The Metaphor of God Incarnate

by John Harwood Hick

In this groundbreaking work, John Hick refutes the traditional Christian understanding of Jesus of Nazareth. According to Hick, Jesus did not teach what was to become the orthodox understanding of that he was God incarnate who became human to die for the sins of the world. Further, the traditional dogma of Jesus' two natures--human and divine--cannot be explained satisfactorily, and worse, it has been used to justify great human evils. Thus, the divine incarnation, he explains, is best understood metaphorically. Nevertheless, he concludes that Christians can still understand Jesus as Lord and the one who has made God real to us. This second edition includes new chapters on the Christologies of Anglican theologian John Macquarrie and Catholic theologian Roger Haight, SJ.

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, Christianity, Nonfiction, Religion

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vigorous theological argument that criticizes the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the claim for salvitic exclusivity of Jesus, this work is a significant contribution to contemporary Christology - is proof that Christian theology can still be done - can be fearlessly honest, logically vigorous - can be both accessible and relevant to modern man in the contemporary intellectual environment.

Hick is a brilliant rhetorician. His arguments are as clear, as compelling, as those of Euclidean geometry. It is a joy to follow his reasoning, to see a rational mind at work. In a postmodern climate that privileges subjective truth, is comfortable with ambiguity, with inconsistency, Hick provides the rare pleasure of demonstrating how vigorous rationality actually works - how it can reveal inconsistencies, can prove the falsity of propositions. And many of the propositions he finds incredible are the basic bedrock of Christian theology - include the Chalcedonian foundations of the faith. He is fearless in his analyses of these dogmas. Few Christian theologians dare this. Most are deterred by their loyalty to the "deposit of the faith". Feel an obligation to defend the antique creeds and dogmas. Reason only so far and then resort to "mystery" - to the unknowability of God. And undeniably God is a mystery, is a "cloud of unknowing". But theology is not mysticism. It is, and always has been, an attempt to explain the nature of God in rational terms, to show the logic of God, the "logos tou Theo". It is not ritual. Is not mystical practice. It has little to do with spirituality. Its sole appeal is to the mind. Its purpose is to explain, however feebly, the nature of God in words, in rational concepts. And if its concepts are not lucid, not rational - if they create misunderstanding and confusion, rather than clarity - they are useless - are counter-productive. They weaken, not strengthen, the faith. And Hick convincingly demonstrates that many of the most cherished Christian doctrines have this negative effect on faith. They have transformed faith from being a spiritual, deeply personal relationship with God into being primarily an affirmation of a creed, of a series of doctrinal statements, many of which are inconsistent, logically flawed, no longer relevant, no longer understandable to modern people. And yet these creeds demand acceptance, demand weekly affirmation during worship. Either one must make the required "leap of faith" to affirm them or one rejects, and is rejected, by the "faith".

Hick's theology seeks a way out of this dilemma. His intention is not to attack Christianity, but to reform it, to liberate it from the dead hand of the past, to free its thought from the concepts and expressions of Greek philosophy, from those of an antique understanding of the physical world. Wants to make Christian truths accessible to modern modes of thought. Wants to deepen Christianity by centering it on the spirit, not on dogma. Wants to open it up to the contemporary workings of the spirit, to return it to a living, experiential relationship with God. Wants to enable, facilitate, encourage Christians to search for God themselves - to reject the traditional images of God, and discover him as it is - as he is currently revealing himself to be.

Most importantly, Hick wants to open Christianity to the world - to make it a universal faith. He believes that this is only possible if the concept of Jesus as the unique Incarnation of God, the unique path to salvation, is abandoned. Argues that real, universal ecumentalism is possible only if Jesus returns to being what he was for many of the first generations of Christians, a man who was full of the spirit of God, who incarnated the love of God in his life, who in his flesh revealed the powerful transformative power of God's love, who was the first fruits, the paragon example of what man, what all men, could be if they opened their hearts to God's love, if they were guided, transformed by God's spirit. Jesus was not God on earth but the example of how divine, how godlike, man could be if he opened his spirit to God. His incarnation is a metaphor for the possibility of divinity in all people - a metaphor to express the truth that divine love, the spirit of God, can be embodied in all human.

