Christ at the crux
Subtitle: the mediation of God and creation in christological perspective
By: Paul Cumin
Publisher: PICKWICK Publications
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Eugene, Oregon
Language: eng
Number of pages: 220
ISBN-13: 9781620325957
Subjects: Mediation between God and man; Mediation of Jesus Christ; Heilsvermittlung; Christologie; Mediation; History of doctrines; Christianity
Description: How can Christian theology confess God as both other than the world and also related to it in a way that compromises neither of these? Most modern thought has offered a simple reply: it cannot. Christ at the Crux analyzes one element of the roots of this denial and charts a route toward rapprochement. The Christologies of eight theologians offer various attempts to relate the Creator and the creature in Christ: Irenaeus of Lyon, Cyril of Alexandria, John Philoponus, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Zizioulas, Robert Jenson, and Colin Gunton. Within the patristic era the question is grounded in theology about the incarnation; with the Reformers the focus is on the mediation between creation and Creator; and with the three modern theologians the breadth of the issue is completed with theology proper. Together, these eight offer a grand-scale perspective on much of the christological possibilities for conceiving the relation between God and everything else. In the end Paul Cumin shows how the doctrine of the Trinity appears to open new possibilities for Christology and in particular for the way theology about the Spirit enables a reimagining of those items of Christian thought most likely at the roots of our modern rejection of God-as-other.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-220).
Table of contents: title: Irenaeus and the Gnostic option: monism, duality, and the "two hands" of God (a Trinitarian concept of mediation); title: Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian option: Theotokos, Communicatio Idiomatum, and the single subjectivity of Christ (a Soteriological concept of mediation); title: John Philoponus and the Miaphysite option: Creatio ex nihilo and substantiality after Chalcedon (a Cosmological concept of mediation); title: Martin Luther and the problem of distant grace: faith, Jesus, and the immediacy of God (a "theological" concept of mediation); title: John Calvin and the problem of Logos Asarkos: when creation and Revelation collide (an Ontological concept of mediation); title: Robert Jenson and the spirit of it all: Christ as space-time (a Dialectical concept of mediation); title: John Zizioulas and being free: Christ as personal paradigm (an Existential concept of mediation); title: Colin Gunton and the integrity of creation: Christ as a particular human (an Economic concept of mediation).