Trickster Christ and the Second Fall: A New Framework for Understanding the Kingdom of God
- By Teofrastus
- Controversial Christian Theology
- 0 Replies
This study interprets the Kingdom of God as a divine drama where angelic autonomy exists through unilateral contradiction, and salvation emerges through the completion rather than reversal of the Fall. Please offer your critical views.
The Kingdom of God exists within the divine mind as a semi-autonomous realm where angelic beings experience genuine freedom while remaining encompassed within God's consciousness. Drawing on Constantin Noica's concept of unilateral contradiction, the paper argues that while angels contradict God by asserting independence, God encompasses their opposition within divine unity. Tolkien's Silmarillion illustrates this principle through Ilúvatar's incorporation of Melkor's discord into a greater harmony.
Contrary to modern immanentist theology, the Church Fathers understood God's Kingdom primarily as celestial reality. While the celestial realm maintains ontological priority, the earthly Kingdom manifests within individual souls through recognition of the world's emptiness—a detachment that opens hearts to the Holy Spirit.
The paper reframes participation (methexis) as engagement in divine drama rather than sharing in divine substance. While medieval sacramental ontology is obsolete, creatures participate in dramatic forms within the celestial Kingdom. Creation maintains genuine autonomy and productive capacity, as Genesis reveals the earth itself 'bringing forth' life. Through unilateral contradiction, God encompasses rather than opposes autonomous creation.
Christ appears as redemptive trickster, paralleling Satan as dark trickster. However, Christ completes rather than reverses the Fall. Satan's incomplete fall preserved residual enchantment through which demonic powers maintained dominion. Christ initiated a 'Second Fall'—cosmic disenchantment that dissolved the sacral order, creating the void into which the Spirit descended at Pentecost.
This disenchantment represents liberation rather than abandonment. Our modern world of impersonal laws reflects Christ's dismantling of spiritual bondage. Paul advanced this disenchantment by declaring pagan idols 'nothing.' While most succumb to nihilism, a remnant attains salvation through connection to the transcendent Kingdom.
The Church serves protective-therapeutic rather than salvific functions. Following the Christus Medicus tradition, it protects humanity from residual demonic forces while providing spiritual therapy. However, mature Christians transcend ecclesiastical participation for direct communion with the Kingdom.
The Eucharist represents Christianity's controlled accommodation to humanity's need for material-spiritual mediation. Like a vaccine, it satisfies theophagy impulses without allowing descent into paganism. The Eucharist redirects pagan tendencies while preserving broader disenchantment. Extending eucharistic presence universally, as ressourcement theology proposes, would recreate the pagan cosmology Christianity intended to overcome.
Read the paper here: Divine Drama and Cosmic Disenchantment: The Kingdom of God as Dramatic Participation
The Kingdom of God exists within the divine mind as a semi-autonomous realm where angelic beings experience genuine freedom while remaining encompassed within God's consciousness. Drawing on Constantin Noica's concept of unilateral contradiction, the paper argues that while angels contradict God by asserting independence, God encompasses their opposition within divine unity. Tolkien's Silmarillion illustrates this principle through Ilúvatar's incorporation of Melkor's discord into a greater harmony.
Contrary to modern immanentist theology, the Church Fathers understood God's Kingdom primarily as celestial reality. While the celestial realm maintains ontological priority, the earthly Kingdom manifests within individual souls through recognition of the world's emptiness—a detachment that opens hearts to the Holy Spirit.
The paper reframes participation (methexis) as engagement in divine drama rather than sharing in divine substance. While medieval sacramental ontology is obsolete, creatures participate in dramatic forms within the celestial Kingdom. Creation maintains genuine autonomy and productive capacity, as Genesis reveals the earth itself 'bringing forth' life. Through unilateral contradiction, God encompasses rather than opposes autonomous creation.
Christ appears as redemptive trickster, paralleling Satan as dark trickster. However, Christ completes rather than reverses the Fall. Satan's incomplete fall preserved residual enchantment through which demonic powers maintained dominion. Christ initiated a 'Second Fall'—cosmic disenchantment that dissolved the sacral order, creating the void into which the Spirit descended at Pentecost.
This disenchantment represents liberation rather than abandonment. Our modern world of impersonal laws reflects Christ's dismantling of spiritual bondage. Paul advanced this disenchantment by declaring pagan idols 'nothing.' While most succumb to nihilism, a remnant attains salvation through connection to the transcendent Kingdom.
The Church serves protective-therapeutic rather than salvific functions. Following the Christus Medicus tradition, it protects humanity from residual demonic forces while providing spiritual therapy. However, mature Christians transcend ecclesiastical participation for direct communion with the Kingdom.
The Eucharist represents Christianity's controlled accommodation to humanity's need for material-spiritual mediation. Like a vaccine, it satisfies theophagy impulses without allowing descent into paganism. The Eucharist redirects pagan tendencies while preserving broader disenchantment. Extending eucharistic presence universally, as ressourcement theology proposes, would recreate the pagan cosmology Christianity intended to overcome.
Read the paper here: Divine Drama and Cosmic Disenchantment: The Kingdom of God as Dramatic Participation