Sárospataki Füzetek 16. (2012)

2012 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Brinkman, Martien E.: Is There a Reciprocal Relation Between Anthropology and Christology?

Brinkman, Martién e.

rit, that Word would be a dead letter and without that Word, Jesus’ concrete life could be applied to anything and could be subject to the wildest interpretations.12

One could say that Schoonenberg thought thoroughly about the perichoresis of which Panikkar also speaks. The term is derived from the Greek verb chorein and means ‘to stride’ or ‘to dance’. Both aspects of Jesus (Word and Spirit) ‘dance’ through each other. They penetrate each other without damage or loss and enrich each in what is unique to both. In Jesus the Word is ‘completely divine in a human way’ and in Jesus is also the human, led by the Holy Spirit, ‘completely human in a divine way’.13 Or, to state it more simply: Jesus’ earthly life belongs inseparably to the way in which we know God. And the converse applies as well: God reveals himself only in Jesus’ earthly existence.

It is striking that it is precisely in the dalits' (the untouchable’s) view of Jesus that the importance of the historical concreteness of God’s presence among us receives major attention in current Indian theology. If God wants to be present in Jesus’ earthly life, with the ‘impure’ family tree containing two prostitutes (the real prostitute Rahab and the pseudo prostitute Tamar), four ‘foreign’ women (Rebecca, Rachel, Rahab (Egypt) and Ruth), someone who committed adultery (Bathshe- ba), a mother who had a child out of wedlock (Mary), a father belonging to the working class (Joseph), whereas Jesus himself led a life full of ‘impure’ contacts with Samaritans, adulterous women and tax collectors, he would all the more want to be present among the dalits,14 This presence reveals how he wants to be divine.

His earthly existence is not just illustration, it’s revelation. In line with this emphasis on Jesus’ earthly life and his suffering and crucifixion and as interpretation of the way in which the Word became flesh, the Indian theologian Thomas Than- garaj speaks of the ‘crucified gum’.15 Here Word and Spirit come together and in Jesus happens indeed what Schoonenberg had in mind when he spoke about the perichoresis of Word and Spirit. In this perichoresis existing anthropological concepts like substitution, forgiveness, sacrifice, hope, righteousness, love, etc. are indeed transformed and obtain a new meaning.

It will be difficult to state that Panikkar’s Christology creates its own anthropological concepts. His Christology fits quite well into existing Hindu philosophical-anthropological approaches. For Panikkar the macro-cosmos and the micro-cosmos are so closely related, that neither can be given priority. Cosmology and anthropology are universal phenomena, only illustrated by the different religions. These are just eye- openers to an already existing universal order. Also Christology has its place in this

12 P. Schoonenberg, De Geest, hét Woord en de Zoon, 133: “Woord zonder Geest kan dode letter worden,

maar Geest zonder Woord kan tot verwildering leiden,

.....”,

1

3 P. Schoonenberg, De Geest, het Woord en de Zoon, 167: “Het Woord is in Christus op menselijke wijze volledig goddelijk (....) en de mens is op goddelijke wijze volledig menselijk

14 M.E. Prabhakar, ‘Christology in Dalit Perspective’ in: V. Devasahayam (ed.), Frontiers of Dalit Theology (New Delhi: Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1997), 414-417 (402-432) and

G. Robinson, ‘Jesus Christ, the Open Way and the Fellow-Struggler: A Look into the Christologies in India’, Asia journal of Theology 3/2 (1989) 411-413 (403-415).

15 M.T. Thangaraj, The Crucified Guru: An Experiment in Crosscultural Christology (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994) and M.T. Thangaraj, “The Word Made Flesh: The Crucified Guru” in M.A. Oduyoye and

H. M. Vroom (eds), One Gospel — Many Cultures: Case Studies and Reflection on Cross-Cultural Theology (Currents of Encounter Vol. 21) (Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2003), 107-127.

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