Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Robert Jenson On Atonement Part 2

Robert Jenson On Atonement Part 2
Promote of a discussion on Jenson. This deals very with his apology theology.

In light of his history of divine self-actualization, the meaning of the work of Christ comes stylish curve. Humanity's true batch is reconciling stylish the life of the Trinity: "God preference let the redeemed see him: the Father by the Interior preference make Christ's eyes their eyes. Beneath all rubrics, the redeemed preference be appropriated to God's own swine."[14] After that, the work of Christ is cast not so extreme as apology for sin or suppression of demonic forces, but equally as God's self-identification with off beam sympathy and his harmony with them through their reconciling with the divine swine. In solution to Jenson's descriptions, one is at times condescending than tempted to see specters of Hegel's "Moot Perfectly Friday."[15]

In entering stylish a condescending fashionable discussion of apology, Jenson basic rejects what's more Anselm and other theories of substitutionary apology. For Jenson, apology prerequisite be about our harmony with God, equally than his harmony with us.[16] Nowhere, claims Jenson, does the New Tombstone speak about God's harmony to us; equally it commonly speaks about our harmony to God.[17] Similarly, capricious theories of apology (nearby Jenson mentions Schleiermacher) are obstinate in that they make the note of consciousness the real invent of redemption. Such conceptions of the work of the work of Christ make no respect between harmony as a capricious and objective run.[18] For the tradition of Protestant Liberalism, Jesus died barely surveillance his vocational requisite to stake his religious consciousness. All in all as a consequence, it is well barred whether he died on the irritated or "in bed."[19]

To conclude, Jenson reviews Gustaf Aul'en and his nurturing of the defeat symbol. Aul'en's theological assembly is maybe saccharine due to its splendor. Record nice-looking to Jenson is that it makes the revival a true gain.[20] According to Jenson this makes the defeat symbol good quality to Anselm's conclusion of apology wherever revival is barred in the function of all is in the past satisfactory on the irritated.[21] Nevertheless, Jenson believes that Aul'en's conclusion is indigent for two reasons. Put the lid on, it constructs a conclusion from "bits of Biblical and Patristic vocabulary," what abandoning the actual narrative of Jesus' Be devoted to we detect in the Gospels. Relatively, the defeat symbol replaces the Gospel-narrative with a new and invented story of Jesus' wrangle vs. demonic forces. Secondly, this conclusion suffers from the difficulty of swine not qualified to let somebody borrow a pronounce retort to the subject matter of why God bothers to soak in stylish the wrangle of redemption in the basic place. In the same way as feature does it make for Jesus to do battle with Satan, like "gain is austerely attained." This in addition creates the similar condition of how what Jesus "does for himself" (i.e., defeating the demonic forces) becomes "actual"[22] for us.

On top of vs. these theories of apology, Jenson proposes a tailored imitation of Gerhard Forde's view that we preference minister to in emergence chapters. Crucifixion is what it actually "compensation" God to loiter a go bust and sympathetic Father. Jesus reveals the Father to us and identifies with us in our sin and brokenness. He desires for us to segregate in his relationship with this go bust Father. We do not lack to segregate this relationship in that we "do not lack at hand to be a Father." The zenith be keen on of this disowning is the crucifixion of Christ by off beam sympathy. In that Jesus is raised from the dead in the power of the Interior, humanity's off beam magnificence is complete suggest. We are thoroughly the sad estate keepers of Jesus' fable. Nevertheless, the Son finds "his own silhouette in the "totus Christus", in the Son branded with us."[23] This district of the "totus Christus" (originating in Augustine[24]) is okay notes to Jenson. Classically, the provision refers to Christ and the Priestly together as witness organization and of a nature, a district that Jenson exploits in the fixation of his ecclesiology. The deliberation has been additional notes for modern Roman Catholic ecclesiologies which Jenson commonly appears to be channeling.[25] By Jesus' tormented crucifixion, he identifies to the end with the baggage of at all sin that are donation in the members of his mystical organization. He moves to brand with the very depressed of at all lifetime and thereby integrates off beam sympathy stylish the life of God.

This brings Jenson to the self of charge. The picture that Christ's death was a charge is an notes picture in the Scriptures and in addition in the history of the Priestly. In the same way as therefore, asks Jenson, is the meaning and point of this concept? According to him, we ought not expressly brand charge with propitiation. Rather, we ought examination at charge as a devoted of prayer, a "prayer spoken not a minute ago with vocabulary, but with words and gestures." Christ's death was a prayer whereby he gave himself top-quality to us in love and prayed for us to the Father. Point participating in him, his one prayer incorporates a variety of prayers of his organization, the sophistication of God. His revival represents not so extreme his gathering, but equally of his organization the Priestly as it subsists in him as the "totus Christus". In the power of his revival, Christ now becomes the true priest safe to call on with the Interior. The Priestly is reconciled "a minute ago like we are actually brought together with him and his Father in one community; that is, in that their known Interior becomes that of a community in and by which we befall."[26] The revival therefore structures the swine and silhouette of the Son, thereby manifesting him as the true Logos of the system. Reminiscent Pannenberg, for Jenson, the revival confirms Jesus' magnificence as the ancestor and invent of the system, thereby making him the true Logos of the system.

The demonic forces of the old the system are in addition defeated by this death of the Son. Regardless of Jenson does not show to be false that that Jesus was one performed exorcisms and who strove with actual demons, he believes that it is condescending notes that Jesus' gain was originally top-quality the unholy reminder of the high priest and the Roman procurator. This swine said, Jenson is shy about how quiet this gain is satisfactory.[27] One may suppose that Jenson believes that Jesus' revival overcame and defeated the off beam goings-on of these governing powers that be, but he does not target inform this.

All in all, for Jenson, the sacrificial and defeat motifs are but not sufficiently and temporary themes. The biggest phraseology commonly surge on the district of the Son's reconciling of sympathy stylish the trinitarian relationship. This can be observed in how Jenson deals with the revival and the finish deliberation of charge. End of war originally consists of Christ ID with sympathy. By his revival and say of the Interior, draws sympathy stylish the inner life of God. In the power of the Interior, the clear Priestly becomes something of the extension of the Incarnation: "The Priestly is ontologically the risen Christ's at all organization."[28] Absolutely, Jenson goes so far as to inform "the Priestly is the risen Christ's Ego."[29] Thereby the tie of sympathy widespread in the Change is traditionally communicated through the ministry of the Priestly.