Toward an Integral
Approach to Christology
The
expression Integral Christology is borrowed from the Pontifical Biblical
Commission. J.A. Fitzmer explains Biblical Commission in this direction:
‘In the study of Christology one
has to listen to the whole biblical tradition, the Old Testament as well as the
New Testament is all given to us as the norm of Christian Faith. Indeed, the
literary development of the canonical unity of the Bible reflects the
progressive revelation of God and his salvation offered to human beings. One
must trace then, the promise made to the patriarch and subsequently expanded
through the prophets, the expectation of God’s kingdom and Messiah that these
have both introduced and finally the realization of them in Jesus of Nazareth
as the Messiah and the Son of God’.
Various
Principles involve are -
1. The Principle of Dialectical
tension
Dialectical
tension exists in different ways and different aspects where it is pointed out
the continuity-in-discontinuity between for instance, the Old Testament
messianic expectation and its fulfillment in the New; between Jesus Jewishness
and his transformation of Judaism; between the Christology of the historical
Jesus and the Christology of the early Church; between the Christology of the
apostolic kerygma and the more mature Christological reflections of the New
Testament. In this principle of dialectical tension, the rapport between continues
and discontinuous elements will have to be ascertained.
2. The Principle of Totality
This
principle is meant that a well poise Christology must avoid all danger of
reductionism or of unilateralism. The Christological mystery is made up of
complementary aspects, often at first sight mutually opposed, yet which must be
held together, even if often in tension. Jesus of history and the Christ of
faith between Jesus own implicit Christology and the Church explicit
Christology; between functional and ontological Christology; between
soteriology and Christology; between salvation and human liberation; between
horizontal and vertical liberation; between the historical and the
eschatological; between anthropology and Christology; Christocentric and
theocentric and so forth.
3. The Principle of Plurality
The
principle of plurality applies even more where the post-biblical Christological
tradition and recent Christological development are concerned.
4. The principle of Historical
Continuity
Large
degree of historical continuity between the various Christological approaches
as well as between various Christological reductions and heresies at different
stages of the tradition.
5. The Principle of integration
An
integral Christological approaches needs to combine both approaches from above
and below. Soteriology and Christology also complement each other and mutually
call for each other. A complete circle is in order from Christology from Below
to Christology from Above and vice versa.
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