Tripp Fuller and My Mother
Invitations to Open and Relational Christologies
Notes While Reading Divine Self-Investment: An Open and Relational
Constructive Christology by Tripp Fuller
Jay McDaniel
As I pick up Tripp Fuller’s Divine Self-Investment I think of my mother, Virginia McDaniel. Not that my mother would have understood his book. It is a scholarly book for scholars. Still, I remember what she told me that summer night when I was six years old. I was sitting with her on a patio on a summer evening, after having had a Sunday School class earlier in the day. The topic of the class that morning was Jesus, and I was confused on why we were hearing so many stories about him. I believed in God, but I wasn’t sure where to place Jesus within the spectrum of beliefs, so I asked her: “Mom, who is Jesus?” She answered: “Jesus is someone who is always holding your hand even when you don’t know it.”
I’ve never forgotten those words and believe them still today. She was saying to me that there is something deep and mysterious, tender and loving, within the very depths of the universe, that it is always holding our hand, and that Jesus is a window to this something.
Fuller anchors his book with the story of Peter responding to Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus says “You are the Christ.” Fuller’s point is that Peter’s answer was not an attempt to ‘get it right’ with labels, or to draw an inference from observable facts, but rather to confess: that is, to share his heart with the one standing in front of him:
“What Peter is doing is making a confession of his faith, a response itself a response to the God who is present to him through Jesus.”
I get this. I’m pretty sure that, if the historical Jesus had been sitting beside my mother and asked: “Who do you say that I am?” I would have responded: “You are God’s window, revealing the loving side of God.” And, truth be told, I think he was sitting beside me that night. I think that, in that moment, he was my mother.
Three Registers
Fuller speaks of this existential response on Peter’s part to Jesus as one of three dimensions of Christology he wants to emphasize. The first is what he calls a historical register, and it deals with how scholars seek to understand the historical Jesus. The second is the existential register, and it deals with the confessional response just identified. And the third is a metaphysical register that deals with how we understand God and the universe cosmologically or, as it were, metaphysically. Much of the book is introducing scholarly readers to various theologians who are addressing these three registers - Roger Haight, Joseph Bracken, Douglass Ottati, Andrew Sung Park, for example – and bringing them into conversation. Along the way readers receive a primer in various kinds of Christology: Logos Christology and Spirit Christology in particular.
A good bit of this material is presented in terms so technical, and with nuances so subtle, that the non-scholarly reader will be lost. Only the die-hard theology nerds will survive. But the whole idea of three registers or domains will make sense to people, including my mother. In speaking of Jesus and his significance for me she was speaking to the existential register (in this case my own) and in linking his hand-holding love with the mystery in which we live and move and have our being (God) she was speaking to the metaphysical register in her way. In effect she was giving me what Tripp Fuller and others call an “open and relational theology.”
Hand-Holding?
I know that the image of ‘hand-holding’ can seem sentimental, perhaps appropriate to a six year old but not adults or even adolescents. In particular, to those of a prophetic mind-set, it seems too comforting and far-removed from the challenging side of a life of discipleship. I was six, after all! But in hearing the phrase I ask you to mean what Fuller means when he speaks of the promise of the God of Love: Hear him out:
“The promise of the God of love is that God will be ever faithful, that the God of love is ever shaped by God’s deep solidarity with the world, and that the God of love promises to bear each moment of history within God while offering greater beauty, healing, and goodness to each moment of the Creation’s becoming.”
He speaks of a God who ‘bears each moment of history” with us and with the whole of creation, and adds that this ‘bearing’ includes vulnerability, suffering and pain. Let this be part of God’s love: a receptive side of God which can share joys and which can be wounded. This is what process theologians mean by the “consequent nature of God.”
And Fuller also speaks of a God who, in response to what is felt, offers “greater beauty, healing, and goodness to each moment of creation’s becoming.” Let this be part of God’s love, too: a side of God which is nurturing in an active way, providing us with fresh and empowering possibilities relative to the situation at hand. This is what process theologians mean by the primordial nature of God as active in the world through initial aims.
Yes, let ‘hand-holding’ refer to these two sides of God, with God imagined along the lines of a truly loving parent, an Abba or Amma. Fuller’s point, and I think my mother’s as well, is that this God is indeed ‘metaphysically’ real in some important sense and beckoning us in love to become more loving ourselves. As Fuller explains, when we respond existentially to God as revealed in Jesus, we simultaneously commit ourselves to a journey, a pilgrimage, the ends and implications of which we cannot initially foresee. The life of discipleship to Christ, for individuals and communities, is an open-ended journey into a future that is itself open, even for God. So saith open and relational theologians, so saith Tripp Fuller, and so suggesteth Virginia McDaniel to her six year old son.
