Abstract
The first message conveyed by what is perhaps the most important work of Christology for many years is that New Testament theology is too important to be left to the exegetes. Other doctrinal theologians, Catholic as well as Protestant, have recently come to terms with the radical German tradition in gospel criticism, but none has engaged so thoroughly in arguments about the history of traditions as he does here. These debates are not to everyone’s taste, and many readers will be impatient at the way Schillebeeckx takes seriously even the most rarefied speculations of some critics. But his purpose is to root his doctrinal discussion in the realities of history, and the specialists’ results are neither so unambiguous nor so unproblematical that the doctrinal theologian could simply adopt them. In particular, ‘radical’ historical study of the Gospels has usually been associated with rationalistic assumptions deriving from the Enlightenment, which rule traditional Christian claims out of court without discussion by producing a ‘historical Jesus’ who is so emphatically not God incarnate that it is considered pointless even to ask what that phrase might mean today.
Unlike some opponents of liberal theology, Schillebeeckx insists upon the necessity of historical investigation of Jesus and of rational defence of Christian belief, without supposing that the former could ever do more than show faith to be a reasonable option. His own sketch of Jesus is plausible, and one can ask no more. Nobody’s outline can be compelling, given the state of the sources. Many exegetes will dispute his rejection of apocalyptic interpretations of Jesus, but this central point is arguable, and it is time that someone called the bluff of those who think they know what exactly Jesus meant by ‘the kingdom of God’. Despite all the necessary historical spadework, one might suggest that an overall interpretation of Jesus’ mission and message, no less than his person, is (or may be) more than a historical synthesis. Schillebeeckx writes of ‘doing theology on a really scriptural basis’ and explains that ‘theological exegesis sets out to discover the theological dimension within the actual historical phenomenon of early Christianity; it is here already that the question of truth arises’ (p. 39). This drives the theologian to history, and submits him to the rules of historical argument. But his historical synthesis will be theologically interested and interesting. Provided that it does not do violence to the sources and can therefore withstand historical scrutiny, it may finally be judged in terms more appropriate to a work of art than of science. One reader at least found this Jesus attractive, moving, challenging, and suffused with a profound sense of the meaning of Christianity, as well as being historically and exegetically defensible.
The treatment of the Resurrection in this book will surprise those who assume that the appearances simply caused the disciples’ Easter faith. Schillebeeckx is critical of such ‘crude and naive realism’ and wants to understand the process on analogy with the experience of conversion. The disciples who had forsaken Jesus and fled were converted to him as a result of experiencing forgiveness as a gift of grace. This renewed offer of saving fellowship is said to have come from Christ himself. Schillebeeckx will not allow the Resurrection to be reduced to statements about the disciples’ faith. But in his effort to do justice to the complex history of the traditions and to avoid simplistic ideas of supernatural interventions he is prepared to see the appearances as extrapolations from the experience of grace, and the notion of resurrection as a secondary interpretative idea by which various pre-canonical traditions were unified and made explicit. He sees startlingly little real difference between the way in which the disciples came to faith in the crucified and risen One, and the way in which subsequent Christians do (p. 346). ‘It is the individual’s experience of new being that imparts to faith the assurance that Jesus is alive or is the coming judge of the world’ (p. 392). These suggestions are admitted to be provisional and will need thorough discussion, but if Catholic theologians can be as daring as this in their affirmations of the resurrection of Jesus the lines of demarcation between traditionalists and modernists have shifted. Again, I was convinced on the central point. Despite reservations about some of the historical hypotheses espoused, the author’s theological judgements ring true. It is evidently possible to combine a trinitarian and incarnational faith in the crucified and risen One with a thoroughly rational account of its origins.
The author’s theological intention of ‘searching (in faith and in a critical spirit) for possible signs in the historical Jesus that might direct the human quest for “salvation” to what Christian faith proposes as a relevant answer’ (p. 104) implies that Part II on Jesus’ historical manifestation (pp. 107–397) and Part III on early Christologies (pp. 401–571) prepare the way for the modern interpretation outlined in Part IV (pp. 575–674). Out of a wealth of suggestive insights here, two may be singled out: firstly, his clear rejection of any separation between Jesus’ message and his person. This central concern of incarnational Christology leads to a modern restatement of trinitarian theology comparable with those of Jüngel, Moltmann, Kasper, etc. They all pose a sharp question to liberals who suppose that abandoning patristic theology necessarily involves a break with the dogma it once expressed.
Secondly, one may underline the insistence upon the place of Christian praxis as an indispensable link between the history of Jesus and Christian claims: ‘Apart from the churches’ solidarity with the sufferer, whoever or whatever that may be, their gospel becomes impossible to believe and understand … The concrete question with which mankind in history confronts the gospel now is: what do Jesus’ message and praxis have to contribute to the overall effort to liberate humanity in the full sense of the term?’ (p. 623). That ‘full sense’, of course, takes up and begins to answer the question of God.
Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford
Originally published in Theology 82 (690): 457–9 <https://doi.org/10.1177/0040571X7908200621>.