“I asked Jesus, ‘How much do you love me?’ And Jesus said, ‘This much.’ Then He stretched out His arms and died.”
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The Religious Jesus
The religious Jesus is a figure who raised from the dead and ascended to heaven to share a divine throne with his father, God, and rule the universe at his side. It is believed that in the future, he will return to the realm of the 'great unwashed' and cleanse us of sin for the second time. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit of God to charge the new Church with continuing his mission, instilling within them his example to do so.
The Historical Jesus
To approach the figure of Jesus from a historical context, the theologian Karl Rahner has a conviction that Christian faith must employ a historical basis - in this, he recognises that "the self-understanding of the pre-resurrection Jesus may not contradict in an historical sense the Christian understanding of his person and his salvific significance" i.e. the strictly religious, transcendent interpretation of Jesus as a divine figure must be understood in tandem with a historical, humane view of Jesus.
To establish this grounding of Christological thought, Rahner takes a two-pronged approach:
1) Jesus saw himself "as the eschatological prophet, as the absolute and definitive saviour"
2) Jesus is the absolute self-communication of God
In this vein, Rahner suggests that Jesus is the saviour from God, sent to provide human beings with a moral, religious, transcendent framework by which to view life - establishing himself as the ultimate example for humans on earth. This understanding of Christ draws together the two understandings of Jesus (religious or biblical, and historical) by providing historical background from which religious truth and interpretation can be drawn
Rahner describes his Christology as "transcendental anthropology" and places emphasis on the humanity of Jesus, which in doing so can provide a human example as well as a strictly godlike one. In his own words, Rahner will
"look first at what it might mean to be man and then at what it might mean for God to become man." By focusing on the essential humanity of Jesus Christ, in addition to the transcendental Jesus Christ of religion that is addressed above, further meaning can be gleaned on Jesus as the ultimate role model...after all, one of the characteristics of religion is Beliefs and Believers. These believers are inevitably human, and the beliefs that they profess are, it can be argued, a human invention.
The religious Jesus is a figure who raised from the dead and ascended to heaven to share a divine throne with his father, God, and rule the universe at his side. It is believed that in the future, he will return to the realm of the 'great unwashed' and cleanse us of sin for the second time. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit of God to charge the new Church with continuing his mission, instilling within them his example to do so.
The Historical Jesus
To approach the figure of Jesus from a historical context, the theologian Karl Rahner has a conviction that Christian faith must employ a historical basis - in this, he recognises that "the self-understanding of the pre-resurrection Jesus may not contradict in an historical sense the Christian understanding of his person and his salvific significance" i.e. the strictly religious, transcendent interpretation of Jesus as a divine figure must be understood in tandem with a historical, humane view of Jesus.
To establish this grounding of Christological thought, Rahner takes a two-pronged approach:
1) Jesus saw himself "as the eschatological prophet, as the absolute and definitive saviour"
2) Jesus is the absolute self-communication of God
In this vein, Rahner suggests that Jesus is the saviour from God, sent to provide human beings with a moral, religious, transcendent framework by which to view life - establishing himself as the ultimate example for humans on earth. This understanding of Christ draws together the two understandings of Jesus (religious or biblical, and historical) by providing historical background from which religious truth and interpretation can be drawn
Rahner describes his Christology as "transcendental anthropology" and places emphasis on the humanity of Jesus, which in doing so can provide a human example as well as a strictly godlike one. In his own words, Rahner will
"look first at what it might mean to be man and then at what it might mean for God to become man." By focusing on the essential humanity of Jesus Christ, in addition to the transcendental Jesus Christ of religion that is addressed above, further meaning can be gleaned on Jesus as the ultimate role model...after all, one of the characteristics of religion is Beliefs and Believers. These believers are inevitably human, and the beliefs that they profess are, it can be argued, a human invention.