Postmodernism has come to be known as a cultural sensibility without absolutes, fixed certainties, or foundations. It delights in pluralism, and divergence, and it aims to think through the radical “situatedness” of all human thought. Deconstructionist ideas are a primary aspect of this movement which teaches the critical method which virtually declares that the identity and intentions of the author of a text are irrelevant to the interpretation of the text. Therefore, before the interpretation is given, there is really no meaning to the text but what one brings to the text or reads from it. Geoffrey Hartman, Harold Bloom and J. Hillis Miller are proponents of this view. Traditional and academic biblical interpretation is overthrown and systematization of information (theology) is hostile to the framework of postmodernism. How is salvation attained? By modern liberal and postmodern theologians, the answers vary. The relation of Christology to soteriology will vary depending upon which modern theologian one studies. There was a greater affinity in drawing these two concepts together from men like Ritschl who followed Kant, than there were with Tillich who draws a distinction between the Christ principle and the historical Jesus. In terms of the atonement of Christ, a metaphorical meaning and extension has come to be given priority over the original. That trend began with John Locke and was continued by Thomas Chubb (c. 1679-1747), and Joseph Butler in 1736. Horace Bushnell took that idea and wrote Vicarious Sacrifice in 1866 that paved the way for Gustaf Aulen’s Christus Victor in 1930. Later, G.S. Steinbart through to Adlof von Harnack argued that the assumptions of Christianity cannot be seen as anything but historical accidents that fell into historical theology. These assumptions, or accidents, were things like the Augustinian doctrine of original sin, the concept of satisfaction, and the doctrine of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. Others that later followed this downward theological spiral and reinterpretation of Christ and salvation were P.T. Forsyth in his Justification of God, and Karl Barth in his Church Dogmatics. In such theological ideologies, the cross has no transcendent references or value. The person who died upon the cross was a human being, and the impact of that death is upon human beings. The most important aspect of the cross, though, is that it demonstrates the love of God toward humanity.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 19:12:46 +0000