School of Theology, Australian Catholic University
Abstract
This theological fragment is concerned with the "humanist" (generally speaking) and "feminist" (particularly speaking) implications of classical Christology. Based on the exigencies of Christology, it proposes that the theological renewal of feminism ought to occur by integration into the broader horizon of the specific humanism proffered by classical Christology, rightly understood. It makes a first step, therefore, towards framing the conditions, nothing more, for a rapprochement between a "horizontal" liberation theology and a classical "vertical" soteriology. Developing a constructive debate between the perspectives on Chalcedonian Christology by two contemporary theologians, Sarah Coakley and Aaron Riches, it proposes that their seemingly contradictory Christologies - beginning, for the former, from the duality of natures, and for the latter, from the unity of person - possess similar intentions (the articulation of a theological humanism) but opposing intuitions about how to realize such a project. It is Riches' interpretation of the human in Christ that must form the appropriate, Christological conditions for the realization of Coakley's aspiration towards an authentic religious feminism
