Pope Benedict begins this volume on the Infancy Narratives with a question addressed to Jesus by Pontius Pilate. While he was interrogating Jesus, Pilate unexpectedly put this question to the accused: "Where are you from?" Jesus' accusers had called for him to receive the death penalty by dramatically declaring that this Jesus had made himself the Son of God---a capital offense under the law. The "enlightened" Roman judge, who had already expressed skepticism regarding the question of truth (cf. Jn 18:38), could easily have found this claim by the accused laughable. And yet he was frightened. The accused had indicated that he was a king, but that his kingdom was "not of this world" (Jn 18:36). And then he had alluded to a mysterious origin and purpose, saying: "For this I was born and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth" (Jn 18:37). All this must have seemed like madness to the Roman judge. And yet he could not shake off the mysterious impression left by this man, so different from those he had met before who resisted Roman domination and fought for the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. The Roman judge asks where Jesus is from in order to understand who he really is and what he wants. 

Who is Jesus? In the three volumes of Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict endeavors to cast light on this question. Yet as Pope Benedict himself admits, there are many other interpretations of Jesus which are quite different from his own but also quite different from the Christian tradition to which Pope Benedict has tried to be faithful. All the gospels claim that Jesus is God. However, this claim resulted in Christian persecution by the Romans until 313 when the Edict of Milan stopped the persecution of Christianity. The Divinity of Jesus was formally defined at the Council of Nicea in 325. While most modern Catholic theologians accept this designation, huge disagreements on who Jesus is still exist even among even among Catholic theologians. Why?

Let’s look at the prior question about who God is to get an answer. Baltimore Catechism, from which many older Catholics learned the faith, states: God is the Supreme Being, infinitely perfect, who made all things and keeps them in existence. Just as humans have a higher level of being than animals, plants, and inanimate objects, God is the highest level of Being that we know. This implies that the Being of God is quite separate from the being of everything else. The Old Testament certainly assumes this, although God can also dwell in the world and also in us. This is clearly stated in the New Testament (Rom 5:5, 8:9 as well as many other possible citations). The idea that the Being of God is separate from, and infinitely superior to, our being as finite human beings is not universally accepted by Catholic theologians. In the 1980’s, a Catholic theologian who is now a prominent Cardinal wrote the following. The basic defect of scientistic atheism, on the one hand, and, on the other, of the ecclesiastical apologetics that was launched against it and sought to harmonize faith and science, was that they tried to put God and the world as it were, on the same level. God and the world became competitors, and it was assumed that anything attributed to God had to be denied to the world, and vice versa. But the notion of competition mistakes both the absoluteness of God and the freedom of man. For God, as the reality that encompasses everything, cannot be an entity alongside or above the world, since, if he were, he would be limited by the world and would himself be a limited finite being. Here we can see a very different concept of God from that of the Baltimore Catechism. God is not the “Supreme Being” but rather “the reality that encompasses everything”. The Being of God (as opposed to the indwelling of God in us) is not above, independent and separate from the world as it is portrayed in the Old Testament. Rather, the Being of God is bound up with the being of the world and even our being since God is not “an entity alongside or above the world”. Since there is a different starting point concerning who is God, is there any wonder that there are differences in how Jesus Christ is viewed? 

However, what does this have to do with ordinary Catholics? Isn’t this just a dispute among philosophers and theologians which doesn’t concern us? It certainly does concern us. If God is the “Supreme Being”, then it is quite reasonable to consider Divine Revelation to be authoritative. What God communicates to us is from “above”. The Baltimore Catechism states: Besides knowing God by our natural reason, we can also know Him from supernatural revelation, that is, from the truths found in Sacred Scripture and in Tradition, which God Himself has revealed to us. 

The theologian quoted above views revelation differently. The usual procedure is to start with individual revelations or truths of revelation; by 'truths of revelation' is meant individual truths which are not accessible to the unaided human mind and which God, through his messengers of revelation authoritatively sets before human beings for their belief. This authoritarian understanding of revelation, which is modelled on the phenomena of information and instruction, by its nature comes into inevitable conflict with the responsible use of human reason and human freedom. It is therefore significant that more recent theology usually replaces this authoritarian understanding of revelation with another that is based on the model of communication. In this new context theologians speak not of revelations in the plural but of revelation in the singular, with revelation understood not as a revelation of objective facts but as a self-revelation of a person. What God reveals is first and foremost not something but himself and his saving will for humanity….. Biblical revelation is thus not primarily a revelation of objects, not a revelation of truths, teachings, commandments, and 'supernatural' realities, but a personal self-revelation of God. What God primarily makes known to us in revelation is not various truths and realities but himself and his saving will for human beings. It’s easy to see why specific commandments, truths, and teachings are rejected since they conflict with “the responsible use of human reason and human freedom”. Here we have a God who is certainly kind, merciful, loving, and compassionate, but who does not give inconvenient commandments and rules.

We can see that the traditional concept of God as the Supreme Being goes with the concept that Divine Revelation is God’s authoritative revealing of specific commandments and teachings. The “infinitely perfect” God, as the Baltimore Catechism puts it, is certainly capable of communicating to us specific commands, especially those which apply to all humanity and which reveal His loving Will for all humanity. By contrast, the concept that God does not reveal specific commandments and truths to us but only his “self-revelation” as a person dovetails with the idea that God “cannot be an entity alongside or above the world”. This means that God is not the “Supreme Being” whose Being is infinitely superior to and separate from our being as finite human beings. Instead, the being of God is bound up with the being of the world and even our being. We can observe all kinds of ambiguities and failures in the world and even ourselves. While these may not apply to God as the “reality that encompasses everything”, nevertheless, the Being of God is mixed in with all this. Thus, God cannot overcome human sins, prejudices, and failures in revealing His will for us. No wonder this same theologian and Cardinal also supports communion for the divorced and remarried which at least implies that the Lord’s teaching on divorce and remarriage is not authoritative (Mt 5:31-32, Mt 19:3-12, Mk 10:2-12, Lk 16:18).

Differences among Catholic theologians and teachers concerning Jesus Christ, has its roots in fundamental differences concerning who God is. The Baltimore Catechism teaching of God as the Supreme Being whose Being is totally separate from and independent of the universe is a form of theism. The idea that the being of God is the same as the being of the universe is called pantheism. The theologian cited above seems to be describing a form of pantheism which says that the Being of God overlaps and exceeds the being of the universe. We should all ponder what we believe about this. – Jim Nugent, CFP