the risen prophet

7/25/2019 The Risen Prophet

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Teeple, Howard M. The Mosaic Eschatological Prophet. JBL Monograph TH E RISEN PROPHET

1957). Dr. Robert W. Jenson

Young., F. W. Jesus the Prophet: A Re-Examination. JBL 68 19 9), 285-299.

The great stum bling blocks between Islam andthe gospel have always beenthe assethe gospel makes and demands about Ch rist and those therewith made and deabout Go d: Ch ristology and Trinitarianism. The task of this chapter is to envisaCh ristology and a Trinitarianism forthe Islamic context, analogously to the wayin wour inherited doctrines developed and havetheir meaning within the context set foWe stern reflection bythe Greeks. It is perhaps worth emphasizing at the beginningco ntext doesindeed make a difference: developed conceptual ch ristological and trinian stru ctures emerge asthe messengers ofthe gospel respondto questions and challethat appear only historically, as the gospel penetr ates differing religious culturesmovesthrough differing historical pe riods.

It is this chapter's suggestion that faith's necessary affirm ations about Ch rist can inIslamic context be made by call ing him the Risen Prophet. The biblical groundco ntrols of this t i t le have been presented in previous chapters. Hereits structure

ch ristological t i t le must first be noted. Prophet by itself is a description ofhistorical Jesus asthe earliest church remembered him. By itself, it does not af firmfa ct of this Jesus' resurrection, andis therefore not a true christological t i t le, such thosee. g., Son or Lord which quickly cameto dominate the discourse ofthe church; these all refer at once to the historical re ali ty of Jesus andto his reali ty anow risen one. Thetwo-wo rd phrase Risen Prophet, howe ver, can be atrue christocal t i t le becauseit has this double reference; two words are needed,to be sure, but tha small inconvenience to payin orderto recover, for a Christology in Islamic contextsignificance of Jesus' prophetic actuali ty.

Within the history of Western Christianity, the truth of christological assertions has

conceptually accommodated bythe body of discourse about God customarily calleddo ctrine of the Trinity. We may assumethat a Christology of the Risen Prophet require analogous accommodation, that a Christian the ology for Islamic context come to include some body of discourse that functions in a way muchlike the wWe stern Christianity's Trinity doctrine.


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Chr istology

We can begin our chi istol ogical refl ectio n with existing agre eme nt bet ween Islam and thegospel. According to both, it is characteristic of the true Godin the language of Islam itis God's sunna to have prophets. According to both, Jesus was and now is a prophet.Indeed, accor ding to Islam, Jes us, as the Messiah, is also that histor ically sp ecial sort ofmessenger from God called a rasul. (We should note here that the distinction between nabl

an d rasul is not usually maintained terminologically in later Islam, but is strict in theQur'an and is materially ma intained also later. Perhaps the most usual modern inte rpre ta-

tion is that every rasul is a prophet but not every prophet is a rasul.)

It is the biblical prophets that make the defining class for both religions. Schematizingdrastically, a prophet in the Bible is one given to speak promises and threats that areGod's promises and threats, and that are God's because his Spirit is on the speaker. ThatJesus was and is a prophet is unquestioned in Islam, as is the prophets' inspiration by theSpirit, however differently the Spirit may be c onceived. Nor do Christians have reasontobridle at this classification; that Jesus is a prophet is clear also through the NewTestament, and much of the christological language we tend to read as unconnected to

this role should in fact be understood against the background of prophecy's role in Israel.Moreover, the Spirit that descends on Jesus and which he in turn gives, remains explicitlythe Spirit tha t spoke by the prop hets .

In this chapter we make the experiment of leaving the christological descriptions at that:Jesusis a prophet, who, possessed by and bestowing the Spirit, proclaimed the immine nt Kingdo m. Then the offense will be where it always bel ongs, for Islam as for all: in theproclamation of this prophet 's death and resurrection. Our question is: what, within anIslamic context, would be good about this news, supposing it is true? The news itself is anoffense to Islam, by its insistence that Jesus, a rasul, experienced death; but the gospel isanalogously offensive everywhere, and that offense neither can nor dare be mitigated.

