Kenotic Theology

[JRMcC]

Quoting from Kierkegaard's Kenotic Christology by David R. Law, page 34:
"The term 'kenosis' is derived from Paul's use of the term ekenosen in the so-called Christ-hymn of Phil 2.6-11. In the first stanza (Phil 2.6-8) of this hymn Paul states that 'Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself (heauton ekenosen), taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness' (Phil 2.6-7 emphasis added)."

The 1960's saw an increased interest in kenotic theology among certain Christian theologians. Some of these thinkers used the concept of a self-negating God -one that empties himself of his own nature out of selfless love for his creation- to reconcile the Christian belief with modern scientific and rationalist thinking. This modern Kenotic Theology offers some ideas that I think some people will be interested in discussing.

Evolution- It should come as no surprise that a kenotic God would allow its creation to be something utterly different from God. That nature went through millions of years of random processes before giving rise to mankind may not be a sign that God does not exist, rather it may be a sign that God's nature is to allow his creation to be fully independent out of selfless love (Evolution, Theology of. Gale Virtual Reference Library).

The problem of evil- When it comes to evil acts committed by people (Hitler and the Jewish Holocaust for example), Christians often make the case for Theodicy (God's justice) by saying that God grants people total free will out of selfless love. If we combine this argument with the logic in above (the evolution section) we have a stronger argument for a kenotic God's Theodicy. The idea is that God is not an untouchable spectator in the clouds who does with his creation as he pleases. He is a kenotic God who puts aside his own perfect nature to allow his creation to be separate and imperfect, and he suffers along with his creation.

Thoughts anyone?

ps. if anyone knows more about this please share. Apparently there were some protestant thinkers in the WW 2 era who did this kind of thinking, dealing with the existence of God and the problem of evil. But I haven't gotten around to reading up on this yet.

 

[lovemuffin]

I tend to associate a lot of the Christian mystical tradition with "kenosis" and the meaning of the crucifixion and resurrection, baptism, the "fullness" of Christ, and probably an entire cluster of other Christian symbols. I haven't tended to associate it explicitly with philosophical problems like theodicy, but the connection is interesting. I agree with what you said, it points towards an experience of the Divine that is not utterly transcendent and entirely beyond human existence. That is one of the primary symbolic meanings of the incarnation, beyond any question of soteriology. God is (also) human and cosmic, present with us, around us, and in us, because the Divine is that self-emptying into all of reality.

With regard to mysticism, I think there is a connection between "emptiness", "silence", and "stillness" as categories both of experience and of practice. "Be still and know that I am God", as a Psalm says. "In silence and hope will be your strength", Isaiah wrote. In the ascetic traditions of both east and west that ideal has been pursued, with "unceasing prayer" (as Paul urged), a goal that can only be met by stilling the mind, so that as Isaac of Syria wrote, beyond pure prayer there is "wonder" and "awe", it is no longer the mind praying. Christ is the Logos, but the Father, as the source from which everything comes to be and to which everything returns, is silence. That silence is empty because it is continually poured out, so to speak, in the Logos and in the Spirit. That is the "fullness of life" which Jesus said he came to give, and which Paul wrote that Christ received ("in him the fullness dwelt bodily...") Kenosis and Pleroma, Emptiness and Fullness, are like two poles which have to be understood in relation to each other, because we are also images of that Divine, so that our own fullness is also experienced in self-emptying. That is the wisdom of many contemplative traditions.

There is another connection here to "love". As Jesus said, "there is no greater love than this: to lay down one's life..." I think the verse is often heard only in relation to the idea of atonement, but that laying down is very much a self-emptying that should be heard in relation to these other experiences. "Take up your cross and follow me" certainly does not say anything about a substitutionary atonement, but about what a "Christian" life is. "Who would be first among you should be last of all, and the servant of all". Because in so doing we are like our father in heaven, "who makes it rain upon the just as well as the unjust". Jesus' entire ethic and spirituality in the sermon on the mount is intimately connected with this idea of self-emptying, symbolized by the cross and by his own humility. There is a certain concept of God that sees the incarnation as condescension ("though being in the form of God...he humbled himself as Man"), but I think it's more proper to say that the Divine simply is humble by nature, and that humility is self-emptying, and that self-emptying is the Christian meaning of love, and all of this is the essence of the sermon on the mount and of Christian life.

 

[JRMcC]

I tend to associate a lot of the Christian mystical tradition with "kenosis" and the meaning of the crucifixion and resurrection, baptism, the "fullness" of Christ, and probably an entire cluster of other Christian symbols. I haven't tended to associate it explicitly with philosophical problems like theodicy, but the connection is interesting. I agree with what you said, it points towards an experience of the Divine that is not utterly transcendent and entirely beyond human existence. That is one of the primary symbolic meanings of the incarnation, beyond any question of soteriology. God is (also) human and cosmic, present with us, around us, and in us, because the Divine is that self-emptying into all of reality.