Judgment and Sin
Make no mistake, as someone reared in evangelical traditions, Tripp Fuller also speaks of a judgmental side of God. No, God is no namby-pamby. In his words:
God feels with the world, judges and redeems what the world has become, and then gives to the world the gift and grace of new possibilities.
But when Fuller says judgment I don’t hear something like retaliation, but rather something like discernment: a capacity to distinguish violence from peace, injustice from justice, cruelty from care, greed from generosity, sin from goodness, and to recognize that we human beings fall short from who we can be, and should be, when we embody the sinful traits. Moreover, and so important for Fuller, these sinful traits belong not only to individuals but to groups and societies. Entire societies can fall into greed, hatred and delusion, indeed in God’s name! Surely, the loving heart of the universe, the very One who is wounded along with us, the Abba of Jesus, judges, too. For Fuller we can experience God through holy No’s as well as Yes’s. Through tough love as well as tender love.
Sharing in Jesus’ Faithfulness
What might it mean, then, to be saved? For Fuller, it seems to mean something like wholeness, human and divine. Interestingly, Fuller points out that the very God revealed in Jesus needs saving, too: healing from the wounds suffered from receiving and absorbing the world’s sins and other kinds of violence. God has, as it were, a wounded heart. If we speak of the ministry, death, resurrection of Jesus as an activity on God’s part and on Jesus’ part (and Fuller does) then one purpose of this activity is to help save or heal God!
Moreover, after having happened, these events become part of God’s own ongoing history as well as our own. Consequent to Jesus, we humans inherit a past that includes a memory of him within our own consciousness, and we can advance his own healing ministry by sharing in his faith. Here Fuller quotes John Cobb:
“We interpret Paul’s statements in Romans 1:16-17 as pointing to the participation of believers in Jesus’ faithfulness, which involves a real change in those who were bound to sin. Jesus’ faithfulness breaks the bonds of sin for those who participate in Jesus’ faithfulness, not sin. Anyone who participates in Jesus’ faithfulness lives in the sphere of influence of that faithfulness, instead of in the sphere of sin’s power. That does not mean they are no longer in danger of coming again under the bonds of sin, but it does mean that they can turn to the faithfulness of Jesus to deal with that danger.” (John Cobb)
Was Jesus God?
Back to my mother. Later, as she was approaching the end of her life, I asked her if she thought Jesus was identical with God: God in the flesh. My impression was that, for her, this was not such an important question. She loved him and believed he loved her and everyone else. And he was somehow wrapped into what, for her, was a more encompassing metaphor: God as an encircling Spirit whose love includes all. I think that this being wrapped into the divine Encirclement was her way of saying that Jesus sits at God’ right hand. But whether he preexisted his birth was irrelevant to her. It was the love, understood as a window to the God and the Spirit, that counted.
Tripp Fuller, too, does not find the notion of Jesus pre-existing his birth all that helpful. And while he does seem to believe that Jesus responded to God’s lure at every single moment of this life, such is not his emphasis. For my part, along with John Cobb, I am doubtful. I doubt that even when he was a teenager he always responded ‘perfectly’ to God’s lure. Maybe so, but not so important. As Fuller emphasizes, part of what is most important about Jesus for us is what he means to us. We, too, have a voice in answering the question: “Who do you say that I am?” As Fuller emphasizes, the question is a love question not a label question. It’s a bit like asking: “Do you love me and will you walk with me?”
Fuller’s book is an invitation for Christians to say “Yes,” each in our way. He speaks of a divine reality who is invested in us: of a God who is self-invested. I might add that this God is, like any good abba, world-invested. Fuller does not point to a God who is about flattery or power, domination or control, but rather a God who says “Come, walk with me, and we will be healed together,” and then adds, like my mother, “I will always be with you, even when you don’t know it.” This is the God who is revealed in Jesus: a God in whom, along with Jesus, we can place our faith and who, in the spirit of an already existing covenant, faithful to us.
I’ve never forgotten those words and believe them still today. She was saying to me that there is something deep and mysterious, tender and loving, within the very depths of the universe, that it is always holding our hand, and that Jesus is a window to this something.