The question just posed cannot, of course, finally be answered by outsiders. Those whothought through the gospel within the Greek context were not unhyphenated Christiansmerely adapting to Greek modes of thought; they were Greeks who had come to believeand were struggling to understand this new situation. If there is to be a Muslim version ofthe gospel, it must be discovered by those who live in that context. But also Western

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Christians concerned for that context need to rethink their theology for isuggestions are offered primarily to these.

In the theological project here attempted, we begin precisely with tChristian the ology must always begin. It was, according to the Qur'an,just because as prophet was so close to God that his community inevitably set out to kthe exact truth by Christian lights. Moreover, it is deeply embedded in M

the prophets are not only persecuted but that the persecution sometimterms, succeeds. And again, the memory of martyrs is a recurrent wellspdevotion. But although it would surely be on the tip of Muslim tongues toin just this way, the other conviction intervenes: as the Messiah, as a rasul, Jesus manifest God's triumph; he could not have been allowed by God to be Islam's conviction that Jesus now lives as both prophet and rasul, isat least dominant traditionmaintained by the teaching that he did not in fact d

There is surely an antinomy here. A rasul may be a prophet, but the rasul

s ide ntificawith God's cause deprives him of the ability to suffer. Thus it depriveprophetic identification with the fate in this world of God's musl im, which so

touches Islamic experience. We suggest that faith's necessary specific claits asse rtion of ato nem ent in him, can in Islamic conte xt be compendioresurr ection is the particular way this particular rasul has life, God does not trithis one of his messengers by keeping him from death but by overcoming Jesus is the one who, as killed and risen, can be rasul and yet fully prophet, participant in the fate of God's word in this world. Because Jesus is risen, tperfectly fulfills Islam's passion for a message from God, one in whom tthat passion is overcome.

We do not propose this statement of the christological claim because we sumore acceptable to Muslims; doubtless it will not be. We suggest rather thathe true way to make the claim in Islamic context; there is one prophet wh rasul iparticular way, is the Risen Prophet. From the claim, two soteriological

The one has already appeared and needs little further discussion. In Islsoteriological category is prophecy. To obey a prophet is to be right withcrucified prophet Jesus is risen, then there is now one prophet whose word


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with our actua l Jives and world. He not only procl aims God's word, but has followed tha tword to its fate in this world, even unto dea th. In Islamic tradit ion , othe r prop hets havesuffered, but just so they have vanished into the past. The risen Jesus is such a martyredprophet, who nevertheless now lives.

The other requires more development. That Jesus the prophet was killed, and for thecontent of his prophesying, would in Islamic context mean at least the following. First, inhis fate the opposition between God's judgment over his creatures and their judgmentover God and themselves is again enacted. It is the prophet crucified by his communitywhom God makes the norm of prophecy. Thus God's triumph in this messenger must be inutter freedom over against all the judgments of this world. Second, the prophet Jesus wasutte rly faithful to his sending to us. Nothing could turn him from us. Third, this pro phet' sprophecy has its definitive form; he has prophesied to the end. Insofar as God's word isbrought by this prophet, we know what that word is.

Now what if this prophet is risen? We suggest: then he is the possibility of all prophecy.That is, because there is this prophet there can be true prophets, and because there is thisprophet it is good that there are true prophets. That is, he is the giver of the Spirit. Let usunpack this set of conclusions.

Muhammad, being the only claimant in his time and place, did not encounter the problemof false prophecy, except as he himself accused of it. Over against pagan scoffers, hesimply asserted the fact of his inspiration. But over against Jewish and Christian critics,he instanced the coherence of his prophecy with that which they already believed. Andthat is, of course, both the right criterion of prophecy's truth, and the great problem. Forwhy should new prophecy cohere with old, even in fundamentals, if God is as free as theBible and Muhammad both say heis? Why should not God, having once, for example, madefaith the criterion of the judgment as Paul and Muhammad agree he haschange his

mind? Why should he not later add other conditions, retroactively depriving earliergenerations of their hope? Again, why should the enormous amendments and repentancesin the course of Israelite prophecy not be taken as incoherence? And if such uncertaintiesare possible, then even supposing that some or all of the prophets are truly sent by God,how can it be good that God submits us to their arbitra ry, ultimately disorientingdeliverances?