With regard to mysticism, I think there is a connection between "emptiness", "silence", and "stillness" as categories both of experience and of practice. "Be still and know that I am God", as a Psalm says. "In silence and hope will be your strength", Isaiah wrote. In the ascetic traditions of both east and west that ideal has been pursued, with "unceasing prayer" (as Paul urged), a goal that can only be met by stilling the mind, so that as Isaac of Syria wrote, beyond pure prayer there is "wonder" and "awe", it is no longer the mind praying. Christ is the Logos, but the Father, as the source from which everything comes to be and to which everything returns, is silence. That silence is empty because it is continually poured out, so to speak, in the Logos and in the Spirit. That is the "fullness of life" which Jesus said he came to give, and which Paul wrote that Christ received ("in him the fullness dwelt bodily...") Kenosis and Pleroma, Emptiness and Fullness, are like two poles which have to be understood in relation to each other, because we are also images of that Divine, so that our own fullness is also experienced in self-emptying. That is the wisdom of many contemplative traditions.

There is another connection here to "love". As Jesus said, "there is no greater love than this: to lay down one's life..." I think the verse is often heard only in relation to the idea of atonement, but that laying down is very much a self-emptying that should be heard in relation to these other experiences. "Take up your cross and follow me" certainly does not say anything about a substitutionary atonement, but about what a "Christian" life is. "Who would be first among you should be last of all, and the servant of all". Because in so doing we are like our father in heaven, "who makes it rain upon the just as well as the unjust". Jesus' entire ethic and spirituality in the sermon on the mount is intimately connected with this idea of self-emptying, symbolized by the cross and by his own humility. There is a certain concept of God that sees the incarnation as condescension ("though being in the form of God...he humbled himself as Man"), but I think it's more proper to say that the Divine simply is humble by nature, and that humility is self-emptying, and that self-emptying is the Christian meaning of love, and all of this is the essence of the sermon on the mount and of Christian life.

Thanks a lot for this! I actually know relatively little about Christianity despite having grown up Catholic for the first 9 or 10 years of my life and despite having posted this thread. I'm actually researching for a paper on this topic right now and I find it fascinating. It's also got me reexamining my own thoughts and feelings about the divine, and I'm seeing Jesus of Nazareth in a way that I never quite have before. Here from people like you I get insight into the deep and spiritual aspects of Christianity that I'm almost never exposed to anywhere else.
So thanks again. - James M.

 

[JRMcC]

I wonder if we will here from any atheists who have thoughts on whether or not the god concept I've described is a reasonable one...

 

[`mud]

hey James,
You are 22 years old....and you were raised in a Catholic family....
and you don't know anything about the trinity or mass or the crucifix.
How about the carrying of the cross to the......
Something's wrong here....it snowing again ?
~
'mud

 

[Kuzcotopia]

I wonder if we will here from any atheists who have thoughts on whether or not the god concept I've described is a reasonable one...

Unfortunately no.

Using biblical evidence to claim knowledge of God is the same argument .

Evolution is a scientific theory independent of religious thought. Having a faith that "allows" for it isn't a game changer, because it's irrelevant. You can forget that line of questioning all together. No one uses evolution to prove atheism.

The traditional argument from the problem of evil suggests that god cannot be all three: omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent. This is an atheist argument, and required a question or two. From what I understand about your argument, you are removing omnipotence as part of the traditional western theist definition of God. Is that right?

 

[viole]

I wonder if we will here from any atheists who have thoughts on whether or not the god concept I've described is a reasonable one...

Well, that reminds me of the pre-Einsteinian theory of a cosmic ether, a hypothetical medium responsible for transmitting electromagnetic waves.

You can make theories that work also in presence of the ether. We can even make viable theories that assume the earth at the center of the Universe if we want, since the origin of space is arbitrary (affine space).

The problem is not that they would not work. The problem is that they introduce useless complication and are not parsimonous. They have no other motivation than to insist on sticking on a priori assumptions, even if not necessary.

In general, if a problem is solved by postulating the absence of something, then this solution is preferrable than complicating issues by changing the world around this something. The problem of evil is typical. Postulating the absence of an omnipotent and good being, solves it nicely, in my opinion.

Better than postulating a God that decides to strip away its godness in a sort of partecipatory act and in order to share our sufferng. It would be like a master surgeon that instead of saving lives, decides to become sick himself. That is not only odd, but morally questionable.

Ciao

- viole

 

[lovemuffin]

From what I understand about your argument, you are removing omnipotence as part of the traditional western theist definition of God. Is that right?

Better than postulating a God that decides to strip away its godness in a sort of partecipatory act and in order to share our sufferng. It would be like a master surgeon that instead of saving lives, decides to become sick himself. That is not only odd, but morally questionable.

The "master surgeon" part seems to still be assuming that sort of transcendent metaphysical omnipotence, where God can create any possible world, or intervene in any logically possible way, but (to answer kutz' question) I really do think that "omnipotence" is a theological speculation that should be done away with.