Such a Christology, one with a non-exclusive incarnation, an incarnation that was metaphorically available to all, would open up the possibility of real ecumenical dialogue with other religions. Once freed of a belief in a "one-time" appearance of God on earth during which he revealed all truth, truth that was complete and absolute and valid for all times, Christianity would be more tolerant - would not be so quick to condemn others, would not condemn billions of people to the everlasting fires of hell simply because they do not accept such doctrines as the Trinity. Christians would look for the revelation of God in other religions, would look for common ground, for shared truths, would be more respectful of other approaches to God. Surely if Christianity is to be more than the tribal religion of the West, it must recognize the implications of its belief in a loving God - that a God of love loves all - that his spirit goes out to all - that He makes, and has made, himself known to all. No matter how diverse the various understanding of God may be across the world, conditioned and altered as they have been by different histories, different cultures, there is only one God. There is only one divine reality worshipped by all. If the kingdom of God is ever to come, if God is ever to be worshipped by all on earth, Christianity must give up its claims to exclusivity - must work with other faith traditions in creating a universal faith. Must not search for God in scriptures, in creeds, in traditions, but join with all spiritual people in seeking him in the real world. In arguing this, Hick's book is far from anti-Christian - it is pro-God.

[Josie Seto · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poor argument that Jesus wasn’t divine

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"...we cannot save a defective hypothesis by dubbing it a divine mystery." P71

[Brandon Foster · Rating 3 out of 5]

My thoughts on this book are complicated. I was going to give 4 stars because he writes well and he is honest about his intentions concerning Jesus at the very beginning. He lost a star for two reasons. 1. I think his title is misleading. Only the first third discusses the Incarnation outright. The last third he tries to argue how all main world religions are basically the same and they should all kind of morph into a spiritual universal religion. The middle third is a weird transition between these two points. I don't think he does a good job in either camp, but he is forthright and honest about his beliefs, and I appreciate that. 2.chapter 8 is very historically dishonest. This is the chapter where he quickly sums up some evils that the church has done in the past (weirdly putting the blame on the idea of the Incarnation). My first problem is that the topics that he picked (antisemitism, chauvinism, imperialism, and superiority complex) are all very complex historical issues and he mentions non of the reasons. He even hints that Christianity was to blame for the Holocaust! Hitler hated religion (Christianity being his greatest target) and did everything he could to destroy and warp the German church to the Nazi party. So I dislike his dishonesty in this chapter. Secondly, the chapter feels very out of place. It is short, never mentioned again, and does not add anything to the topic of Incarnation nor universalism. Overall I thought the book started well, but the book started to get repetitive half way through.

[Nathaniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Now as someone studying the philosophy of religion, and having met John Hick, I can safely say that I could have guessed the sorts of arguments I was likely to find in Hick's book, I did guess, and I did find them.

Ebionism is a very old heresy concerning the divinity of Jesus and it is alive and well in this book. The 'Jesus was a good moral teacher and can tell us a lot about ourselves and how we relate to one anothe as humans but any more that and you are going to far' is the sort of ham-handed platitudes that ought to have died out with Don Cupitt and the Sea of Faith movement in the late 1970s.

If people want good moral teachers there are plenty of them around, perhaps one only need look towards one's own family? But to go about suggesting that the turn of history, the decline of the Roman Empire and the possible, and probable, resurrection of the dead was merely the result of an exemplary way of life led by a poor Palestinian man beggars belief!