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The following suggestions, let us repeat, are not proposed as a direct but as theology for the Christian church, as it lives and indeed proclaIslam's world. With that warning, we suggest that the gospel about psummarized as follows. God has established one living prophet whose less behind and not before him and who therefore is permanent among prophecy has its final form, yet its finality in no way infringes God'scontent is precisely God's freedom from this world's judgments, and

established by the definitive act of God's freedomalso for Islamhdead. Therefore there is a criterion of right prophecy : agreeme nt witreliable expectations of our position under God's prophets. Moreover, tmay be of good, because the prophet with whom all prophecy coheres is That prophecy isthus true and good is the gospel s good news, in Islamic context . the whole gospel? Yes, in this specific context.

Trinitar ianism

Our next assignment is more problematic. Islam has seen Christian Tringreat fall, from the faith of Abraham into the primal sin of shirk, the associatinGod of an other than God. The at tem pt to interpret God's tr iune re ali ty in Islamic cis , therefore, the standing or falling point of any attempt to think thmission in and for Islam. The effort must function in at least three wa

One function is apologetic. Christians do not intend trinitarian doctrin shirk; was insist ent as Muhammad that God is one and only. If renewed refl ecti onan Islamic context, can make that plainer than we have evidently been abit, better mutual understanding may be possible. We should remember tbody of trinitarian reflection represents the historical self-assertionidentification of God within the Greek context, and its critical purstruggle. Ripped from this context and simply recited in the very contex t, inherited trinitaria n slogans, for example , about preexis tenc or thresons, may very well in fact w ork out as shirk.

We are led to a second functio n: the reforma tion of Christi an do ctrChris tians actua lly have in mind as the doctrin e of the Trinity is not inteaching, but one of the heresies it was intended to overcome; and


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Muslim objections are fully justified. The historic doctrine of Triunity was createdprecisely to overcome Christian lapses into the shirk that characterized ancient Westernpaganism. It was Athanasius's chief accusation against the Arians: . . . like the G reeksyou lump creature and Creator togetherTo S erapion, 1:30). But most modern Christiansneverthel ess suppose that Trinitarianism is indeed a matter of ass imilating Jesus asclosely as possible to Godthat is to say, that it is a piece of shirk. In bad conscienceabout this, many modern Christians slack off the christological assertionsthereby only

relapsing into the real shirk of one of the old heresies. Perhaps the attempt to deal withMuslim criticism may help cure us of this absentmindedness.

And third, Christianity's Trinitarianism is its repertoire of devices by which it identifiesGod, by which it answers the chief religious question: which God do you worship as thetrue God? Christians have answered: the one to whose very reality Jesus' resurrectionbelongs, the one whose proper name can there for e be Fat her , Son, and Holy Spirit. Thusour attempt to construct trinitarian doctrine for Islamic context will be a chief arena inwhich a fundamental question can be dealt with: do we and Islam worship the same God? Isour relation to Islam more like our relation to Judaism or more like our relation to, forexample, Vedic religion?

We must begin with what may be called the trinitarian move. The primal Christian givenis not the develop ed doctri ne of the Trinity, as this emerged in centuri es of co nfron tatio nbetween the gospel and Greek ways of thinking about God. The Christian givens are thetrin itar ian proper name for God, Fath er, Son, and Spirit, and an accom panyi ng simp lebut drastic reorientation of perception. It is the latter that is here our concern. God,according to the gospel, is not the distant unrevealed one, to whom his agency andrevelation in this world must be in a second place related; God in himself and from himselfis precisel y the one who raised Jesus from the dead ; God's singula rity and o mnip oten trule are constituted in the events of his agency among and revelation to his creatures.

In the specific history of Western Christianity, the trinitarian move was decisively madeby Nicea's assertion that Christ is homoousios, of one being, with the Fath er. This wasprecisely the contradiction of what shirk-infiltrate d) Aria ns supposed, that Christmust be very like, perhaps altogether like, God. The Nicene assertion that Christ ishomoousios in God is not, indeed, primarily an assertion about Christ at all, but about Godas such and only so about Christ. God, the fathers of Nicea said, is not simply the Father,

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so that we must then ask how to rank Christ over against him. God is Gothe Father of this Son and the Son of the Father, and the Spirit of both. Gthe creed , is not to be underst ood as in any way above or behind what messenger; no metaphysical space is to be supposed through which Christ shassociated to him.

