Cutsinger on the non-uniqueness of Jesus

The Eastern Orthodox writer James S. Cutsinger has attempted to describe how Christianity can be reconciled with other religions without depriving it of its essence. The following are some notes on Cutsinger's 2001 article, "Hesychia: An Orthodox Opening to Esoteric Ecumenism" (available at www.cutsinger.net/pdf/hesychia.pdf). . . . CONTINUE

"[T]here are Christians . . . who insist that the only way to honor the convictions of other religious people is to jettison the idea of Christ's Divinity, an idea often joined to the belief that Christianity is uniquely true and salvific." But this liberal approach is based on a "lie" and a betrayal of Christianity which will strengthen, not weaken, the Christian fundamentalists who reject other religions entirely (and whom Cutsinger evidently regards as The Enemy?)

It is necessary for religions to respect each other as valid at the same time that they keep hold of their own beliefs. This is possible through an "esoteric ecumenism" (the term of the Traditionalist thinker Frithjof Schuon). Narrow dogmatic literalism has become dangerous in a world of several religious traditions in contact with one another. The dogmas must be shown to have a common inner meaning despite their outward differences.

So for example the Christian in dialogue with a Muslim must continue to insist that Christ was God incarnate, "and not merely a prophet" as Islam believes. How are these views possibly reconcilable? (See Cutsinger's "Mystery of the Two Natures", Sophia: The Journal of Traditional Studies, vol. 4, no. 2, 1998.) One key is that "the Christian tradition forbids us to think that the Second Person of the Trinity is the same as the first". The Father was not incarnate in Jesus. Also "nor was it some particular man, but man as such, who was hypostatically assumed into God." (??) "[T]he God who took us into Himself was the Logos or Word, whose Divinity is itself derived from a yet more ultimate Source: 'The Father', as He Himself tells us, 'is greater than I' . . . " Jesus is certainly God. "But this does not mean that saving power was fully expended at a single moment of history, or that we should confuse the uniqueness of Him who was incarnate . . . with the human particularity of Jesus of Nazareth." The one eternal Son is not a particular human being. "[N]owhere do the creeds oblige us to equate His transcendent uniqueness with a singularity of the factual or temporal order", i.e., with Jesus the human being.

Speaking of (hesychastic) prayer, which has traditionally been directed to the person of Jesus (even more than regular Catholic prayer, I think, which regards Jesus as Mediator?), Cutsinger says, "Without in any way denying the miraculous facts of Christ's life or the saving truths of Christological doctrine, the Christian pilgrim must make an effort to abstract from those facts to their essential meaning, and to look along these truths toward the Truth." (But if the incarnate Christ is not the ultimate truth, he cannot be God?)

Cutsinger stresses that "Jesus is not the only name of the Son, nor is the Son the only name of God, nor is God the only name of the Named, and the Named is truly named by no name." Jesus should be approached as a "window":

"Seekers living in the Christian house must not turn their backs on this window, supposing it to be too narrow to show them the Truth. But neither should they remain at a distance, as if they were admiring a favorite painting from across a gallery. They must take a step forward and lift up the sash, placing their head and shoulders both inside its ample opening. What they shall see then, of course, is no longer the frame, but instead the bountiful emptiness of a mountain valley and across its grassy expanse, if they look carefully, the outlines of other houses with other windows not their own."