[Deky]

Seperti "nada" dalam buku sebelumnya (The Myth of God Incarnate), Hick kembali menggembar-gemborkan soal ketidakpercayaannya terhadap Kristologi Ortodoks. Tidak ada argumen yang terlalu baru dalam buku ini. Hanya dalam buku ini kita melihat perkembangan pemahaman Hick. Jika dalam The Myth of God Incarnate, Hick menganggap Ketuhanan Kristus sebagai mitos, maka dalam buku ini Hick lebih menganggapnya sebagai metafora.
Jika anda ingin mengetahui pandangan dari seorang yang dulu pernah menganut pandangan Kristen fundamentalis lalu beralih menjadi seorang pluralis, maka anda dapat menjadikan tulisan-tulisan Hick sebagai referensi. Dan buku ini adalah salah satu dari buah peralihan (bukan perkembangan) spiritual-journey orang-orang yang demikian.

[loafingcactus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the book because it has been transformational for friends who were raised in very narrow doctrines. I can see how the rigor of the book could help lead one out of a doctrinal cave, but since that isn’t particularly my problem the book wasn’t moving for me.

It is certainly a very respectable basis for a more open theology. I would like to think that the author has done a good work for peace, however if the author is correct in his final evaluation of Jesus then the world is even more in need of ongoing prophets than Christianity would have supposed, and we live further from sanctification that the main currents of Christianity would assume.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

With my theological background and interest, this book has grabbed me on the very first page of the introduction. Sure wish the print wasn't so small. Also, I will probably use up at least one highlighter pen because I want to mark every line.

[Michael Brady · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is much better than the other one of his I've read (The New Frontier of Religion and Science : Religious Experience, Neuroscience and the Transcendent). Fascinating approach to two of most vexing challenges to Christian theology - the incarnation and the trinity.

[Clayton Tinervin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is hard to rate. John is a great thinker and a great writer. I find his work to be based on flawed assumptions about the claims of Christianity, and I believe this leads to flawed conclusions. Two stars doesn't relate the scholastic quality of the book, but is terribly subjective.

[James Chappell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant but Frustrating

Hicks dismantles the Trinity with brutal efficiency, both philosophically and theologically, showing it as an invention of the Church. Can't wait to read his other works...

[Sooho Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Years prior, John Hick stirred the Anglican Church by editing a volume called The Myth of God Incarnate, where a host of Anglican priests and theologians staked their opinions about the (un)historicity of certain gospel stories--incarnation included. John Hick, a preeminent philosophical theologian (and a fundamentalist-turned-pluralist), presents here, in The Metaphor of God Incarnate, a way to conceive of downplaying the uniqueness and exclusivity of Christianity that would invite the plurality of world religions. His argument, roughly, follows like accordingly: (1) in the gospels, Jesus never claims to be God incarnate, (2) the divinization of Christ was the works of his followers, (3) the doctrine of incarnation was a hellenistic product centuries after Jesus' death, therefore, (4) Jesus being God incarnate is not a metaphysical reality but a metaphorical description. In other words, incarnation is not a historical event of God entering time and creation but rather a human act that shows the "Real" through Selfless Love.

Hick's project, as one described it to me, is the culmination of the Enlightenment Project. However, with the rise of postmodernism, Hick's suggestions are not too helpful. He has answers that postmodernists are not asking. Personally, I found Hick, at times, interesting but, most of the time, a bore. Nonetheless, I would recommend this to anyone remotely interested in theology, especially if one wants to learn a good summation of higher biblical criticism with a bend towards Protestant Liberalism. Fundamentally, I disagree with Hick, but I got to, at least, know who and what I am disagreeing with and about.

cf. www.sooholee.wordpress.com

[Tom Rothbauer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good, but very deep. This is an in-depth study of theology attempting to discern what the term "Incarnation" likely means as it is used to define Jesus. Hick quotes a variety of Theologians who have attempted to tackle this subject in the last 2000 years and brings his own understanding to the table. This is a book for thinking Christians who recognize that a literal understanding of God's Word and the teachings of the Church may not reveal the intended messages.

