Globalism, Part 9: The Doctrine of Evolution and Spirit Christology

THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION
You should, by now, notice the undertones of evolution. The NAM believes that evolution is the work of God pushing his creation to greater and greater heights. (Remember the quote which said the goal of theosophy was the merging of religion with science?) This is true physically but also spiritually. That means we are moving to a greater goal, and we need a greater figure than Buddha and Christ. Christ is the highest point of evolution thus far. There is a great value to this high figure being truly human. For him to be truly (or only) human makes him this worldly rather than otherworldly. He, then, can truly relate to our experience and us. This makes him a realistic example for us because he didn’t just do what was right because he was divine. He is only different in action and knowledge, not in being. Therefore, we too can ascend to this high level of knowledge and ultimately action. Great teachers such as Buddha and Christ had insight into reality, which liberated them from the constraints of this world. This is a perversion of Spirit Christology which I believe in. For Schleiermacher and the Lucis Trust, Jesus didn’t lay down his power of divinity because he was just a chosen human (not pre-existent). I think an explanation of Spirit Christology would be helpful, but it will take a lot of setup work to get my point across.

SPIRIT CHRISTOLOGY
At the risk of coming across blasphemous, Jesus isn’t pre-existent…the Son is. I know that may be hard to grasp at first (I became angry the first time I heard it, but I didn’t understand it). The Son is pre-existent, and he took on flesh as Jesus. From that moment on, The Son with a body became known as “Jesus”. This union was separated at death, and reunited at resurrection and continued at ascension (The Son is still en-fleshed as Jesus). Why does this matter? It matters because it gives an extreme value to Incarnation. The Son left the Father, came to earth, became like us to save us. Spirit Christology wishes to make sense of all this. How can Jesus by my example for the right way to live if he is god and therefore cannot sin? He can resist sin just by the power of being God, not really feeling temptation like a “real” human does. The answer to this dilemma is Spirit Christology. Philippians 2 has the famous “kenosis” passage which has been misinterpreted to say that Jesus “laid down” his divinity. God cannot become non-god philosophically. This is impossible. Jesus “laid down” the “abilities of divinity” in the sense that he chose to take on flesh which covered over his divinity. That is, he laid down omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence by choosing to take on human flesh. Some may say that God is not God without his divine abilities. To them, I ask this: Didn’t The Son unquestionably lay down omnipresence (assuming you’re not Gnostic) by becoming localized in a body? Why is it unreasonable to believe that he chose not to use all three abilities? I’ll give you the example that my professor gave me. Think of The Son as a pencil. Place some chewed gum over the head of the pencil. The gum is incarnation or flesh. The gum over the pencil made it so that it could not write (function) like it was supposed to. In the same way, The Son had all the abilities of divinity of before, but he could not use them based on his choice to take on flesh (the gum in the analogy).

Okay, I know where your mind has gone already. You’re thinking, well doesn’t that mean that the present day Jesus shouldn’t be able to use divine powers too? The answer is no because of the resurrection. The Son/Jesus was resurrected with a new, heavenly body. Remember how we walked through walls and appeared and disappeared? It’s frightening how well this theological concept solved all these issues. I know this was a bit complex, but read it a couple times…it will sink in. If you have the time, go back and read “The Schleiermacher Connection.” His whole point with the non-divinity of Jesus is that Jesus has to be a true example. He doesn’t know how to make Jesus a real example for us without stripping him of divinity. Think about it? If God says, nope I’m not going to do that evil thing, BIG DEAL! Of course he didn’t do it; he can resist! I can’t, so don’t blame me! Well, Jesus is the answer to why we are to blame. Jesus says no to temptation because of the Spirit. Jesus was open to God through the Spirit. Jesus’ apparent divine powers on earth were actually the Spirit working through him. When Jesus heals, he does so through the Spirit. See the connection to us? We work through the Spirit as well. We can avoid sin through the close relationship of the Spirit. We can know God intimately through the Spirit. Think about how Jesus didn’t start his ministry of good works both physically and spiritually until he was baptized (and the Spirit came upon him). Just as the Spirit gave discernment to Jesus to know what others were thinking, so to does he give discernment in our time. Ever had a prophet/Evangelist tell you something that you knew they could not know? It was the Spirit that gave them that message. This belief that Jesus has to be a regular human to be our example is a strong push of the anti-Christ/New Age Movement. They use simple logic to say he HAS to be just a human. Well, Spirit Christology satisfies that concern without forfeiting Jesus’ divinity while enhancing the value of the Incarnation.