Bishop Barron on Who Jesus Truly Is

[Music] well with great profit delight I've been reading recently Thomas Joseph White's latest book called the internet Lord a to Mystic study in Christology Thomas Joseph White's a Dominican priest and he's one of the brightest I think of this new generation of Thomas Aquinas interpreters and the book is great at a number of levels he covers lots of themes the relationship between the human and divine natures in Jesus Jesus death is to send him to hell I mean all kinds of themes but the one theme I think is most important and what I want to focus on in this brief video is the shift that took place between a more ontological approach to Jesus and a more subjective or psychological approach to Jesus a more classical and a more modern and I know it can sound very arcane very abstract but he's very good at pointing out how this shift has had a very negative impact on evangelization on the way we understand the church on our preaching and teaching so I just want to say a word about that really just to encourage you to read the book so an untold approach what does that mean it means an approach that takes it's a point of departure from being from the being of Jesus go right back now to the great scene it says a really PI when Jesus asked his disciples not what do people think about my teaching what's the reaction to my miracles the rather he says to them who do people say that I am so what's my ontology if you want to put that in more technical language Who am I what's my being and of course throughout the New Testament you can find ontological approaches of good example is the prologue of John Wright in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the word became flesh and dwelt among us those are ontological claims claims about the being of Jesus or look in the in Philippians chapter 2 Paul's great letter though he was in the form of God Jesus did not deem equality with God a thing to be grasped at but rather emptied himself etc so he's talking about the identity the ontological identity of Jesus now taking its prompts from these New Testament indications and there are lots more where you're talking about obviously but taking its prom from there the great tradition turned with enormous interest to the question of Jesus ontological makeup so think now of those early councils from Nicaea and cocktails and opal and Cal Seton and many others what are they concerned about well looking in the Creed for example we don't say a word decree about Jesus teaching we don't say a word about his miracle-working what are we concerned about his being right that he's God from God light from light true God from True God begotten not made consubstantial with the father what is all that what's the fruit of this conciliar reflection on the being of Jesus and this of course continues in the great church fathers in Chrysostom and Maximus the Confessor and Agustin and many others and then it comes I think white is corrected suggesting to a kind of fullness of expression in the great work of st. Thomas Aquinas who has a very ontological approach to Christology now that's one side of the equation what's the great shift well the great shift happened really in the 18th century so at the beginning of modern liberal Protestantism and the great figure I say great here because of his massive influence the great figure of Friedrich Schleiermacher so slider marker of flourishes the end of the 18th beginning of the 19th century writes a number of hugely influential works and slyer mocker trying to reach out to a more skeptical modern audience inaugurates this more consciousness or relational or psychological approach to understanding the divinity of Jesus now I'm going to read you something here from one of his major works which is a very clear articulation of the view listen the Redeemer Christ then is like all men in virtue of the identity of his human nature so he's like us he's a human being but distinguished from them all how by the constant potency of his god-consciousness which was a veritable existence of God in him it's a really clear articulation of the difference so what's unique about Jesus what he liked us he's human like the rest of us but he has a constant and powerful awareness of God he has a God consciousness that's qualitatively different that's unique now look at history of theology from Schleiermacher up until our time hundreds of theologians have gone racing down the Schleiermacher autobahn I mean hundreds have gone down this road to understand Jesus not in ontological terms but in psychological and relational terms now to get into all of that we need a whole University course and stuff but let me just make a couple remarks in the light of Father White's book I know again it can sound desperately arcane but this shift has had a remarkably do a serious effect I would say on our teaching and our preaching and our evangelizing how come well the trouble of Schleiermacher is approach though it's more accessible to modern people I think yeah okay I get that I got a God consciousness maybe you got a higher one Jesus got the best he's got a fully potent God consciousness yeah okay and kind of get that see that's the problem because it turns Jesus really into a kind of super Saint you know the Saints all have an awareness of God they're in relation to God they have a psychological awareness and Jesus has that to the nth degree so I guess he's like a super saint but the problem there is then he would seem to need a redeemer - right the Saints are Saints because they're in relation to Christ the Redeemer if Christ is no more himself than a super saint then is he really the Savior is he really himself the Redeemer impressive precedent if we're just talking about God consciousness what really distinguishes Jesus from let's say the Buddha or from a great Hindu mystic or from a Sufi sage or for that matter from Socrates or from Walt Whitman or Albert Schweitzer or any great figure who has a heightened religious consciousness what really makes Jesus that distinct from those three years I think it's hard to articulate it press it further what makes him all that different than let's say Francis of Assisi who had a pretty potent seems to me God consciousness what makes him different than any of the great Saints and therefore why would we particularly focus on him why would we evangelize him in particular let's say hey by reading the Sufi mystics I get a really heightened God consciousness well Who am I to say no you should you should follow Jesus or no I follow the Hindu sages and that gives me a very powerful sense of the divine Who am I to say then that Jesus has some kind of particularity or superiority here's a second and related problem the Schleiermacher approach represents I think the triumph of the immanent approach when the stress is on our consciousness of God so Jesus has this constantly potent God consciousness where's the stress it's very much on the human side of the equation it's on our quest for God our knowledge of God our ever growing awareness of God and it's not upon the breakthrough of grace which is to say something that God has uniquely done right that God in Christ has uniquely accomplished something that we could never accomplish on our own that no poet no philosopher no mystic could ever accomplish what's been accomplished and established ontologically in Jesus and again you see the difficulty now for evangelization and for teaching and for preaching why should this Christ be so uniquely emphasized so much more we could say obviously about this and something I used to say when I was teacher at the seminary to the guys I would say remember ideas have consequences so I know you can read a book like this and say oh it's all very high abstract stuff yeah it is in one way but ideas clearly have consequences the shift from an ontological to a more psychological or relational Christology has had lots of consequences for the way we preach and teach and evangelize [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 102,336

Rating: 4.9000001 out of 5

Keywords: Who is Jesus, understanding Jesus, Christology, Bishop Barron

Id: UG77k-xLpz8

Length: 9min 49sec (589 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 30 2017