Scripture and God in Christianity

Therefore, it is safe to argue that discussions about Paul, his mysticism, and theology, and also
about the role of the first Christians and evangelists in determining the direction of the Christianity,
all these discussions have taken several turns in the past century. But the fundamental questions
regarding the historical Jesus' role in the outcome, about the significance of Paul and the
Church's role, and relationship of later christological developments with the original message of
Jesus, all these questions are still by and large unanswered. Whenever the efforts have been made
to answer these questions, the suggested answers have not been to the satisfaction of a great majority
of scholars in the field. Therefore, no body can deny the difficulties, doubts, and uncertainties
involved in the issue. The modern research has offorded us a better understanding and appreciation
of the difficulties involved but, by no means answered all the questions with certainty.
In addition, there are numerous developments in modern thought concerning Christology and Jesus'
divinity which, to Albert C. Knudson, "make inevitable a revision of the traditional Christology.
They call for a more historical, a more empirical, a more anthropocentric, a more ethical, a
more personalistic approach to the problem. This is evident from the history of Christological
thought during the past century." 310 Knudson summarizes the specific changes in the main three
areas: "First, complete humanity must be attributed to Jesus, not only in the sense that he had a
human spirit as well as a human soul and body, but in the sense that his personal center, his ego,
was human. This does not exclude his divinity, but it does mean the relinquishment of traditional
theory that the human nature of Jesus was impersonal and that the ego or personal center of his
being was constituted by the eternal Logos." 311 It can be seen even in conservative theologians
such as D. M. Baillie and careful ones like Mackintosh. The fifth century Cyril of Alexandria's
familiar phrase, "the impersonal humanity of Christ" looks like 'Docetism' to Baillie and he recognizes
that "few theologians now would defend the phrase or would hesitate to speak of Jesus as
a man, a human person." 312 H. R. Mackintosh wrote: "If we are not to trust our intuitive perception
that the Christ we read of in the Gospels is an individual man, it is hard to say what perception
could be trusted." 313 R. C. Moberly wrote: "Human nature which is not personal is not human
nature." 314
Furthermore, observes Knudson, "In the second place, the uniqueness of Jesus is to be regarded
as due, not to the union of two "natures" within him, one human and the other divine, but to his
unique dependence upon the divine will and to his unique enduement with the Divine Spirit.
Thirdly, divinity is to be ascribed to Jesus, not because he made this claim for himself, nor because
he was possessed of omniscience and omnipotence, but because of his unique consciousness
of oneness with God and because of his creative and redemptive agency in the founding of
the kingdom of God." 315 How different is this approach from traditional claims that Charles Gore
represented, arguing that "If we wish to account for the unique position which Jesus Christ has
held in religion it is only necessary to examine the claim which he is represented to have made
for Himself in the earliest records which we possess." 316 And we believed in Jesus divinity because
he claimed so.
With these significant changes, especially "with the new emphasis on the humanity of Jesus limitations
came to be placed on his divine nature." 317 The divinity of Jesus, according to many modern
scholars, is grounded "in the divine will rather than the divine nature" and in many modern
works is "thought of as manifesting itself in a heightened human consciousness rather than in a
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