[JC]

I should admit that I usually avoid rating books anymore when I don’t like them, and if I am honest, this book wasn’t quite my cup of tea.

I should also be forward and admit that I disagree with the basic premise of this book, and my theological tendency is fairly Trinitarian, but that is not the reason I dislike the book at all, and there were quite a number of points I agreed on in this book, but found them articulated in a way that was hard to resonate with.

It’s not that I outright object to Unitarian theology. There are many Unitarians who articulate their views in an interesting way that I enjoy. And I’ve read thinkers from the Islamic and Jewish traditions who I love reading. In fact, Hick includes a reference to Spinoza criticizing the idea of the God-man as self-contradictory (which it is, yes, and I love that in a Kierkegaardian way). I appreciated that a lot more than most of the book’s other contents.

I do see my own theological tendency as skewing towards a high Christology only because I maybe have a lower conception of God than a conventional theist. I personally just see that as a more biblically consistent view of God, who is fairly ‘anthropomorphic’ in the Hebrew Bible, and I think that’s a more interesting God than the one of Greek Rationalism. I don’t feel invested at all in what I see as Hellenized categories of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, et cetera, as John Hick seemed to hold on to throughout (I will return to this issue later). I feel very strongly attached to Morna Hooker’s comment on kenosis:

“Christ did not cease to be ‘in the form of God’ when he took the form of a slave, any more than he ceased to be the ‘Son of God’ when he was sent into the world. On the contrary, it is in his self-emptying and his humiliation that he reveals what God is like, and it is through his taking the form of a slave that we see ‘the form of God’.”

And it is James Cone that makes such a line of thought more decisive in his take on atonement:

“Until we can see the cross and the lynching tree together, until we can identify Christ with a “recrucified” black body hanging from a lynching tree, there can be no genuine understanding of Christian identity in America, and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of slavery and white supremacy.”

So my high Christology has more to do with a particular conception of God that I have, which relies heavily on the work of people like James Cone. Beginning there then, my dislike of Hick’s book might firstly have to do with the difficulty I have appreciating theological engagements with analytic philosophy. I just find philosophy of religion so dry most of the time, and so radically removed from all the suffering and oppression that exists in this world. It reminds me of Proudhon in his book “What is Property?”, writing how, from:

“the conflict of the most extravagant opinions upon unanswerable questions and texts which no one understood, was born theology, — which may be defined as the science of the infinitely absurd. The truth of Christianity did not survive the age of the apostles,”

This is precisely how I felt about the chapters on the “two-minds” theory of Christology or the multiple incarnations of the Cosmic Christ on multiple planets. The amount of rigour felt so absurd and it was mostly an unbearable bundle of pages for me. Now maybe this was Hick’s intention because he was trying to poke holes in those theories. But it certainly didn’t make for very stimulating reading.

Secondly, I was hoping to encounter a very substantial critique of why Incarnation was overall a destructive doctrine that led to many moral evils, but all I found were these strangely indirect relations. I still quite haven’t figured out how conceiving of Jesus as God incarnate leads to European colonialism. The life of Jesus seems so antithetical to the perpetration of colonial violence, I have a hard time seeing how Jesus’ deification could lead to European colonialism. Hick admits that the causation wasn’t direct. I was thinking while reading this that there were Christian communities that existed outside of Europe (like in Ethiopia and India); why did they not take it upon themselves to engage in violent colonial conquest? I personally see Constantine’s transformation of Christianity into the religion of Empire as having more to do with European colonialism than a high Christology in and of itself (though Hick would argue that is exactly when a high Christology solidified; I happen to think that is very debatable by way of Richard Hays). I suspect there are more interesting critiques of incarnational theology out there. I just didn’t find Hick’s account very convincing.

