March 14, 2010

In searching for angles on a Christian theology of difference that accounts for how God can hold two seemingly opposing things at the same time (universality and particularity), Dan has suggested looking at Christology, insofar as it posits how Jesus can be both divine and human at the same time (seeming opposites). At first, this seems like old hat - this path has been trod before, and the conclusion has always arrived at a dead end. Nobody has come with up a Christology that is able to account for the particularity of the Jews and the universality of Christ’s salvation. At least, nobody has done it in an entirely satisfactory way. So, either there is no satisfactory answer, or it is yet to be discovered. Believing that the answer lies in the first - no answer possible, I have followed B. Zen’s hypothesis that maybe there is no answer because the questions are wrong, and am seeking a different question. So, Dan’s suggestion that Christology be considered has seemed like the wrong way to go.
However, what if Christology is used as a model for a theology of difference? That is, Christology itself, and discussions of divine v. human cannot resolve Christian-Jewish tension in and of itself, but the model for such internal theology can. The way in which the Church has negotiated the boundaries between divine and human in the one person of Christ can serve as a model for the ways in which the Church can negotiate the boundaries between the universal/particular tensions in the peoples of God.
This brings me down a new path, separate from election, although not completely. Perhaps what is needed is a study of Christology, and how the divine-human in Christ is understood, but looking at it specifically through the eyes of Jewish election. That is, the history of Incarnational Christology, as Pawlikwoski puts it, that takes account of the Jewish nature of the human component of that incarnation. This would be the first part of the Special Comps. (Or is this straying again? If this is a methodological piece, than Jewish election is not really part of that methodology; it is part of the content.) The third part, then, would be a contemporary theology of difference that may or may not look at Christology, but certainly considers feminism, relationality, hybridity, interstitiality, etc. in an attempt to apply the model of Christology to the theology of difference. The first task, then, becomes methodological.
This appeals to me on several levels. The first is that Christology is one of those “pure” theological disciplines, that leads to general competency in this area and increases one’s knowledge for teaching theology. The second is that I still feel like the question of who Jesus is has importance for what it is that happens in/through him. Third, this seems useful and interests me not only because of its implications for a Christian theology of Judaism, but also because of its “purely” Christian application. But again, it must be remembered that methodology is the goal here, not the content itself. Otherwise, the field becomes too big again.
So - theologies of election, or methodology of Christology?