IntroductionIn 1977 two theological books were published in rapid succession. The first book was entitled The Myth of God Incarnate. This collection of ten essays was edited by the English theologian John Hick and included the work of seven authors. The thrust of this book is summarized on the book's back cover: "Their thesis is that Jesus was a man approved by God for a special role with divine purpose, and …the later conception of him as God incarnate … is a mythological or poetic way of expressing his significance for us." In response to this book, another collection of essays was published with an intentionally similar title: The Truth of God Incarnate. In this book, four scholars respond to The Myth of God Incarnate in eight essays. The editor, Michael Green, states that "our main concern is not with this particular book [The Myth of God Incarnate], rather with the issues its brings up (p 22)". In my short evaluation of these "rival incarnates", I will focus on the larger and more well-known work The Myth of God Incarnate. I will evaluate this book's theological approach, method, and Christological conclusions in light of The Truth of God Incarnate. THE THEOLOGICAL APPROACH OF THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATEIn the preface of The Myth of God Incarnate, the editor sets the tone for the collection of essays that will follow. He first quotes T.S. Eliot by saying "Christianity is always adapting itself into something which can be believed. (p ix)". He states that Christianity adapted itself in the 19th century by accepting Darwinism and by rejecting the unique inspiration of scripture. He goes on to say that "the writers of this book are convinced that another major theological development is called for in this last part of the twentieth century. The need arises from growing knowledge of Christian origins, and involves a recognition that Jesus was a man approved by God…and that the later conception of him as god incarnate … is a mythological or poetic way of expressing his significance for us. This recognition is called for in the interests of truth; but it also has increasing important practical implications for our relationship to the peoples of the he other great world religions (p ix)." I best understand the logic of this approach by reversing the ideas presented in this paragraph. Starting at the end, the editor says this. First, we do not wish to offend people in the other great world religions. Furthermore, we see that the greatest offence to other religions is the claim that Jesus Christ is uniquely the Son of God via incarnation. Therefore, we determine that incarnation is a later invention and we interpret the incarnation of Christ as "myth or poetry". Because Christ is not literal incarnate God, he must be merely "a man approved by God". Since all this is true, then Christian scripture and origins must be re-examined and tweaked to match our ultimate goal (bringing us back to the starting place) which is to set Christianity on equal footing with other religions.
In assessing The Myth of God Incarnate, Michael Green makes the following observations about its authors in chapter 6 of The Truth of God Incarnate, entitled "Jesus and Historical Skepticism": I agree with Michael Green in these five observations. I cannot understand how an author like Maurice Wiles can say "Incarnation, in its full and proper sense, is not something directly presented in Scripture (p 4)." He then goes on to state that specific verses in the fourth gospel do seem to point to the incarnation, but these must be taken "in a less straightforwardly historical way". This is my major complaint with books such as The Myth of God Incarnate. They cherry pick a verse they support (i.e. Acts 2:21 "Jesus was a man approved by God") and put this quote on a book jacket. Then they ignore verses that they do not like (i.e. John 1:14 "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us") on "general critical grounds". I grant the doubting authors freedom to believe whatever they choose about scripture and about Jesus, but it must be intentional blindness or dishonesty to claim that (1) the New Testament does not teach the incarnation, that (2) the earliest church fathers did not teach the incarnation, or that (3) the incarnation was a later invention imported from Greek culture. This astounds me. Wouldn't it be simpler to admit, "Yes, we agree that the New Testament plainly teaches incarnation, but we no longer believe these portions of the Bible". It seems they want all the comfort of religion without any of its responsibility. In his book Christian Theology, Millard Erickson presents two approaches confronting the church in its relations with society: (1) being a "transformer" or (2) being a "translator". The first attempts to adapt Christianity to a world deemed to have undergone a serious transformation since Bible times. This approach does not see Christianity as essentially bound to