The truth about Christ is not then to be understood on the historical level which is not to say that gospels are not true; it is not a matter of history but it means that the criteria of truth is measured in Him as the way to see truth in history. In measuring history through Christ we are not to be denying the negative which is "history". This can be the same when we reflect on our past. Our past is changed with our current encounter with Christ. It's my way working to Christ and to that truth. What we are interested in is the truth of Christ. In doing so a distinction must be made between History and Theology. We always want to reduce theology to history. This should never be the case. The discourse (study) of theology is not subject to the discourse of history. It's not denying history but truth is not found in history. These two concepts cannot be mingled because out of it contradictions can be brought forth. When you mix theology and history silly questions begin to be asked for example when did Christ die (6th or 9th hour?) And how many times did the cock crow? This is why it should point you to the fact this is theology and not history. When we mix theology and history we will be asked questions that can never be answered. "But I am going to concern myself with trying to establish which one happened or why because you cannot historicize history to theology because it will never work out" and this not theology because what you are doing now is using bias to make theology work. Scripture is understood as a theological reflection and if it is understood as a theological reflection then everything within Scripture is in a sense the perfect word of God.
The truth of Christ:
The truth that Christ is not a matter of history because then you subject Him and His truth to history which is not correct to do because if you do so then Christ fails to be the promised Messiah. Christ is much more than that and He can now change history if He so chose to. This all goes back to our encounter with and how He changes us. He is then the definition; the content; the starting point. His revelation in this world is a transformation of this world into Himself. Theology is then a very different discourse. An analogy to demonstrate this would be between an icon and photograph. An icon is not a photograph; the saints look at the painter representing the person of Christ so then the saint does not become the focus on the Icon rather the Icon is transformed into a window into heaven to reflect on the person of Christ. This is what distinguishes between an Icon and a photograph. Another analogy is how we understand scripture. Scripture has always been understood as a theological reflection of the community. This explains why Christ "died at different times in the passion narrative or why the cock crew one or three times etc". It's because the gospels representing Scripture is a theological reflection on the person of Christ and not a history book. The sad part is that we have forgotten this discourse and think we are doing theology by asking such questions but we are really doing bad history and in doing so this can shake the personal belief of any individual study scripture either in a secular institution or seminary for that matter.
Canon and hypothesis are related. The articulation of the hypothesis is that canon. What is important is that these two points are not separable from scripture. It is like the arrangement of the tiles of the mosaic. When you read it correctly it depicts Christ. It not a a separate body of doctrine. It is a symphony that is in constant harmony of the coming of the Lord through the law of Scripture. Paul speaks like this in the New Testament when reading his letters. The Logos is a Eucharistic Logos (cf. 1 Cor 10 and 11). The Eucharist is the canon and everything else is a canon. We have this tradition being given to us from the very beginning. In the context of meeting the coming Lord it's always been available to us (cf. Luke 24). The handing down is tradition and this is where it comes out from the last part in chapter 24 of the gospel of Luke; the breaking of bread and opening of scripture. However, understanding Christ in our modern times is not suitable in our study of modern theology. We must understand that Tradition and Scripture are not separable at all. They both come from the same tradition. Tradition is the handing down of that which is taught. This is made relevant in the liturgical life of the church; the breaking of bread and opening of scripture.
The key to all of this is what happens at the beginning point is decisive to what happens next. Those early centuries are foundational to helping us understand what we are doing. This does not mean we accept everything everyone says. It's paradigmatic but not definitive when looking back at the fathers. This is why the era of the fathers never ends but then becomes a living tradition. The fathers are still alive to the present day. The same hypothesis stays the same which is centred on Christ. The discussion turns in upon itself and it forgets what it is talking about and that is the unfortunate part. It would be easy to say that they are infants compared to us (the fathers). In that case the way we interpret gospel is based on our modern approach. The question that we must ask before doing any of that is what is your starting point? Whatever our starting point is shapes our reading. The New Testament only came together and exists as a book within a certain context. The most important question for our age then becomes what is theology? The starting point is vital because we must dive in with a clear mind however, if we first as a question then look at Scripture all will do is just look for the answers to that question and never focusing on "what is Scripture", however if you do what the fathers did and is that go into Scripture then you will see the revealed person of Christ. This explains why all the church fathers up to the 4th century (except for Origen) were converts to Christianity. Christ was revealed to them through the opening of Scripture and breaking of bread.
