The Incarnation: An Exchange

Abstract

You clearly enjoyed writing about The Myth of God Incarnate and I have enjoyed reading your review. I am sure you are right that if we are to get any further with the problems that the book raises, deeper insight into the doctrine of God is called for. But perhaps I should have said if I am to get any further, because you don't seem to think the book does raise any real problems for you; its problems are pseudo-problems, arising out of a fundamental misunderstanding, and in the light of a truer doctrine of God they will all simply melt away. The fact that you offer so quick-acting a panacea tends to make me suspicious and to discourage me from pursuing the road you propose for me. I want to tell you why I feel the problem is not patient of quite as ready a solution as you suggest. Let me begin with the parallel with eucharistie doctrine since you find that a useful one. If I understand you aright, you are convinced that the consecrated elements are the real body and blood of Christ; you are open to different ways of understanding that but can clearly distinguish theories which are saying the same thing in a new way from ones which see the elements as mere representations of Christ's body and blood. I amnot clear how you would understand 'real' here in terms of that 'clear analysis or critique of religious language' that you rightly desiderate. But the main issue between us is that I start from a different point. What I am convinced of is that the elements are spoken of as the body and blood of Christ and that that way of speaking of them conveys something of deep spiritual importance. What I would want to know from you is not only what you mean by the 'real' bit, but also how you know it in advance of any particular understanding. But since this is only a parallel and not the substantive issue, I must move on. For the same sort of thing is true in the case of the incarnation. Your starting-point is the knowledge that 'Jesus was ... a man who was God'. In starting there you are, of course, at one with so much of the best Roman Catholic scholarship and I tried to express my difficulty with taking that as the starting-point in my Remaking of Christian Doctrine pp. 42-3. And the way you develop your argument reinforces my sense of a fundamental dif-