Remembering the Word: A Decentered Approach to Two-Natures Christology Público
Copeland, Rebecca (Spring 2018)
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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