Scripture and God in Christianity

Contrary to that, John Hick firmly rejects this line of approach. He argues that "If one has already
accepted a form of orthodox christology one can reasonably interpret some of Jesus' words and
actions, as presented by the Gospel writers, as implicitly supporting that belief. But it seems clear
that one cannot justifiably arrive at the belief simply from the New Testament evidence as this
has thus far been analyzed and interpreted by the scholarly community." 230
There are other traditional scholars who use the concept of "Christ-event" to justify the proper
divinity in spite of the fact that Jesus did not proclaim it for himself. This elusive concept of
kerygma and the Christ-event seems to have appeared first in R. Bultmann's existential interpretations
of the New Testament myth 231 and has been widely utilized by scholars like John Knox.
Knox argues that "The Church is the distinctive Christian reality...And it is because the Church is
[Christ's] body and, in history, his only body, that we often use the words "Christ" and "Church"
interchangeably, saying "in Christ" when we are wanting to refer to what it really means to be-and
really to be--in Church. It is this embodiment or incarnation (that is, the Church) which is
most immediately- indeed alone is immediately - known... And so I say again, the Incarnation
originally took place, not within the limits of an individual's individual existence, but in the new
communal reality, in principle co-extensive with mankind, of which he was the creative center."
232
J.N.D. Kelly insists upon essential continuity between later trinitarian christological developments
and the initial New Testament as well as Church's christology. He argues: "The Trinitarianism
of the New Testament is rarely explicit; but the frequency with which the triadic schema
recurs ... suggests that this pattern was implicit in Christian theology from the start. If these gaps
are filled in, however, we are entitled to assume with some confidence that what we have before
us, at any rate in rough outline, is the doctrinal deposit, or the pattern of sound words, which was
expounded in the apostolic Church since its inauguration and which constituted its distinctive
message." 233 He further argues: "Nevertheless the Trinitarian ground-plan obtrudes itself obstinately
throughout, and its presence is all the more striking because more often than not there is
nothing in the context to necessitate it. The impression inevitably conveyed is that the conception
of the threefold manifestation of the Godhead was embedded deeply in Christian thinking from
the start, and provided a ready-to hand mould in which the ideas of the apostolic writers took
shape. If Trinitarian creeds are rare, the Trinitarian pattern which was to dominate all later creeds
was already part and parcel of the Christian tradition of doctrine." 234 John Macquarrie finds the
concept of the Christ-event and the continuity between that significant event and the response of
the Church as very useful as it does, in view of Macquarrie, "relieve the problems that arise from
our lack of information about the historical Jesus." He further argues that "We do not need to
know the inner thoughts of Jesus, and in any case we cannot. When one places him in his context
and acknowledges that he cannot be abstracted from his community and the responses of that
community, to be gathered from the appellations it applied to him, then many of our questions,
although they continue to have certain historical interest, are of no great moment for christology."
235
It is strange enough to assume that the first generation of Christians were better equipped to understand
Jesus than Jesus himself. Modern day fundamentalists seem to be claiming they are
even better equipped than the first Christians to understand what Jesus must have been. Such in-
29