Apologia for Schillebeekx

 If I was still a conformist ‘’Catholic’’ Theologian I would still be profoundly stimulated by the writings and insights of Edward Schillebeeckx. He so eloquently and exhaustively wrote about the historical Jesus of Nazareth who is not the same as the Christ confessed by the Church after his life, death and resurrection, and in the subsequent millennia. I believe that Jesus would not have recognised himself in the neo-Platonic, Greco-Roman, Son of God figure that theologians developed from Paul onwards. Jesus and the early Jesus Movement were characterised by pneumatological charismatic Judaism. (Geza Vermes). What happened over the next nineteen centuries must be coloured and understood considering theology and Christology imbedded in culture. As Schillebeeckx maintains, all theology stands in relationship to the social milieu in which it seeks to understand the faith. Theology is a matter of faith seeking understanding within a social context. Consequently, all theology is korrectivtheologie, (from Johannes Baptist Metz). We need to evaluate our understanding of our faith in relation to the culture in which it is situated. So, the Kingdom of God preached by Jesus as a Now Happening, not imposed on the world by God, but created here and now by the collaborative, Spirit-lead actions of Those who have ears to hear. The Reign of God can only come about by our active participation in the unconditioned love of the Creator. Where that praxis occurs the Kingdom of God exists here and now. When this world of Justice, Compassion, Freedom in obedience to God’s Will, spreads to all creation, then the Kingdom of God will have truly and universally come.

To use Functional Linguistic terminology, Edward Schillebeeckx’s Christological exegesis sees (Yeshua) Jesus as text and the Church’s interpretative framework as context. He also maintains that the Yeshua Bar Yosef of Nazareth and the Christ of Faith are one and the same, only differently perceived and interpreted through the lenses of historio-critical science on one hand and the sensus fidei fidelium which the Church teaches is coloured by Revelation and enlivened by the Spirit. Schillebeeckx is no extremist despite the displeasure and suspicion of the Magisterium. His Christology is incarnational and his faith profound.