Thirdly, for a book premised on metaphor, Hick felt awkwardly rigid about the use of metaphor, constantly explaining every little distinction. It’s sort of like when someone is trying to explain a joke to you and the humour gets lost in the process. That’s sort of how a lot of this came across for me. If you want a pleasant sketch of Liberal Christianity, I think someone like Marcus Borg is a lot more readable, and I’m not that enamoured at all with Liberal Christianity anyways, so I’m not sure if it’s worth all the trouble.

Anyhow, Hick quotes Sarah Coakley at the beginning, elaborating on the different senses of incarnation that we might extrapolate from the term. It was one of the better parts of the book. But I think Coakley provides a far more engaging treatment of Trinitarian theology in her first volume of systematics, very unlike the way Hick so woodenly dismisses the potential of such a doctrine in this book. I think what bothered me most was Hick retains a fairly fundamentalist reaction towards those he disagrees with, and an obsessional fixation on some transcendental reality. I feel that one could have as viable a Trinitarian theology as a Unitarian one, each with its own benefits and shortcomings, and particular possibilities in different circumstances, and a stronger affinity for one sort of theology over another without having to affirm one as ‘objectively’ better than another (as if such an evaluation were even possible). I think the diversity and plurality of theological perspectives makes for a more vibrant and interesting milieu where mutual transformation can occur.

This brings me to my final point. I find Hick’s mountain metaphor very unrelatable. I think it’s actually different from Rumi’s parable (derived from from the Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain traditions) about blind people feeling an elephant. Rumi’s story is about perceptual differences focused on a diversity of parts with different functions. The various body parts of the elephant are distinct but work together as some common assemblage, though they can actually function at odds with each other (like when an Elephant trips over it’s own foot, or it’s hunger makes it do something that gets its leg attacked by a predator). The elephant has limits as a metaphor but it is not as universalizing as Hick’s mountain metaphor. Hick suggests that there is a mountain that looks different from different parts on the ground, and all the paths lead up to the same mountain peak. The mountain is a far more static image than an elephant, because I think Hick is a lot more concerned with he ontological or metaphysical aspects of faiths, than how they function within the problems of particular communities.

Hick is constantly speaking of some consistent transcendent Real that is behind all these different faiths, and I just find that so disparaging and reductive. He ends up using vague spiritual language that feels as if it is condescendingly flattening all other faiths to some Christian salvational mechanism, even though he criticizes Rahner for doing something similar. I don’t see Hick as breaking very far from that universalizing tendency. He writes of this “ultimate transcendent reality” which he often refers to as the ‘Real’, saying:

“The answer is that the reality or non-reality of the postulated noumenal ground of the experienced religious phenomena constitutes the difference between a religious and a naturalistic interpretation of religion. If there is no such transcendent ground, the various forms of religious experience are purely human projections. If on the other hand there is such a transcendent ground, then these phenomena may be joint products of the universal presence of the Transcendent and of the varying sets of concepts and images operating within the religious traditions of the earth. To affirm the Real is thus to affirm that religious experience is not solely a construction of our human imagination but is a response - though always a culturally conditioned response - to the Real.”

Now I think ‘human projections’ are not quite the best way of framing the alternative to Hick’s noumenal ground, nor do I think ‘naturalistic’ is the right word either. I think the domain of the imagination should not be so pejoratively reduced to a projection of the existing present and the past, but rather imagination enables access to the open world of future possibility — as Brueggemann terms it: the ability to host a world other than the one that is before us. I think Hick’s book focuses on particular philosophical questions about the logical coherence of the incarnation, and maybe that’s his academic goal. I happen to be a lot more interested in how a doctrine like incarnation can open up new possibilities regarding how particular communities engage with the world, and how such a notion can function so as to enable communities to dismantle dominating hierarchies and adequately address suffering and oppression. He does this to some extent with his emphasis on religious pluralism, but I really don’t think the incarnation has to threaten that. I think incarnation is more a way of speaking about the world and its past, and how we are to live in it in the present and future, rather than about some infinitely absurd speculation about some metaphysical Real.

Hopefully, my Advent reading next year will be a little more up my alley.