Christ died a violent death. In light of that at His conquering death by death is how we encounter Christ. Now we can say Adam sinned and death came into the world. Christ came into the world and righteousness came into the world. The encounter of Christ who conquered death showed that death can be conquered. Death is the last enemy. We do not know sin until we encounter Christ. In order to know the problem we have to look at the solution (the cross). You do not start with sin to know Christ but rather we should have an open mind set by first thinking about the solution. If this is how we ought to think about it then having a problem and coming to Christ is not a good thing because we will come out more messed up because we have a perspective (bias) trying to know and encounter Christ. It's when we encounter Christ that we know we are sinful and by doing this we look at the solution and not the problem and by looking at the solution we will see the problem. It's the light that makes you see the darkness and realize it. Darkness does not know it is dark until the light shines. It is not until Paul encounters Christ till he proclaims the sin. That is why when you look at the solution you will understand the problem. Instead of thinking you know your problem, the encounter with Christ redefines what the problem is and not what you think it is. And this is how I know myself as a forgiven sinner. We are then redeemed recreated and any other word you want to use to express this. The church fathers never wrote about "salvation history". The term is a 17th century invention. If the cross is the starting point then we must start with the cross and not Genesis. Salvation has then come through the cross!
Having established the order we are in light of that we can also see that the problem has become the solution. How does Christ conquer death? By his death! It is by death, baptism, taking up the cross etc that we enter into life. Too often people say "Christ has conquered death we are set free as if we are not going to die". Christ has not let the bondage of the fear of death out of us. We were held down by it but by His conquering of death we can see death even more and becomes part of the solution.
We then must ask was the fall inevitable? You put yourself in a situation to ask should have it happened? Well what we do know is that Christ conquered death by death and we can say sin came into the world by Adam; the enemy of death is removed from us and He has turned it inside out by becoming the means of life. We have then to die in order to live! You can unpack that much more fully like Adam had the breath of life which would die eventually; Christ brought the spirit which is life eternal. All things are encompassed by Christ action. It is not a question about if death had to happen or not. We all have been dying. Christ showed us that we are dying because we are not living his law in light of Christ. The selfless sacrificial life is not how we have been living. We have been living for ourselves. We have been taught all our lives that we have life in ourselves. What do we do with that? We secure it develop it etc. Christ says you are a fool. If you think you can preserve it you will lose it but if you lay it down you will gain it. This life then cannot go through death because we have gone through death! The fact of our mortality is a means to enter His life because He showed us what it means to be god. This plays out from the whole of creation. Adam is the type of one to come meaning the one to come must have lived before Him and Adam must model Him but the problem is that Christ was not shown or revealed. The life of God is not known and it it is not known then the human race lived for itself! We come into this world very egocentric. We do not start living for others but we come into the world asking to be freed. We have to learn to live for others. We better learn this because we are going to "die" either way.
God reduces everything to nothing in order to build it back up and this is a major theme in Scripture. Death and baptism play on this theme and death and Eucharist plays on this theme of death. If Christ is the Eucharist then when we die when we are partaking of the Eucharist by choosing this death. Creation happens at the end not the beginning. Creation happens when we chose death not life. Creation is death in Christ. To be a creature of God you must be the will of God. This is looking at the solution first before looking at the problem. This is coming to Christ with the solution who then reveals the problem. The potter makes the pot and he makes it as he wants it and not what the pot wants. We are not yet creatures of God if we do not carry God's will. This will happens when we break down to clay and He will fashion us. He has to break it down in order to bring it up; the same theme echoed in Scriptures. Origen is then not wrong when he says Christ is a being because he is referring to this whole process of the breaking down and brings it back up as the means of salvation. Christ then had to become human (breaking down) in order to save (to come back up). When you get into the 4th century, you get the reality of begotten etc. If we are not creatures then we are creatures in process. We are being formed but we are not yet perfected. Christ was the perfect being.
To conclude we have focused on the question of death. This all goes back to the point Christ shows us what it is to be god in the way he dies as human being. If that is the case we are in a difficult position because people today do not see death. Yes we know people die but "we do not see death". The biggest change in the whole history of human race that's changed in the past 50 years has to do with the concept of death. A common feature was back not too long ago you would have had a sibling dying at child birth or even before they reached the age of adulthood. You would have had their bodies in your house for a few days at least. Society was a part of death but death was seen as a good thing because death was not understood as something bad. However, when someone dies today the medical services have to come in as soon as possible to take the body away. People today do not see death. People today do not have funerals but a party to celebrate the life of the individual. If Christ shows us how to die as a human being and if we do not see death we do not see the face of God and if we do not see the face of God then we will never understand the point which was echoed by scriptures and by the fathers; "Christ shows us what it is to be god in the way he dies as a human being". And this would explain why during the climax of the liturgical year we sing the hymn of the resurrection..."Christ is risen from the death trampling down death by death and upon those in the tomb bestowing eternal life".
This following talking given by Fr. John Behr relates to what was written in this blog entry. I recommend everyone to watch it completely but the part that speaks about this blog entry starts at the 47 minute mark of the video and goes for about 10 minutes. Enjoy.
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