Monday, May 01, 2006

The Θεάνθροπος and the Θεόπνευστογραφη

What a mess of conflated Greek words. Now, if you are reading this post after a title like that, I commend you. The idea of Theanthropos (the first word above) is that of the Historic Christian definition (Chalcedon 533 AD) that the person or hypostasis ('υποστάσις) of Jesus was fully God and fully man at the same time, unconfused, unconfounded, unmixed; yet, at the same time one person and a true mystery. Second the idea connoted in Theopneustographe (i.e., God-breathed + writing. also my made up word) is that idea that the Scriptures are also analogously fully divine and fully human.

The unity of the bible, its hypostasis as it were:
...should ultimately be sought in Christ himself, the living word. [This] is a broad and foundational theological commitment based on the analogy between Christ and Scripture. As Christians we must remember that we believe not only that the Bible is the word of God, but that Christ himself is the word....[It could be said that] the Bible is God's word in written form; Christ is God's word in human form....The written word bears witness to the incarnate word, Christ. And what gives the written word its unity is not simply the words on the page [(following St. Augustine, De Magistro)], but the incarnate word who is more than simply the sum of the biblical parts.[!]1
May the Church, who is Christ's, not fail to see the Bible's subject, her Bride, the risen and exalted Christ. Amen.

__________
1 Enns, Peter. Inspiration and Incarnation. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005. p 110.

0 comments: