Charting the New Reformation, Part V - Building the Case for the Death of Theism: Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 31 December 2015 6 Comments
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Question

I follow your weekly articles and appreciate them. My question: Is there an ontological divine life that exists above and beyond Homo sapiens (human) life, as we know it? What does it mean when theologians say: “Jesus participated in both human and divine life in his very essence”? If we deny Jesus as having divinity (whatever that means) are we not heading toward the position of Bart Ehrman and agnosticism?

Answer

Dear Anthony,

Your question reflects a pattern of dualistic thinking that has persisted is Christianity since the fourth century. You assume that humanity and divinity are two distinct and different categories, mutually independent and incapable of being brought together without the invasion of one by the other. When Christians formulated the doctrine of the Incarnation, they were articulating this dualistic thinking. The result is that they portrayed Jesus as the invasion of the human by the divine. Jesus was thus portrayed as God disguised as a human being. In traditional Christian thinking Jesus was to God something like what Clark Kent was to Superman.

If, however, we look at life itself as holy, as the unfolding of the divine in time and space, then the duality between the human and divine disappears. I think of the divine as the depth dimension of the human. The way into divinity is to be deeply and fully human. This was what enabled people to experience the divine in Jesus. It was in the fullness of his humanity through which the meaning of the divine was revealed because he lived out his humanity fully.

So in my mind and in my experience there are not two realms, but one, and the way into divinity is through the doorway of the human. In my current series entitled “Charting a New Reformation” I will be exploring the issue of God in much greater detail.

This approach makes such sense to me. I hope it does to you.

Thanks for writing,
John Shelby Spong

 

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6 thoughts on “Charting the New Reformation, Part V – Building the Case for the Death of Theism: Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin

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