 

[viole]

The "master surgeon" part seems to still be assuming that sort of transcendent metaphysical omnipotence, where God can create any possible world, or intervene in any logically possible way, but (to answer kutz' question) I really do think that "omnipotence" is a theological speculation that should be done away with.

Well yes, this is the logical conclusion that it is also shared by some Jewish theologians, as far as I know.

It is obvious that if God picked the best of all possible worlds, then no matter what I decide to do, I will not be able to make the world any worse. I could shoot the first child I see and that would still better or equal than not shooting that baby, if I am logically free to instantiate both possibility.

The question is then: what are the limits of his omnipotence? I don't think that identifying occurences of evil with his impossibility to intervene, explains anything. I could equally well postulate an evil God that is not potent towards instances of goodness.

And what do you do when you pray? Please God, do that... If You can?

Ciao

- viole

 

[lovemuffin]

When I pray mostly I wish to be present to God and to commune with that reality. Which isn't to say that there aren't supplications, but I have always felt that the logical reduction of such to an expected transaction misses most of the point of it.

"The purpose of prayer is for us to acquire love of God, for in prayer can be discovered all sorts of reasons for loving God. Love of God proceeds from conversing with him; this conversation of prayer comes about through stillness, and stillness comes with the stripping away of the self" -- Isaac of Syria

 

[Kuzcotopia]

The question is then: what are the limits of his omnipotence? I don't think that identifying occurences of evil with his impossibility to intervene, explains anything. I could equally well postulate an evil God that is not potent towards instances of goodness.

Or we could postulate a omnipotent god who wants to try out the theory of goodness but doesn't know much more than we do about the world. Perhaps it's all a cosmic experiment in understanding the behavior of his creation, one of many he has going. Or, this lack of knowledge explains why to took so long for the universe to produce humanity, and why the universe looks so different that what a theist might expect. He had to keep tweaking physical laws, etc. . . So the creation itself is full of patches, revisions, and otherwise large, empty, and flawed.

The purpose of these possibilities to to suggest that any concept of god you invent is as much speculation as not removing omnipotence in the first place.

Instead of asking atheists what they think, you should be asking theists. Once all theist agree on a single definition of the nature of god and faith, and can reference textual evidence in a consistent way that transcends the influence of cultural interpretation and/or your personal desires, maybe we'd have something to discuss.

 

[lovemuffin]

In a sense, some ancient cosmologies consider this all to be a "cosmic experiment", the līlā of hinduism, or the "choral dance" of Plotinus' Enneads, allowing for some conflation of "experience" and "experiment"

 

[Kuzcotopia]

In a sense, some ancient cosmologies consider this all to be a "cosmic experiment", the līlā of hinduism, or the "choral dance" of Plotinus' Enneads, allowing for some conflation of "experience" and "experiment"

Some.

Unfortunately, that's the point.

 

[JRMcC]

From what I understand about your argument, you are removing omnipotence as part of the traditional western theist definition of God. Is that right?

That's basically right. But I would say it removes the benevolence in some sense too. Not that God ceases to be a loving God, but that he puts aside his divine perfection (which includes benevolence and omnipotence) to allow good as well as evil to take place independent from his will.
But that's actually an aspect I need to read up on to be sure about. Most of what I found on modern kenotic theology isn't much concerned with evil.

No one uses evolution to prove atheism.

Well no, but people make observations and draw conclusions from them. Doesn't matter if you lean atheist or theist.

 

[Kuzcotopia]

That's basically right. But I would say it removes the benevolence in some sense too. Not that God ceases to be a loving God, but that he puts aside his divine perfection (which includes benevolence and omnipotence) to allow good as well as evil to take place independent from his will.
But that's actually an aspect I need to read up on to be sure about. Most of what I found on modern kenotic theology isn't much concerned with evil.


Well no, but people make observations and draw conclusions from them. Doesn't matter if you lean atheist or theist.

There are records of Greek philosophers who rejected all gods and the supernatural 2,500 years ago, without evidence of evolution It's just scientific observation, and any dichotomy between theism and atheism is created by theists threatened by a perceived attack on their creation myth, IMO.

 

[JRMcC]

There's actually an important aspect of this modern kenotic theology that I've left out because I still understand it so little. I wonder if anyone here has access to or has read "Absolute Nothingness - Foundations for a Buddhist-Christian dialogue" by Hans Waldenfels. Or "The Emptying God" which is actually a collection of conversations on Buddhist-Christian dialogue.
Some of these thinkers compare the idea of a self-emptying God to the Buddhist concept of Sunyata. Buddhist thought maintains that Sunyata (voidness or nothingness) is actually the ground of all existence. An important theme in "The Emptying God" is that a kenotic God (who is of course the ground of all existence) resembles Sunyata in a lot of ways.

I see the kind of God they're talking about as a transtheistic one, a God can be described neither as being nor not-being.

 

[lovemuffin]

I have not read that specific book but I was definitely thinking of Sunyata when I was writing my post, especially in speaking of God as "source" and "silence". This is an idea that Panikkar explores quite a bit in his own inter-religious dialogue.