From: dschenke@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Dennis L Schenkel)
Subject: Divinity of Christ...Creation Theology
Summary: request clarification of creation theology position on Jesus' divinity
Keywords: divinity humanity creation theology
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 03:48:06 GMT

I recently attended a workshop at the Newman Center here at Ohio State, led by 
a Paulist, about the divine/human nature of Jesus.  Following is a summary of 
his remarks, which I believe are grounded in the (dare I say New-Age) Creation
Theology (a la Matthew Fox).  (If I am wrong on the attribution, please correct
my ignorance).  Here are the main points:

God made humans in God's image, but by sin we have distorted that image.
Jesus is human like us.
The only thing that makes him different is his sinlessness.
His sinlessness is a result of his being able to completely self-actualize--ie,
to be fully human as God intended.
Thus, Jesus is the truest human reflection of God's image.
Because he was fully human, he can be said to be divine.

The following implications occurred to me:

If it were not for sin, we too would be divine.
All we must do is to be more fully human, and we too can be divine.

These implications seem like the kind of thing Mormons believe, and also like 
some kinds of heresies that I have heard of.  Not wanting to put Father on the 
spot in front of everyone, I appoached him privately with my questions.

He nodded his head in a kind of non-directive, warm fuzzy, understanding kind 
of way.  I went on to say that, of course, since Jesus is the 2nd person of the
Trinity, he must somehow be different from the rest of us.  He said, yes, and 
they way he is different is in that he was fully human, whereas we are not.  I 
said, yes, but Jesus was present at the beginning of creation--"In the 
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God..."  I 
asked if he meant to say that Jesus was simply a creation and not somehow the 
creator.  He said that Jesus was present at creation as a part of God's plan in
the same way that we were present in the mind of God as part of his plan
because God can perceive all time at the same time.  I tried one last time to
clear this up to myself by stating that, of course, the only reason any kind of
salvation or "self-actualization" is really possible is because Jesus died on
the cross and made such a thing possible for us and that it is only through him
that we can achieve this "full humanity" that we had talked about.  Father said
that maybe people of other faiths--islam, hindu, etc--might not agree that
Jesus is the only way to a full humanity, and that we need to be open minded.

Help me out here.  I really don't understand how this cannot be heresy.  I'd
like to think that Father is not guilty of professing something that is in
error because he is a really nice guy and a lively preacher on Sunday.  But I
suspect that there is something *wrong* in this magical mystical
(warm-fuzzy-cosmic) bear stuff.  I just can't be sure.

Thanks
-- 
Dennis Schenkel, Graduate Student    *****************************************
Ohio State University, English Dept  * Pax Christi Vobiscum...  from one of  *
dschenke@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu   * those who "...wait in joyful hope..." *
    --My opinions are mine--         *****************************************