Revelation : towards a Christian interpretation of God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ PDF
Preview Revelation : towards a Christian interpretation of God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,14/6/2016,SPi REVELATION OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,14/6/2016,SPi OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,14/6/2016,SPi Revelation Towards a Christian Interpretation ’ of God s Self-revelation in Jesus Christ ’ GERALD O COLLINS, SJ 1 OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,23/6/2016,SPi 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries ©GeraldO’Collins,SJ2016 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2016 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversityPress 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016,UnitedStatesofAmerica BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016935482 ISBN 978–0–19–878420–3 PrintedinGreatBritainby ClaysLtd,StIvesplc OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,14/6/2016,SPi Preface Since faith is the human response to divine revelation, the classical account of theology as ‘faith seeking understanding’ should be expanded. Theology is ‘faith in the divine self-revelation in Christ seekingunderstanding’.Thismakesitclearhowrevelationisacentral question for Christian theologians. A well considered theology of God’sself-revelationinChristshouldproveaforceofgravityholding togethereverythingthatfollowsinsuchparticularsectionsasChrist- ology,thedoctrineoftheTrinity,andecclesiology. Withoutanadequateviewofrevelationasanorganizingprinciple, specific areas of theology will fly off uncontrollably or else collapse into each other. Witness, for example, the endemic tendency to identify divine revelation with biblical inspiration and what it pro- duces, the Sacred Scriptures. We return below to the need to distin- guish firmly between revelation, on the one hand, and biblical inspirationandthecanonicalScriptures,ontheother. Up to the late 1980s, many notable contributions to a Christian theologyofrevelationhadcomefromsuchscholarsasHansUrsvon Balthasar, Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Avery Dulles, Romano Guardini,RenéLatourelle,H.RichardNiebuhr,WolfhartPannenberg, Karl Rahner, Paul Ricoeur, and Paul Tillich. Even early in the twen- tiethcenturyErnstTroeltschcouldspeakofan‘inflation’intheories of revelation. Since 1988, the year von Balthasar died, the more interesting reflections on revelation have been largely confined to such collections of essays as those edited by Paul Avis (1997) and by Ingolf Dalferth with Michael Rodgers (2014), and to entries in dictionaries and handbooks, like the Dictionary of Fundamental Theology (ed. Latourelle and Rino Fisichella, 1994) and the (five- part)entryonrevelationinvolume25oftheTheologischeRealenzy- lopädie(1995). Sometimes the theme of revelation is simply left out in the cold. TheOxfordHandbookofTheologyandModernEuropeanThoughtof 2013(ed.NicholasAdams,GeorgePattison,andGrahamWard)runs to over 700 pages, includes chapters on atonement, the Bible, incar- nation,andtradition,butnochapterondivinerevelation,andmakes onlyafewpassingreferencestorevelation.TheRoutledgeHandbook OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,14/6/2016,SPi vi Preface ofContemporaryPhilosophyofReligionof2015(ed.GrahamOppy),a work of nearly 500 pages, contains no chapter on revelation and makes only four, brief references to it. Even more startling is the silence about revelation in Henry Bettenson’s Documents of the Christian Church (4th edn, 2011). Surely the doctrine and practice of the Church should be anchored in God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ? But, while quoting ten pages from seven documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), the new editor of Bettenson’s work,ChrisMaunder,drawsnothingfromDeiVerbum,theDogmatic ConstitutiononDivineRevelation. Some theologians fondly imagine that we are now in the age of post-foundationalism. That involves neglecting the study of revela- tion.Itisaneminentlyfoundationalissue.Othertheologians,prefer- ring the somewhat equivalent language of ‘the Word of God’, have quietly dropped ‘revelation’. Thus in Beloved Community: Critical Dogmatics after Christendom (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans), a 