Fuller anchors his book with the story of Peter responding to Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus says “You are the Christ.” Fuller’s point is that Peter’s answer was not an attempt to ‘get it right’ with labels, or to draw an inference from observable facts, but rather to confess: that is, to share his heart with the one standing in front of him:
“What Peter is doing is making a confession of his faith, a response itself a response to the God who is present to him through Jesus.”
I get this. I’m pretty sure that, if the historical Jesus had been sitting beside my mother and asked: “Who do you say that I am?” I would have responded: “You are God’s window, revealing the loving side of God.” And, truth be told, I think he was sitting beside me that night. I think that, in that moment, he was my mother.
Three Registers
Fuller speaks of this existential response on Peter’s part to Jesus as one of three dimensions of Christology he wants to emphasize. The first is what he calls a historical register, and it deals with how scholars seek to understand the historical Jesus. The second is the existential register, and it deals with the confessional response just identified. And the third is a metaphysical register that deals with how we understand God and the universe cosmologically or, as it were, metaphysically. Much of the book is introducing scholarly readers to various theologians who are addressing these three registers - Roger Haight, Joseph Bracken, Douglass Ottati, Andrew Sung Park, for example – and bringing them into conversation. Along the way readers receive a primer in various kinds of Christology: Logos Christology and Spirit Christology in particular.
A good bit of this material is presented in terms so technical, and with nuances so subtle, that the non-scholarly reader will be lost. Only the die-hard theology nerds will survive. But the whole idea of three registers or domains will make sense to people, including my mother. In speaking of Jesus and his significance for me she was speaking to the existential register (in this case my own) and in linking his hand-holding love with the mystery in which we live and move and have our being (God) she was speaking to the metaphysical register in her way. In effect she was giving me what Tripp Fuller and others call an “open and relational theology.”
Hand-Holding?
I know that the image of ‘hand-holding’ can seem sentimental, perhaps appropriate to a six year old but not adults or even adolescents. In particular, to those of a prophetic mind-set, it seems too comforting and far-removed from the challenging side of a life of discipleship. I was six, after all! But in hearing the phrase I ask you to mean what Fuller means when he speaks of the promise of the God of Love: Hear him out:
“The promise of the God of love is that God will be ever faithful, that the God of love is ever shaped by God’s deep solidarity with the world, and that the God of love promises to bear each moment of history within God while offering greater beauty, healing, and goodness to each moment of the Creation’s becoming.”
He speaks of a God who ‘bears each moment of history” with us and with the whole of creation, and adds that this ‘bearing’ includes vulnerability, suffering and pain. Let this be part of God’s love: a receptive side of God which can share joys and which can be wounded. This is what process theologians mean by the “consequent nature of God.”
And Fuller also speaks of a God who, in response to what is felt, offers “greater beauty, healing, and goodness to each moment of creation’s becoming.” Let this be part of God’s love, too: a side of God which is nurturing in an active way, providing us with fresh and empowering possibilities relative to the situation at hand. This is what process theologians mean by the primordial nature of God as active in the world through initial aims.
Yes, let ‘hand-holding’ refer to these two sides of God, with God imagined along the lines of a truly loving parent, an Abba or Amma. Fuller’s point, and I think my mother’s as well, is that this God is indeed ‘metaphysically’ real in some important sense and beckoning us in love to become more loving ourselves. As Fuller explains, when we respond existentially to God as revealed in Jesus, we simultaneously commit ourselves to a journey, a pilgrimage, the ends and implications of which we cannot initially foresee. The life of discipleship to Christ, for individuals and communities, is an open-ended journey into a future that is itself open, even for God. So saith open and relational theologians, so saith Tripp Fuller, and so suggesteth Virginia McDaniel to her six year old son.
Judgment and Sin
Make no mistake, as someone reared in evangelical traditions, Tripp Fuller also speaks of a judgmental side of God. No, God is no namby-pamby. In his words:
God feels with the world, judges and redeems what the world has become, and then gives to the world the gift and grace of new possibilities.
But when Fuller says judgment I don’t hear something like retaliation, but rather something like discernment: a capacity to distinguish violence from peace, injustice from justice, cruelty from care, greed from generosity, sin from goodness, and to recognize that we human beings fall short from who we can be, and should be, when we embody the sinful traits. Moreover, and so important for Fuller, these sinful traits belong not only to individuals but to groups and societies. Entire societies can fall into greed, hatred and delusion, indeed in God’s name! Surely, the loving heart of the universe, the very One who is wounded along with us, the Abba of Jesus, judges, too. For Fuller we can experience God through holy No’s as well as Yes’s. Through tough love as well as tender love.