God is Christ 's Father ; he is not ante cede ntly in himself un pat erna l, to acquiring a Sonthe very piece of shirk Muhammad suspecte dbu t is cons tituhis eternal uniqueness and singularity by being the Father of Christ. A isFath er' s Son; he is not ant eced entl y in himself unsen t and unobe die

associate to be sent and obey if a messenger is neededwhich would be shirkbut is constituted in his own eternal uniqueness and simplicity bysent by and obedient to a Father. And again, God is the mutual Spirit of the FaJesus; he is not antecedently in himself static, to acquire a future andcreating a churchshirk againbut is constituted in his own sole deifuture of the community he is in himself. In gen eral , what happens with Crelations posited in the history among Jesus and his Father andtheir Spirit, i

adventitious to the life of unique and sole deity; it is that life. Any less drastic aas the church at and after Nicea cam e gradually to see, must either so diwhat happens with Jesus as to rob the latter of all salvific certainty, or lnecessity to associate, to liken, Jesus to God after the factwith thcommit shirk.

So far the way in which the trinitarian move was made in Western ChriOur chief problem can now be posed: how would the trinitarian move becontext? We propose that it is to be made by the question: prophecy mayus , but is it for God? Alternatively: the rasul who suffered may thereby be idetermi ned to prophe tic identification with us; but what reality has thisto usethe Qur an s wordin and for God hims elf? Evenif the total prophetic revelamay around Christ cohere in itself, and be true relatively to our creaturely connot God be different for and in himself? Would not the only fully reliabGod be one that transcended prophecy, also as it coheres in Christ Muhammad, and knew God not as he appears to prophets but as he appearpositing th at diff ere nce , migh t it not be tha t should we in mysti c expe


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Last Day encounter God in himself, we should find him not, for centr al example, all-com pas sio nat e? Is the spirit of the proph ets necessarily God's own Spirit?

It is the biblical and qur'anic messages themselves that pose the question just unfolded, bytheir assertion of God's utter freedom. But is has been quite other interpretations of God,encountered in the Christian as in the Muslim mission, that historically have pressed foransw ers dissociating God in himself from God in his revelation. In the tradition of WesternChristianity, it was the Greek interpretation of deity as sheer atemporality, thatdemanded d istance between God in himself and all temporal eve nts, including Christ. TheNicene decision was a major victory over this pressure, a victory by biblical faith's answerto its own quest ion. It is imp ort ant t o note th at also Islam has faced simil ar press ure: incontroversy with Mu'tazilite proposals, Islam asked whether the Qur'an is created oruncreated, and answered that it is uncreated. It would seem to follow that the reality ofprophecy belongs not only to our relation to God but to God himself, un willingly thoughIslam might concede the implication.

Now, if we say that the message of prophecy is uncreated, and if we say that all prophecycoheres around and is guaran teed by the Risen Prophet, just those two assertions toget hermake the whole trinitarian move in an Islamic context. The word God speaks to us by hisprophets, cohering and guaranteed by the Risen Prophet, and the Spirit by which prophecyis informed, are the word God speaks to himself to be the one personal living God and theSp irit that is that life. In the mere logic of the case, no more need besaid: apart fromspecific historically enco untered p roblems, the foregoing paragraph would be a completedoctrine of Triunity for Islamic context.

The developed doctrine of the Trinity in the existing Christian tradition depends onadditional factors: the need and opportunity to conduct theology in the analyticalcategories made available by Greek reflection, and therewith the continuing pressure ofthe antagonistic Greek interpretation of God. Analogous factors will doubtless appearalso in the Islamic context, but the history which trinitarian reflection may thus makecannot be predicted from the outside.

We do seem to have sufficient grounds to make a necessary decision: whether Islam is or isnot the same sort of context for trinitarian discourse and reflection as Hellenism has beenfor our tradition. The religion and reflection of Greek Western antiquity have been an

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antagonistic context, challenging the gospel by an incompatible interprIslam has historically been flatly antagonistic to the church's existing trine, but we may nevertheless judge that the way in whichat leastthof God does not in fact interpret his reality incompatibly with trinitaappears to be possible to make the essential trinitarian move, for Iwithout contradicting any necessary tenet of Islam, save only its existing gospel claim itself, that Je sus is crucif ied and ris en.

