In “Christology and Science”, Leron Shults has written an interesting exploration of the doctrine of incarnation. There are elements of this book I like, and some I don’t, but it does what all good books should do; it has me thinking.

The task of reforming Christology will indeed require the reconstruction of previous doctrinal formulations, as it has throughout the church history. Many traditional depictions of the person, work and coming of Christ are shaped by assumptions about humanity and the world that no longer make sense in light of contemporary science. One way of responding to these challenges would be to try and insulate theology from science, defensively maintaining one’s favored ancient or early modern doctrinal formulation. Or one might try to insulate science from theology, defensively reducing the human longing for redemptive transformation to one’s favored disciplinary explanation. Extreme responses are often the easiest. However, the more difficult reconstructive response, which attempts to maintain the integrity of theology while integrating relevant scientific and philosophical insights, will also be more rewarding. p. 1

Shults brings the question of Christology back to the table. Does that scare you? He does this with a faithful recounting of the complex history of theological viewpoints about what it might mean for Jesus to be God, and then by showing the theological connection between those theologians and the science of their day. Since science is always expanding our understanding, theology can’t function well if it remains stagnant in either the ancient world of the bible or the medieval dogma and creeds. The biggest challenge in rethinking the incarnation is the problematic philosophical contribution of substance dualism found in ancient Greek philosophy. Most of the theology we’ve come to embrace surrounding the incarnation demands the acceptance of Plato’s dualistic understanding of the mind and body (or soul and body) as two different substances. This dualism translated directly into what we now know as the two natures of Christ (divine/human or God/man). That way of interpreting Christ may have helped people with an ancient world view, but it has failed to be productive for many people today. In fact, it has created unnecessary tension between faith and science.

Despite their openness to reformulation, most Reformers and early modern theologians did not challenge the underlying anthropological analogy for understanding the relation between the divinity and humanity of Christ, nor the substance metaphysical categories that saturated both sides of the analogy. p. 35

In my experience, the two modern responses to this problem have been to (A) dig further into dualism and fundamentalism or (B) reject the doctrine of Christology and throw away our ancient stories. I think there is a better alternative to those two extremes that honors our ancient stories and also does them justice by reinterpreting them with a current understanding of what it means to be human. This third way understands that parables (mythical stories) are the best way to communicate these transcendent concepts. These stories help us imagine what it might mean to incarnate love, forgiveness, and reconciliation into our own culture using our own understanding of the world. Our ancient stories are limited and any attempt to read those stories literally just shifts our attention squarely on their limits rather than their wonderful transcendent contributions. We can’t abandon our stories. They are the illusive but illuminating word of God.

I'll be posting more as I work through this...