Sharing in Jesus’ Faithfulness
What might it mean, then, to be saved? For Fuller, it seems to mean something like wholeness, human and divine. Interestingly, Fuller points out that the very God revealed in Jesus needs saving, too: healing from the wounds suffered from receiving and absorbing the world’s sins and other kinds of violence. God has, as it were, a wounded heart. If we speak of the ministry, death, resurrection of Jesus as an activity on God’s part and on Jesus’ part (and Fuller does) then one purpose of this activity is to help save or heal God!
Moreover, after having happened, these events become part of God’s own ongoing history as well as our own. Consequent to Jesus, we humans inherit a past that includes a memory of him within our own consciousness, and we can advance his own healing ministry by sharing in his faith. Here Fuller quotes John Cobb:
“We interpret Paul’s statements in Romans 1:16-17 as pointing to the participation of believers in Jesus’ faithfulness, which involves a real change in those who were bound to sin. Jesus’ faithfulness breaks the bonds of sin for those who participate in Jesus’ faithfulness, not sin. Anyone who participates in Jesus’ faithfulness lives in the sphere of influence of that faithfulness, instead of in the sphere of sin’s power. That does not mean they are no longer in danger of coming again under the bonds of sin, but it does mean that they can turn to the faithfulness of Jesus to deal with that danger.” (John Cobb)
Was Jesus God?
Back to my mother. Later, as she was approaching the end of her life, I asked her if she thought Jesus was identical with God: God in the flesh. My impression was that, for her, this was not such an important question. She loved him and believed he loved her and everyone else. And he was somehow wrapped into what, for her, was a more encompassing metaphor: God as an encircling Spirit whose love includes all. I think that this being wrapped into the divine Encirclement was her way of saying that Jesus sits at God’ right hand. But whether he preexisted his birth was irrelevant to her. It was the love, understood as a window to the God and the Spirit, that counted.
Tripp Fuller, too, does not find the notion of Jesus pre-existing his birth all that helpful. And while he does seem to believe that Jesus responded to God’s lure at every single moment of this life, such is not his emphasis. For my part, along with John Cobb, I am doubtful. I doubt that even when he was a teenager he always responded ‘perfectly’ to God’s lure. Maybe so, but not so important. As Fuller emphasizes, part of what is most important about Jesus for us is what he means to us. We, too, have a voice in answering the question: “Who do you say that I am?” As Fuller emphasizes, the question is a love question not a label question. It’s a bit like asking: “Do you love me and will you walk with me?”
Fuller’s book is an invitation for Christians to say “Yes,” each in our way. He speaks of a divine reality who is invested in us: of a God who is self-invested. I might add that this God is, like any good abba, world-invested. Fuller does not point to a God who is about flattery or power, domination or control, but rather a God who says “Come, walk with me, and we will be healed together,” and then adds, like my mother, “I will always be with you, even when you don’t know it.” This is the God who is revealed in Jesus: a God in whom, along with Jesus, we can place our faith and who, in the spirit of an already existing covenant, faithful to us.
Chapter Six: Jesus Christ and
the Divine Self-Investment of God
Fuller, Tripp. Divine Self-Investment: An Open and Relational Constructive Christology (p. 135). SacraSage. Kindle Edition.
"This meant that God was not only the bringer of salvation, but also in need of it…Salvation is then not God’s external solution to the never-ending pattern of victim and violator, for God is also the victim…Abba is revealed to be a God who will be faithful to all—sinner and the sinned-against alike.
Salvation then is not primarily for the individual but also for the community, for it is there where true reconciliation is needed...Our hope in God is established not in God’s over-ruling power, but in God’s fidelity, solidarity, and promise…This promise comes from the very nature of God…The process of salvation is thus sustained by the constant dreaming and becoming of both God and the world. Yes, it includes the transferable nightmares that can awaken the sinner to salvation, but it also includes a transferable dream of divine solidarity and promise—a dream that God insists is for all and that will continue to be given until all are free at last."
Salvation then is not primarily for the individual but also for the community, for it is there where true reconciliation is needed...Our hope in God is established not in God’s over-ruling power, but in God’s fidelity, solidarity, and promise…This promise comes from the very nature of God…The process of salvation is thus sustained by the constant dreaming and becoming of both God and the world. Yes, it includes the transferable nightmares that can awaken the sinner to salvation, but it also includes a transferable dream of divine solidarity and promise—a dream that God insists is for all and that will continue to be given until all are free at last."