The Myth of God Incarnate [antikvár]

PREFACE It is clear to the writers of this book - as to a great many other Christians today - that Christianity has throughout its history been a continuously growing and changing movement. As a result its theology has developed an immense range of variation as the church has passed through successive historical periods and responded to widely different cultural circumstances. Indeed, as T. S. Eliot said, 'Christianity is always adapting itself into something which can be believed'. In the nineteenth century, Western Christianity made two major new adjustments in response to important enlargements of human knowledge: it accepted that man is part of nature and has emerged within the evolution of the forms of life on this earth; and it accepted that the books of the Bible were written by a variety of human beings in a variety of circumstances, and cannot be accorded a verbal divine authority. These two adjustments were not made without much 'kicking against the pricks' of the facts, which caused wounds that have even now not completely healed. Nevertheless, human knowledge continues to grow at an increasing rate, and the pressure upon Christianity is as strong as ever to go on adapting itself into something which can be believed - believed by honest and thoughtful people who are deeply attracted by the figure of Jesus and by the light which his teaching throws upon the meaning of human life. 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 (as he is presented in Acts 2.21) 'a man approved by God' for a special role within the divine purpose, and that the later conception of him as God incarnate, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity living a human life, 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 increasingly important practical implications for our relationship to the peoples of the other great world religions.