Christ in a Pluralistic Age by John B. Cobb

First published: Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975

Genre(s): Nonfiction

Subgenre(s): Theology

Core issue(s): Incarnation; Jesus Christ

Overview

By the 1970’s, Christian systematic theology had undergone enormous changes. The great systematic theologians of the mid-twentieth century—Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and Emil Brunner—came under attack in the 1960’s on a variety of fronts. Most important, Thomas Altizer’s radical theology, which proclaimed the death of God in 1966, challenged the traditional transcendent notion of God (a God over and against us in the heavens) and opened the way for theologies that focused more on God’s immanence (God’s presence within the world, not outside of it). The 1960’s and 1970’s witnessed the great flourishing of theologies in which human experience rather than God or Scripture became the sole authority for doing theology. The feminist theologies of Mary Daly and Rosemary Ruether, the liberation theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the black theology of James Cone, and the process theology of John B. Cobb, Jr., all grew and developed during these decades.

In addition, the 1960’s witnessed the great “turn to the East” in religion. Turning away from the irrelevant religions of their parents, scores of young people sought spiritual direction and enlightenment in various forms of Buddhism and Hinduism. As colleges began to offer programs in the history of religions that offered an objective study of these religions, Christian thinkers were looking for ways to engage with the increasing religious pluralism of the age. One method was simply not to engage and to exclude the beliefs and practices of these other religions as false paths to God. Another method was to include these religions as legitimate in their own right but as merely incomplete manifestations of God. A final method embraced religious pluralism and recognized in it the potential for understanding more richly Christian existence.

Cobb’s groundbreaking book, Christ in a Pluralistic Age, grows out of his work in process theology as well as his attempt to answer the question, “How can Christians understand the primary image of their faith in a pluralistic age?” Originally delivered as lectures at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in 1972, Cobb’s chapters undertake a radical rethinking of the nature of Christ, the relation of the image of Christ to the historical Jesus, and the future of a Christianity in which Christ is understood as a way of creative transformation. If Christ is to continue to be relevant as one religious image among others in a pluralistic age, how can we embrace Christ in a way that fosters pluralism without losing Christ’s distinctiveness and without succumbing to the relativism that most people mistakenly attribute to pluralism?

Cobb’s answer is a relatively simple one, and he explores it in three distinct parts of his book. He observes that Christ is a process of creative transformation that provides a unity to the many paths of religious meaning and that encourages openness to other religious ways of living.

In part 1, Cobb sets forth his notions of creative transformation and its impact on the idea of Christ. In this section, Cobb uses process philosophy to ground his idea that Christ is an image of an entity that actualized its own potentiality, liberating Christians from the burden of their past and encouraging hope for the future. Thus, Christ transforms our world by moving us from a static concern with the ways things have always been in religion to a more dynamic structure of existence that opens us to others and their experiences of religious life. Christ as creative transformation breaks our relationship with every established doctrine and its mooring in the past to allow us to experience many forms of Christ in the world today, including the presence of Christ in others. In short, Cobb argues in this section of his book that we are all potential Christs to one another.

Part 2 examines the relationship between the historical Jesus and Christ as creative transformation. Because the life and work of Jesus is the primary way that many people come to know anything about the Christ of Christianity, are there qualities in Jesus’ life that help us understand Christ as creative transformation? Very simply, Cobb observes, Jesus provides a model of this transformation in his acceptance of God’s divine initiative and his human freedom. In the Incarnation, God gave Jesus the possibility of actualizing himself around God’s presence. At many times during Jesus’ life, he chose freely to allow his own selfhood to coalesce with the presence of God within him. Thus, Jesus becomes an image of the truly successful Christ, a human who is able to respond creatively to God’s immanent presence.

Part 3 of the book examines the image of Christ as hope. Christ transforms not only our past and present but also our future. Jesus’ structure of existence—his full incarnation of self and God’s presence—is the model we imitate as we go forward into our futures. As we transform ourselves by perfecting our love, we become more open to others and to our past and future, and we become more inclusive in our future dealings with others. The perfection of love, demonstrated by Jesus, breaks down our concern with our private selves and with our static doctrine and opens us to embrace others and the future, thus helping us to transform our own faith and understand deeply and compassionately the faiths of others.

Christian Themes

Cobb’s Christ in a Pluralistic Age deals primarily with the Christian theme of incarnation. The doctrine of the Incarnation asks the question, “How can Jesus, in whom God became flesh, be both human and divine?” Early Christian councils debated fiercely the question of the balance between Jesus’ humanity and his divinity. The traditional Christian response to these questions is that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. Yet, this view of Christ became static, isolating Christ to a long-past creedal formulation that Christians repeat tirelessly every Sunday in their churches.

What does this ancient formulation have to do with contemporary religious pluralism, asks Cobb, and is there a more dynamic understanding of Christ that will allow us to embrace the promises of religious pluralism? His answer is to understand Christ as an image of creative transformation. This transformation is a process by which we all—looking to Jesus as the model of the incarnation of the divine—come to understand ourselves as more fully human and to open ourselves to others and all that they have to offer.

Using process philosophy, Cobb presents God’s presence, or Logos, as the potentiality of novelty to an ever-changing world. Jesus, a specific entity in this world, became the concrete actualization of this potentiality. Christ, for Cobb, becomes the image of that novelty as it is made real, or incarnated, in the world. Thus, following the model of Christ in Jesus—the incarnation of the novelty of God’s presence in the world—Christians can actualize the potential they share to deepen that incarnation. For Cobb, the Incarnation as a way of creative transformation encourages Christians to become more fully human in the same way that Jesus modeled his humanity to respond freely to God’s initiative to love others and to embrace them as fully human.

Cobb’s rich blend of process philosophy and Christian theology challenges traditional notions of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation and offers fresh new ways of thinking about how Christianity can embrace religious pluralism.

Sources for Further Study

Cobb, John B., Jr. “Response to Ogden and Carpenter.” Process Studies 6 (Summer, 1976): 123-129. Cobb argues that Ogden misses the point of Cobb’s Christ as the way of creative transformation and that Carpenter confuses Cobb’s idea of “structure of existence” simply with “quality of life.”

Fackre, Gabriel J. “Cobb’s Christ in a Pluralistic Age: A Review Article.” Review of Christ in a Pluralistic Age. Andover Newton Quarterly 17 (March, 1977): 308-315. A critical but appreciative review that applauds Cobb’s use of art and the imagination as ways of understanding Christ as creative transformation.

Jenson, Robert. Review of Christ in a Pluralistic Age. Interpretation 31 (July, 1977): 307-311. Jenson criticizes Cobb’s image of Christ, arguing for a more orthodox view in which Christ functions as a singular way of salvation for others.

Lewis, John M., and John B. Cobb, Jr. “Christology and Pluralism.” Perspectives in Religious Studies 4 (Spring, 1977): 63-72. A conversation between Lewis and Cobb on potential Christian responses to increasing religious pluralism, emphasizing Cobb’s notion of a pluralistic Christ.

Ogden, Schubert M. “Christology Reconsidered: John Cobb’s Christ in a Pluralistic Age.” Process Studies 6 (Summer, 1976): 116-122. Ogden argues that Cobb’s image of Christ as creative transformation misses the point of Christology and is too hypothetical to be useful for theology.