I was just reading Jenson's essay "On the Ascension" where he agrees with Barth's doctrine of heaven, but then provides a "Lutheran" critique. You mentioned this distinction in your remarks. Barth argues that heaven is the place in creation where God's movement within creation begins. But then goes on to argue that this makes the boundary between heaven and earth momentary and unpredictable, and this is where Jenson's critique begins. He quotes Luther: "Go to the place where the word is spoken and the sacraments ministered, and there set up the title 'Gate of Heaven.' For Luther, heaven simply *is* what we enter as we live in the church." Can you talk a bit more about the difference between Reformed and Lutheran christologies? Is it that in Reformed christology we have a sort of split between the eternal Son and the man Jesus? Or is there more that I'm not seeing?
Re whether God can be constrained by his own nature...maybe I did not get your point...I have always thought that if God is love - the ontological reality of love- then would it not be true that God IS constrained to only act in accordance with love? ie God could not be non loving? Isn’t that a form of kenotic self restraint? (And i accept that what God knows to be love may be different to what we want or expect. ie God determines what ‘love’ is.)
Absolutely love this Dr. Green. I’m continually amazed at the unity of faith in the Spirit between Lutherans like Bonhoeffer and Jenson, and Byzantine monks like Maximus and Leontius, on through the Meister Eckhart and beguine mystics like Hadewijch and Mechthild. The infinite ubiquity of this particular man, Jesus Christ.
This whole episode reminded me of this passage in Eriugena:
“I have no hesitation in interpreting Our Lord's own words, "I and My Father are One" as referring not only to His Divinity, but to His whole Substance, God and Man, and therefore the whole Christ, the Word and the Flesh, is omnipresent, and is not limited in space either in respect of His Wholeness or of any Part of Him, whether it be His Divinity or His Humanity, of which two parts, as it were, His whole Substance is constituted.“ (Periphyseon V.992B)
Also Dr. Green, how might we see Jenson’s view of the universal humanity of Christ--in keeping with the “Cyrillean christological orthodoxy” of the Neochalcedonian synthesis etc--with Bulgakov’s view of the “divine world” of God’s singular act of Wisdom (both the creation of the world in the Son and the eternal generation of the Son)?
This is so good! Thank you!
I was just reading Jenson's essay "On the Ascension" where he agrees with Barth's doctrine of heaven, but then provides a "Lutheran" critique. You mentioned this distinction in your remarks. Barth argues that heaven is the place in creation where God's movement within creation begins. But then goes on to argue that this makes the boundary between heaven and earth momentary and unpredictable, and this is where Jenson's critique begins. He quotes Luther: "Go to the place where the word is spoken and the sacraments ministered, and there set up the title 'Gate of Heaven.' For Luther, heaven simply *is* what we enter as we live in the church." Can you talk a bit more about the difference between Reformed and Lutheran christologies? Is it that in Reformed christology we have a sort of split between the eternal Son and the man Jesus? Or is there more that I'm not seeing?
Re whether God can be constrained by his own nature...maybe I did not get your point...I have always thought that if God is love - the ontological reality of love- then would it not be true that God IS constrained to only act in accordance with love? ie God could not be non loving? Isn’t that a form of kenotic self restraint? (And i accept that what God knows to be love may be different to what we want or expect. ie God determines what ‘love’ is.)
Absolutely love this Dr. Green. I’m continually amazed at the unity of faith in the Spirit between Lutherans like Bonhoeffer and Jenson, and Byzantine monks like Maximus and Leontius, on through the Meister Eckhart and beguine mystics like Hadewijch and Mechthild. The infinite ubiquity of this particular man, Jesus Christ.
This whole episode reminded me of this passage in Eriugena:
“I have no hesitation in interpreting Our Lord's own words, "I and My Father are One" as referring not only to His Divinity, but to His whole Substance, God and Man, and therefore the whole Christ, the Word and the Flesh, is omnipresent, and is not limited in space either in respect of His Wholeness or of any Part of Him, whether it be His Divinity or His Humanity, of which two parts, as it were, His whole Substance is constituted.“ (Periphyseon V.992B)
Also Dr. Green, how might we see Jenson’s view of the universal humanity of Christ--in keeping with the “Cyrillean christological orthodoxy” of the Neochalcedonian synthesis etc--with Bulgakov’s view of the “divine world” of God’s singular act of Wisdom (both the creation of the world in the Son and the eternal generation of the Son)?