The Christology of German theologian Helmut Thielicke

The Christology of German theologian Helmut Thielicke

Introduction

The Christology of German theologian Helmut Thielicke contrasts two views of human dignity: the Christian view, which emphasizes “alien dignity”, versus what he calls non-Christian functionalism. The period “alien dignity” is borrowed from Martin Luther. It means that people have a dignity that does not arrive from anything within themselves, a personal dignity that arises from how God outlooks that person. A deafness, mute, blind, retarded quadriplegic has infinite value in God's eyes, because Christ died for him/her. That person is the apple of God's eye, and anyone who touches that person should manage so in kindness or risk incurring God's anger.

We should notice that Thielicke's period “alien dignity” is analogous to the alien righteousness we receive when we are justified by faith. We are justified not because we have any achieved or inherent righteousness, but because Christ's alien righteousness is credited to us by God. Likewise, the person with no achieved or inherent dignity has dignity credited to him/her by God.

Helmut Thielicke and Prophetic

Christology is the doctrine of the person of Christ: of who and what kind of being he is. Its basis is in the New Testament's attributing to Jesus of Nazareth both human and divine characteristics and actions, and as a central discipline of Christian theology it is worried with elaborating and explaining the meaning of those claims. In all of its main streams, early Protestant Christology of German theologian Helmut Thielicke taken up the teaching of the orthodox Christian tradition, and Catholic accusations of heresy did not, for the most part, touch on this aspect of its teaching. The tradition taught that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God made flesh for human salvation—the doctrine of the incarnation—and that his historic person was a unity—"one Christ" made renowned in two natures. By "natures" was intended not separate entities but ways in which Christ was at one time one in being (homoousios) with God the Father—as truly God as he—and one in being with human beings—as truly human, sin apart, as they. The Chalcedonian Definition of 451 set its face contrary to two distortions of this, the "Nestorian", which divided the person by separating the human and the divine, and the "monophysite", which tended to submerge Christ's humanity inside the "one nature" of his divinity. All Christology tends to one of those distortions, and it is said to be characteristic of Lutheran Christology to are inclined to the monophysite, and of Reformed theology to are inclined to the Nestorian. This article will both illustrate and qualify that scholarly commonplace.

In Christianity the resurrection of Jesus mentions to the return to bodily life of Jesus on the third day following his death by crucifixion. It is a key element of Christian faith and theology. The resurrection of Jesus is not to be confused with the Ascension of Jesus into heaven forty days after the resurrection.

Typical non-Christian functionalism makes a person's value dependent on ones ...