2015workofnearly1,000pages,PaulHinlickyattendsto‘theWord ofGod’.Hisindexcontainsnotasinglereferenceto‘revelation’. Those (relatively few) authors, like William Abraham, David Brown, Colin Gunton, John Haught, and Richard Swinburne, who, sincethelate1980s,havesetthemselvestointerpretdivinerevelation within the story of Judaism and Christianity, despite their helpful insights and judgements, have sometimes left me dissatisfied, as we willseelaterinthisbook.MatthewLevering’sEngagingtheDoctrine ofRevelation(GrandRapids,Mich.:BakerAcademic,2014)hasbeen a happy exception. But he focuses not so much on the divine self- revelation in Jesus Christ and its essential characteristics, but on the Church’sfaithfulmediationoftherevelationand,inthatcontext,on theinspirationandtruthofScripture. Letmementionthreequestionsthatthelimitedrecentliteratureon revelationthrowsopen. First,shouldwedescribeJesusChristasthefinalaccesstothetruth about God? Surely, if we follow the lead of John’s Gospel, he is not merely the final access to the truth, but is the Truth (upper case) of God in person?Secondly,the self-revelationof Christ inGod comes in the course of history. Canweagree with thosewhomaintain that historical research will never lead beyond an account of possibilities and probabilities? This background view ignores the way historians reach genuine certainties about ancient matters such as the achieve- mentsofJuliusCaesarandhisdeathin44BC.Asregardsthehistorical OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,14/6/2016,SPi Preface vii origins of Christianity, convergent evidence often supplies not only highprobabilitiesbutalsogenuinecertainties.ThusIjudgeithistor- icallycertainthatJesusofNazarethdiedbycrucifixionaroundAD30. Thirdly,contemporaryauthorssometimestolerateacertainfuzziness thatwould,moreorless,identifyrevelationwithbiblicalinspiration. Tobesure,theyarerelated,butidentifyingthem,asweshallsee,isa falsemovethatcreatesconfusion. My dissatisfaction with contemporary writing on revelation extends also to a notable gap. Many scholars who have written on thetheologyofreligionshavededicatedmuchattentiontothesalva- tion for those who follow ‘other’ religious faiths or none at all. But they have engaged themselves far less with the question of divine revelation reaching these others. Yet can salvation ever be available foranyoneoranygroupwithoutapriororaconcomitantrevelation? IfChrististheLifeoftheworld,heisalsotheLightoftheworld. Allthisdissatisfactionmademeask:howwouldIexpressthedivine self-revelation in and through Jesus Christ (and also the revelation available for ‘the others’)? What questions should be posed and answeredinconstructingacoherenttheologyofrevelation? To begin with, such a theology needs to clarify what revelation meanspersonally(orprimarily)andpropositionally(orsecondarily), thusenablingfaithinChristtobeexpressedinwaysthatcorrespond to the articles of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and the Apostles’ Creed (Chapter1). Secondly, the self-revelation of God is afreeactoflove,andhence‘supernatural’asanunmeritedgiftfrom God. Yet, far from taking away the mystery of God, revelation enhancesit(Chapter2).Thirdly,acceptedrevelationbringssalvation, andwithoutor‘outside’revelationtherecanbenosalvation(or‘extra revelationemnullasalus’)(Chapter3).Thenweneedtoexaminethe ‘sacramental’ character of God’s self-revelation as communicated through deeds and words (Chapter4) and the endlessly various meansandmediatorsofrevelation(Chapter5). Chapter6developsthethemeofdivinerevelationhappeningonly when it is received in human faith. An inner working of the Holy Spirit and their own graced predisposition enable human beings to acceptinfaiththedivineself-revelation.Yetthereisnoself-revelation of God without some concomitant revelation of those receiving it infaith. Chapter7 takes up the question: is there evidence that can make the recognition of divine revelation a reasonable decision? Does OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,14/6/2016,SPi viii Preface revelation jeopardize human freedom? Chapter8 will distinguish foundational revelation (as it happened to the close of the apostolic age),dependentrevelation(asitcontinuestoday),andfinalrevelation (asitwillcomeattheendoftime). A ninth chapter will discuss the relationship between revelation and tradition. A reality that remains