any ancient doctrines or thought patterns. The Christian message must be "transformed" into terms modern people can understand and must be made innocuous to people of other religions. The second option, that of being a "translator", involves conveying the original meaning of a biblical text into terms that can be understood today. This approach assumes permanent teachings which remain constant across both time and culture. Using this criteria set forth my Erickson, The Myth of God Incarnate approaches the church in culture as a transformer. Essayists in The Truth of God Incarnate do seem to believe that scripture is reliable, that miracles are possible, and that early Christians did indeed ascribe deity to Christ. They approach the church in culture as a translator. THE THEOLOGICAL METHODS OF THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATEIn The Myth of God Incarnate there are two major divisions of essays. Part One is entitled "Testing the Sources" and Part Two is entitled "Testing the Development". There is also an introduction and an epilogue. The several authors of these essays all take a "transformer" approach to Christianity and this reflects in their theological methods. In the introductory chapter entitled "Christianity without Incarnation?", Maurice Wills exegetes scripture relating to Christ's incarnation. He concludes "the most likely change would be towards a less exclusive insistence on Jesus as the way for all peoples and all cultures" and "But the truth of God's self-giving love and the role of Jesus in bringing that vision to life in the world would remain. For myself much even of the traditional language and imagery would still seem appropriate as a pictorial way of expressing these truths (p 9)". Maurice Wills wants to maintain traditional vocabulary in expressing incarnation, but he wants to use a different dictionary, one that defines "incarnation" not as a metaphysical reality, but as an image or picture. I see this recalibrating of definitions as a source of confusion and not as an aid to communication. In Part One, the doctrine of incarnation is examined based on first century scripture. In "A cloud of witnesses", Frances Young argues that Christians should retain the Trinity because "it defies expression and was a constant warning against over-simple theology, blasphemous in their attempts to pin down the Being of God (p 42)." However, we see again a desire to retain the vocabulary but change the dictionary, because she concludes by saying "the future seems to lie with pluralism in Christology (p 42)." In his essay, "Jesus the man of Destiny", Michael Goulder returns to a central theme of the book: that the earliest Christians did not hold Jesus to be incarnate, but that rather incarnation was a later invention. He holds that the Father and Son are not homoousia (one substance), but homopraxis (one in activity). The next essay, also by Coulder, continues this argument. In "The Two Roots of the Christian Myth", Coulder contends that there is a Galilean Christian tradition championed by Paul and a Samaritan Christian tradition championed by Simon Magus. He further contends that the Samaritan tradition emphasized the incarnation and therefore it is dispensable for modern Christians. I have tried to follow his methods, but I am at a loss. He quotes a 4th century document mentioning Simon Magnus, then he assumes its authoritative, then he uses this assumption to counter statements made by Paul. Coulder lists five things that a Samaritan Christology tends to contribute to a Galilean interpretation, then he lists "five Samaritan tendencies as the source of the dialectic leading to the synthesis of classical orthodoxy". The final essay in Part One was written by Frances Young. This writer agrees with Coulder that Samaritan myth effected orthodoxy, but she adds Greek and Roman myth to the mix. Her essay is called "Two Roots or a Tangled Mass?". Like other essayists, she concludes that expressions of 1st century incarnation were pre-scientific ways of thinking. She says "whether or not we can unearth the precise origins of incarnational belief, it is surely clear that it belongs naturally enough to a world in which supernatural ways of speaking seemed the highest and best expression of the significance and finality of the one they identified as God's awaited Messiah and envoy". I found her theological method unconvincing. She identifies numerous citations of extra-biblical material, nearly all written after the 2nd century. Then she reads them back into time, gives them precedence over earlier biblical sources, then concludes that "incarnation" was not a part of Christ's teaching. In Part Two of The Myth of God Incarnate, four essayists examine the development of the doctrine of incarnation from after the closing of the canon in about 100 AD to the present day. As one reads these essays, one can discern the "translator" agenda. Their goal seems to maintain the Christian