Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Gabriel Moran on the Danger of downplaying the True Humanity of Jesus


Commenting on the downplaying of, and paying lip service to, Jesus being truly human, Catholic theologian Gabriel Moran wrote the following, which is just as applicable, sadly, in many LDS circles:

 . . .we (theologians and simple faithful) tend to put the humanity of Christ on God’s side, not man’s. As a result of this, the gospel record of the life of Christ is taken not as the story of a human life but as a piece of play-acting in which nothing really happens and in which the personal reactions are little more than pretension. “Such a piece of play-acting would be unworthy,” writes DaniĆ©lou, “Christ pretended nothing. He did not pretend to be a man; he really was a man” (DaniĆ©lou, Christ and Us, p. 123). In many theological considerations (for example, of grace, redemption, or sacraments) there has developed a better understanding of the place of Christ’s humanity. In the most basic area of revelation, however, there remains (despite appearances and assertions to the contrary) an almost complete void. (Gabriel Moran, Theology of Revelation [Studies in Religious Education; New York: Herder and Herder, 1966], 64)