Perhaps, therefore, we should expect a doctrine of Triunity for Islamic ctortured, but also less speculatively creative, than has been the developeWestern church. Perhaps the Islamic context is more like that of the church itself, in which a trinitarian discourse could flourish that was morhetoric and logic than a metaphysical construction, and was in lar unconscious. If this is so, it would be a blunder to impose in such a contextour developed trinitarian constructions. Let trinitarian faith in Islamicthat the prophet Jesus is risen, to be the giver of the Spirit to other prophethat the message and spirit of the prophets are God's word to himself andown life, and let faith carry on homiletically and liturgically from ther

On the other hand, of course, Islam has almost as long and intimate a hireflection as does the West. Perhaps, ther efore, a Trinitarianism in Islamalso be led to use the powerful and dangerous analytical tools the Probably even such a development would not proceed exactly as it has Islamic Hellenism has been its own enterprise. In 13th-century Christianand Avicenna were a disa ster fortrinitarian faith, but in Muslim handsthey might fowe know enable splendid trinitarian insight.

Insofar as a doctrine of Triunity in more developed form may emerge inits categorie s and axioms canno t be predicted in advan ce. We can perhaprandom, to Islamic phenomena that may prove significant. First, the propindeed said to be uncreated. Second, it is essential to Muslim prayer tentreated mercifully to intercede with himself. Third, it is noteworthy that in confession of God the compas sionate , the merciful, both adjectives arroot; the distinction is between a quality of nature and a quality of atra nsl ate , God the merciful in himself and the merciful in act ion . Thus


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action are distinguished, but then the action is made to define the naturewhich isexactly a trinitarian sort of move. And finally, in the Qur'an, the only limit to God'sfreedom is his own mercy self-imp osed as res tra int .

The questionor perhaps even antinomyposed bythese phenomenais how seriou slythey are or can be taken as truth about and for G o d If there is a crucified and risenprophet, that question is driven to decision, in reference to him.

Afterword

One function of the trinitarian project just described must be taken up for itself. Thequestion was asked: do Muslims and Christians identify the same God? It must be insistedtha t this is a genuine questi on. There is surely only one God, and we may well suppose tha the receives all prayers, however addressed or misaddressed. But from this it in no wayfollows that we all, in our various religions, worship the same God. Quite manifestly, wedo not. And the Bible, anyway, is clear: there is the Lord, and there are the Baalim andAsherah, and to worship the Lord means to choose.

The church is the communi ty of the bapt ized, of those who have renounc ed the devil andall his ways. The ways denoted wereand where applicable, are the pagan religions.Jews made and make no such renunciation if they are baptized. At various times, Muslimswho have come to Baptism have been required to renounce their previous faith. Ourqu estion may beformulated:was th is requirement cor rect? If the precedingsection is true, the requirement was not correct. It is surely the gospel's mandate to baptize Jewswho are brou ght to ask for it, bu t we do not regard t hem , as we do pagans , as ther eby firstbeginning to worship the true God. In our judgment the church's relation to Islam must inthis respect be like its relation to Judaism.

Implied in this judgment is a judgment about the Qur'an, about Muhammad's claim to be apro phet . It is hard to know exactl y what is involved in even asking, Was Muhammad reallya prophe t? But the church did not initially suppose tha t Jesus' special position m ean tthere would be no further prophets; and for centuries the appearance of prophets was anexpected phenomenon in the church. There seems to be no a priori reason why Christiansmust deny that God could have sent Muhammad as a prophet to the Arabs. We may indeedbe compelled to judge that Muhammad's prophecy is inadequate in one way or another, but

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we judge the same about, for example, John the Seer or Danielwho areBible. Within this chapter we perhaps should limit ourselves to saying thto be no necessary conflict between the trinitarian identification of Gothat Muhammad was this God's prophet. Again, such an acknowledgmentMuslims, but it could establish discourse on a less antagonistic beginnin

At the end of this chapter we must repeat: none of its suggestions are intemade gospel for Islam. What can be suggested is a line of reflection thaare called to minister in Islam, and so to think in that context, may testcally helpful? Does it appropriately criticize and extend our own undegospel? Is its treat men t of God's identity c orre ct?

the risen prophet

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