vocabulary (out of respect for tradition), but to mythologize all of its terms (out of respect for other great religions). Leslie Houlden believes that Paul lacked a modern perspective, unable to distinguish between fact and imagery. He says" We have no reason to suppose that Paul would have appreciated any such distinction". By making this statement, all of Paul's Christology is relegated to "imagery", since Paul does not understand the difference between fact and imagery. Don Cuppit concludes that "divine transcendence alone judges, delivers and restores". He insists that "the criterion of religious adequacy, rightly understood, itself demands that Christology be not any kind of man-cult: it must be theocenteric, not christocentric (p146)." How an a "Christology" not be "Christocentric"? Maurice Wiles writes an essay entitled "Myth in Theology". He believes that myth "can continue to function as a potent myth, once it is acknowledged that it is not literally true". In his introduction to The Truth of God Incarnate Michael Green notes the undisciplined use of the term "myth" throughout all the essays, especially in Wiles's essays. In the final essay "Jesus and World Religions", John Hick provides brief biographies of the founders of world religions, expounding especially the virtues of Buddha. He encapsulates his theology by saying "As the stories of the six day creation of the world and the fall of Adam and Eve after their temptation by the serpent in the Garden of Eden are now seen as profound religious myths, illuminating our human situation, so the story of the son of God coming down from heaven and being born as a human baby will be seen as a mythological expression (p184)." Although I reject this conclusion, I can see where Fundamentalist theologians are sometimes guilty of the same reasoning. Hick reasons that if Adam and Eve were mythological (in the sense of not historical persons), then the incarnation of God in Christ can validly be understood as mythological (i.e. not metaphysical, but metaphor). This leap in logic doesn't make sense to me. But neither does it make sense that all portions of scripture must be equally historical as some Fundamentalists insist. Was Job an historic person? Perhaps. Was there really a court held in heaven with Satan presenting evidence? I doubt it. There are many genres of scripture. Some portions were meant to be poetry (i.e. myth) other portions were meant to taken as fact. We cannot be so dismissive as to relegate all scripture as myth., but neither can be so dogmatic as to accept all as historical fact. THE CHRISTOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS OF THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATEIn regard to Christologies, this is what Leslie Houlden says: "There is not one Christology in the New Testament, there are many. By now it has almost become common knowledge that if you look at the New Testament writings from any point nearer than a distant mountain, you can distinguish a number of different pictures of Christ ( p 125)." His sentiments express the common view of the several authors of The Myth of God Incarnate. A traditional Christology, such as the one expressed at Chalcedon, has no precedence over an arcane Christology formulated by a Gnostic mystic. CONCLUSION:After reading these two books, I have come to the conclusion that the crux of the dispute does not lie with the doctrine of incarnation. "Incarnation" is a term derived from scripture like "trinity". I do believe that the earliest Christians believed in the incarnation of Christ. I also see the point of many essayists that the term "incarnation" is a later articulation that describes how deity dwells in Christ. I contend that the real dispute involves "resurrection". Unlike "incarnation" this concept cannot be so easily explained away. Resurrection appears prominently in all four gospels. It is unequivocally preached by Paul. How can these words can be mythologized away?: "(1 Corinthians 15:17-19) NIV 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men" Resurrection is the essential doctrine not incarnation. If Christ truly arose as a fact of history then what we preach is true. If not, then we are liars. Paul recognized resurrection as his "acid test". Once the resurrection is accepted as a true historical event, then other arguments become moot. Jesus can be trusted. Miracles can happen. Scripture is inspired. All other world religions pale into irrelevance. What do I think about the writers of The Myth of God Incarnate? Because they deny the incarnation and by implication the bodily resurrection of Jesus, I second the comments of Paul. (1) Their faith is futile. (2) They are still in their sins. (3) They have no hope for an afterlife. But most of all this: (4) Because the essayists of The Myth of God Incarnate have hope in Christ only for this life, they are to be pitied more than all men. They know so much and believe so little. |