wider than the Bible, tradition alsoprecededthewritingoftheinspiredtexts.Chapter10willexplore therelationshipbetweenrevelationandtheinspirationoftheSacred Scriptures,leavingforChapter11thequestionoftheir‘canonization’ andtruth. Atwelfthchapterturnstothosewhofollow‘other’livingfaithsor none at all. It argues that the divine revelation which prompts real faith must in some way be also available to them. This revelation dependsuniversallyontherisenChristandhisHolySpirit.Thebook closes with an epilogue that draws together the conclusions of the wholestudyofrevelation. TheoutlineindicateshowthisbookexaminesthemesforaChristian theology of revelation, rather than the history of reflection on revela- tion.Thehistoryofthedoctrineofrevelationhasalreadybeencapably expoundedbyothers:aboveall,byHansWaldenfels,DieOffenbarung: von der Reformation bis zur Gegenwart, Handbuch der Dogmen- geschichte 1/1b (Freiburg: Herder, 1977), and by Eilert Herms, in Theologische Realenzylopädie, xxv (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995), 146–210. I will not ignore what my predecessors and contemporaries havewritten,attimesenteringintogratefuland criticaldialogue with them.Butthisbooksetsitselftoarticulateatheologyofrevelation,not to tell the story of how theologians have interpreted the divine self- revelation.Itiswrittenoutoftheconvictionthatanadequateaccount of the divine self-revelation in Christ is the basic glue which holds togetherallthatfollowsinspecificareasoftheology.Itaimstopresent aself-consistenttheologicalvisionofthisrevelation. My PhD thesis presented at the University of Cambridge (1968) examined ‘The Theology of Revelation in Some Recent Discussion’. Although remaining as such unpublished, the dissertation yielded several articles in academic journals. My first book in theology, Theology and Revelation (Cork: Mercier, 1968), took up squarely the divine self-revelation in Christ. That theme was subsequently treated at length in Foundations of Theology (Chicago: Loyola Uni- versity Press, 1971), Fundamental Theology (Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press,1981),RetrievingFundamentalTheology(Mahwah,NJ:Paulist OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,14/6/2016,SPi Preface ix Press,1993),andRethinkingFundamentalTheology(Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress,2011).IhavealsodiscussedGod’sself-revelationin numerous places—in journal articles, chapters in books, and entries in encyclopaedias. I now want to revise some positions, pull matters together, and enlarge into a coherent whole various conclusions Ihavereachedaboutrevelation. New material will appear (e.g. evidential considerations in favour ofrevelationandadiscussionoftheparadoxofGodbeingsimultan- eously revealed and hidden). Some helpful philosophical language will be borrowed from Gilbert Ryle and Jean-Luc Marion, and Iengagewithnew‘debatingpartners’(e.g.WilliamAbraham,Lieven Boeve,MatthewLevering,andRichardSwinburne).Moresupportfor positionsonrevelationwillbedrawnfromrecentbiblicalscholarship. Some previous positions will be modified or dropped: for example, toomuchinsistenceonthedistinctionbetween‘general’(bettercalled ‘universal’)and‘special’revelation. Idedicate this work tothose who,in particular ways,have helped to shape my thought on revelation: Karl Barth, David Braithwaite, David Brown, Rudolf Bultmann, Caroline Walker Bynum, Sarah Coakley, Stephen Davis, Avery Dulles, Jacques Dupuis, Gerhard Ebeling, Rino Fisichella, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Eberhardt Jüngel, DanielKendall,RobinKoning,RenéLatourelle,PhilipMoller,Jürgen Moltmann, Christiaan Mostert, H. Richard Niebuhr, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Pheme Perkins, Karl Rahner, Alfred Singer, Janet Mar- tinSoskice,MargueriteShuster,EleonoreStump,DenisWhite,Jared Wicks, N. T. Wright, and Norman Young. When quoting the Bible, I normallyfollow the NRSV; the translations from the Latintexts of the Second Vatican Council (1962–5) are my own. As a Christian IusetheterminologyoftheOldTestamentandNewTestament.Here ‘old’ isunderstood as good and doesnot imply‘supersessionism’,or theviewthattheNThasrenderedobsoleteandsosupersededtheOT. AustralianCatholicUniversity andUniversityofDivinity, GeraldO’Collins,SJ,AC. Melbourne NewYear’sDay2016
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