Remembering the Word: A Decentered Approach to Two-Natures Christology Open Access

Copeland, Rebecca (Spring 2018)

Permanent URL: https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/sx61dm28w?locale=en
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Abstract

This dissertation argues that anthropocentric assumptions have distorted the development of both conciliar christology and the challenges raised against it. By bringing the liberation hermeneutics of Delores Williams and Norman Habel into conversation with the field of biomimicry, the author develops ecomimetic interpretation as a hermeneutical strategy to resist anthropocentric biases, and then applies this strategy to the doctrine of the incarnation. This approach involves paying close attention to the lives of various creatures and engaging the perspectives of these creatures while temporarily bracketing out particularly human questions. Using this interpretive strategy, this dissertation argues that challenges to the coherence and plausibility of conciliar christology are best addressed by revisiting what the ecumenical councils meant when they stated that Christ was “homoousios (consubstantial) with the Father as to his divinity” and “homoousios (consubstantial) with us as to his humanity.” These claims lay the foundation for understanding all of reality to be composed of two ousiai, or ‘essences’—that of the Creator and that of the created. After examining the “perspectives” of four non-human creatures, the author offers a provisional understanding of created ousia as characterized by the interplay of stability and transformation, individual integrity and interdependence. This dissertation then brings that definition into conversation with the christological debates. The author responds to challenges to the plausibility of conciliar christology by recasting the incarnation as the foundation of material existence. On this foundation, the primary work of the incarnation is accomplished objectively by the incarnation itself, rather than subjectively as the cognitive appropriation of revelation. This interpretation serves the soteriological concerns of the ecumenical councils, affirms the ontological distinction between the Creator and the created that Christians have traditionally affirmed, and resists the human exceptionalism that has used the incarnation to justify unsustainable exploitation of the environment. 

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

 

Introduction                                                                                                                     1

 

Anthropocentrism                                                                                                               3

 

Methodology                                                                                                                      22

 

The Doctrine of the Incarnation                                                                                    25

 

Chapter 1: Christological Challenges                                                                 31

 

Coherence Challenges                                                                                                     34

 

Plausibility Challenges                                                                                                   63

 

Human Exceptionalism: An Ecological Concern                                                         82

 

Conclusion                                                                                                                          88

 

                                                                                                                                                  

 

Chapter 2: Decentering Theology                                                                           90

 

 

 

Responses to “Centric” Thinking                                                                                    90

 

Multiple Lenses                                                                                                                108

 

Biomimetic Problem Solving                                                                                          110

 

Ecomimetic Interpretation                                                                                            118

 

The Waters of Beer-lahai-roi: An Ecomimetic Example                                           124

 

Conclusion                                                                                                                        137

 

Chapter 3: What’s An Ousia?                                                                                      139

 

Ousia and Categories                                                                                                       139

 

Ousia and the Early Church                                                                                           147

 

Two Ousiai                                                                                                                          162

 

Conclusion                                                                                                                        176

 

Chapter 4: Truly Created, Truly Creator                                                          178

 

Created Ousia                                                                                                                   178

 

Divine Attributes                                                                                                             207

 

Coherence Debates                                                                                                          212

 

Chapter 5: Cur Deus Creatura?                                                                                 223

 

The Work of Christ as a Response to a Problem Within Creation                          224

 

Supralapsarian Christologies II: Reversing Causation                                           244

 

Plausibility Challenges                                                                                                 252

 

 

 

Chapter 6: Conclusion                                                                                                259

 

 

 

Why Become Incarnate as a Human Being?                                                                  259

 

A Decentered Anthropology                                                                                         267

 

The Intrinsic Worth of an Interrelated Creation                                                    270

 

Soteriological Considerations                                                                                    276

 

Conclusion                                                                                                                        284

 

Bibliography                                                                                                                  286

 

 

 

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