Unspeakable Cults: An Essay in Christology

by Paul J. DeHart

The incarnation of God in Jesus poses numerous challenges for the historical consciousness. How does a particular human at a particular time embody the eternal? And how does that embodiment work itself out in faith across the centuries? A gulf would appear to stand between what Christians say about Christ and the historical event of the man Jesus; indeed, the true reality of the incarnation seems unspeakable. Unspeakable Cults considers the nature and potential resolution of the conflict between the relativistic assumptions of the modern historical worldview and the classical Christian assertion of the absolute status of Jesus of Nazareth as God’s saving incarnation in history. Paul DeHart contends that an understanding of Jesus’ history is possible, proposing a model of the relation of divine causation to historical causation that allows the affirmation of Jesus’ divinity without a miraculous rupture of the world’s immanent causal patterns. The book first identifies classic articulations of the conflict in nineteenth-century German thought (Troeltsch, D. F. Strauss), and then draws on the history of religions to suggest possible relevant motifs in first-century culture that mitigate the axiomatic "tension" between Jesus’ humanity and his deified status in early Christianity. With a creative appropriation of Thomas Aquinas, the heart of the argument aims to understand the eternal Word’s presence in a human being as a thoroughly cultural event, but one dependent on divine power conceived as quasi-formal rather than merely efficient cause. Such an approach undercuts any opposition between the absoluteness of Jesus and the relativism of historicism. DeHart ultimately confronts the resulting challenges to traditional belief resulting from this proposed model, including the irremediable ambiguity of Jesus’ "miraculous" performances and the constitutively unfinished nature of his human identity. Rather than treating these as scandals of modern consciousness, Unspeakable Cults vindicates them as necessary aspects of the "offense" perennially confronting faith in the incarnation.

271 pages, Hardcover

Published August 1, 2021

Reviews

[Isabel Draper · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Only the faith that knows his total claim, the uncontrollable surplus of his humanity, also knows the dread that comes when you look down that same well, only to see the unutterable living thing climbing up towards you.”

Sublime (pun intended) Christological work!

[Richard Woodhouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just reread this book and changed my opinion of it some what. Though I disagree with its extreme skepticism about the historical reliability of the New Testament Gospels, I see that side of it too. I've always struggled with the miraculous aspects of the NT. But that's more from a philosophical World view perspective. All of us in this time, are products of the "Enlightenment". So we are to some degree going to struggle with Methodological Naturalism, pulling us towards doubt about the miraculous. Still the authors of ancient texts knew that Walking on Water and Resurrections were "Impossible". But the scriptures report these things as pretty much straight forward "Happenings". Philosophically/Theologically a lot is lost if the space time continuum is totally impervious to a Creators' over ride to be simplistic about it. Any post mortem hope for us and the Universe in any recognizable relation to what has been in the Space/time existence that we are in as of now, is totally destroyed if the Naturalistic tight jacket is beyond challenge. There are some historical reasons to give the NT accounts some creedence, but its not a knock out undoubtable position. I'm rambling I know. One thing about this book is that it really gets one to thinking on these things. It has many areas that come into play. History of Religions studies and the "New History of Religions" arguments for the Uniqueness of the Worship and Claims made of the Human Being Jesus of Nazareth. Huge claims about Jesus go right back to very early movement. I found the later chapters stimulating in the points covered in relation to Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer. Kenotic theories about Jesus Christ come into stark focus after reading this book as well. Can a genuine Human Being be all knowing or have the "Beautific Vision" and be in any way a recognizable Human Being at one with us in all things except Sin, as one of the Early Christian councils speaks of? So this book is a stimulating volume and I know I will be referring back to it in the future. Richard