Christocentrism of Charism – Buggert - CarmelStream

above that one of the difficulties of classical Christology is that Jesus is seen to be something of a
divine visitor to human history. He does not come from within the process of creation and history
and hence does not belong to creation and history as an integral moment. Had there been no 'fall,'
there would have been no incarnation. Such an approach makes Jesus to be an exception to the rule
from the very beginning of his human existence. Such a Christ is not really the same as other human
beings. He is not really the New, the second or perfect (eschatological) Adam because he is not in the
first place Adam, truly "one in being with us," as Chalcedon insists.
Because of the Scotistic option, spoken of above, which Rahner takes, his Christ is seen not
to be a divine visitor to creation and human history who is not related to or integral to creation and
human history. Rather, as the one in whom God's total self-gift and total "yes" to that gift is found,
Jesus is seen to be the goal and culmination of God's creative and salvific activity everywhere
operative. In him, God has brought God's creation to its completion. Jesus is the goal or eschaton of
history, because Jesus is the total and complete expression of the plan which God has had from all
eternity to create and to give God's self to that creation in Jesus, thus fulfilling and bringing that
creation back to God's self. As the full and total historical expression of God as God-Logos, i.e. as
God for us, the saving God, Jesus brings all of God's creative and saving work to its fulfillment. cxlii
And hence also as the goal or eschaton of history, he himself is the Savior. In him, heaven and earth
not only touched. They became one. This is the meaning of the incarnation. In the man Jesus,
through his life, death and resurrection, God has fully achieved God's eternal plan to be a loving
God, a saving God, God for us.
Rearticulating Christocentricity Today
35