REFLECTION ON CHAPTER TWO, “The Theological Structure of
Things”, in Jesus, Humanity, and the
Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology, by Kathryn Tanner, Fortress press,
2001
In this
densely-argued chapter Tanner writes, oddly, about God’s “effort” to bring
about a certain kind of non-divine reality utilizing the “willing partnership”
of human beings, and does so by a “series of partnerships” as revealed in the
Hebrew Scriptures and culminating in the incarnation, an effort that is “less
external” than the previous versions and “without any distance to be overcome”,
that is, between God the Son and Jesus of Nazareth.
I’m pretty sure
Tanner is speaking of these 2000 year-old topics in new and unfamiliar terms.
This is, I would think, part of her project to “reconceive Chalcedonian Christology”,
and thereby examine “where human beings fit in a broader theological scheme
that has Christ as its center?”
This prompts my own
perennial question: why does God bother with
the creation of worlds? With time,
evolution, history, incarnation, redemption, etc…? Why not just “make it all
right” all at once, with a snap of the divine fingers, so to speak?
My (tentative) conclusion… “God”= the “Story Loving One”,
whose “effort” is to produce a cosmic drama with human beings as associate
directors, stage hands, audience, actors, and critics.
