Most Crucial
It is countercultural to call Thomistic christology ‘this most crucial of theological disciplines’. Long live counterculture! In an incisive review article, Fr Robert Imbelli reminds us that it is carefully thought-out, carefully articulated dogma that makes the Gospel evangelion. But how many modern and contemporary christologies ‘support the Tradition’s claim regarding the unique Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ’? Do they not often ‘fail to rise above a view of Jesus as inspired prophet’? Think of sermons you’ve heard. Think of the collapse of ecclesiology. Often enough, ‘by scanting ontological reflection, [we] lack sufficient resources to undergird the New Testament confession of Christ’s uniqueness and its elaboration in the Church’s creedal and conciliar Tradition’. Christmas is the time to think about such things. What are we celebrating? Are we exclaiming, exultantly, ‘Oh come let us adore him’, or just singing, ‘Happy birthday’?
