Introduction to Christianity Part Two, Chapter Two
“The Development of Faith in Christ in the Christological Articles of the Creed”
“Conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary”: “The main contrast consists in the fact that in pagan texts the Godhead almost always appears as fertilizing, procreative power, thus under a more or less sexual aspect and, hence, in a physical sense as the ‘father’ of the savior-child. As we have seen, nothing of this sort appears in the New Testament: the conception of Jesus is new creation, not begetting by God. God does not become the biological father of Jesus, and neither the New Testament nor the theology of the Church has fundamentally ever seen in this narrative or in the event recounted in it the ground for the real divinity of Jesus, his ‘Divine Sonship’.” (274)
I admit to feeling a bit lost here. When R writes “the conception of Jesus is new creation, not begetting by God” I can’t help but recall “begotten, not made, one in being with the Father …” which is a different creed, to be sure, but shouldn’t it still apply? And when he writes “God does not become the biological father of Jesus …” I have to wonder: was Jesus not biological in being? Perhaps an answer can be found in the following:
“The Church’s teaching about the Divine Sonship of Jesus is based, not on the story of the Virgin Birth, but on the Abba-Son dialogue and on the relationship of World and love that we found revealed in it. Its idea of being does not belong to the biological plane but to the “I am” of St. John’s Gospel, which therein, as we have seen, had already developed the Son-idea in all of its radicality, which is far more comprehensive and wide-ranging than the biological God-man ideas of myth.” (276)
“Conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary”: “The main contrast consists in the fact that in pagan texts the Godhead almost always appears as fertilizing, procreative power, thus under a more or less sexual aspect and, hence, in a physical sense as the ‘father’ of the savior-child. As we have seen, nothing of this sort appears in the New Testament: the conception of Jesus is new creation, not begetting by God. God does not become the biological father of Jesus, and neither the New Testament nor the theology of the Church has fundamentally ever seen in this narrative or in the event recounted in it the ground for the real divinity of Jesus, his ‘Divine Sonship’.” (274)
I admit to feeling a bit lost here. When R writes “the conception of Jesus is new creation, not begetting by God” I can’t help but recall “begotten, not made, one in being with the Father …” which is a different creed, to be sure, but shouldn’t it still apply? And when he writes “God does not become the biological father of Jesus …” I have to wonder: was Jesus not biological in being? Perhaps an answer can be found in the following:
“The Church’s teaching about the Divine Sonship of Jesus is based, not on the story of the Virgin Birth, but on the Abba-Son dialogue and on the relationship of World and love that we found revealed in it. Its idea of being does not belong to the biological plane but to the “I am” of St. John’s Gospel, which therein, as we have seen, had already developed the Son-idea in all of its radicality, which is far more comprehensive and wide-ranging than the biological God-man ideas of myth.” (276)
posted by Quin Finnegan at 1:25 PM
2 Comments:
This sort of makes sense to me, maybe even clarifies something for me that hadn't been entirely clear before.
As the second person of the Trinity, the Son is eternally begotten, not made. Thus the Father and the Son are one in Being -- God begets God. In the beginning the Word was with God and the Word was God.
But when the Son became incarnate, it was an act of paradoxical and new creation: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us -- and thus Hebrews can speak of Christ as the "firstborn of all creation." That, biologically speaking, Christ was "conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit" has nothing to do with his being eternally begotten of the Father. I think that may be the point R is driving home here: that, in the incarnation, something radical and paradoxical has occurred, but that something is consonant somehow with the triune being of God -- which distinguishes the Christian story from all those other stories where a god gets it on with a maiden and the offspring is therefore divine.
Thanks, and yes, you must be right, I think the 'eternally' is important; that certainly helps clarify things, as does the beginning of the Gospel of John.
I still need to ponder the distinction being made here between 'conceiving' and 'begetting,' and I'll add that, yes, the incarnation must be radical and paradoxical, but it's also open to reason. I tend to think of a paradox as being beyond reason, but maybe that's not so. Hmm...
Here are a few conciliar definitions, for anyone interested, here and here.
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