaded by all that Rahner says; and at times by little that he says. But I believe the systematic power of his work remains unmatched and stands always as a counter-stroke to the christology I aim to confess and to develop.

4 Nicholas of Cusa, Of Learned Ignorance, trans. Heron, Germaine (London: Yale University Press, 1954), p. 29Google Scholar.

5 Williams, Rowan, Christ the Heart of Creation (London: Bloomsbury, 2018)Google Scholar; McFarland, Ian A., The Word Made Flesh: A Theology of the Incarnation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2019)Google Scholar.

6 See Gould, Stephen Jay, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (New York: Vintage, 1999)Google Scholar.

7 This article was originally presented as the 2021 Dunning Memorial Lecture at St Mary's Seminary and University, Baltimore, MD.