From: MSPRINKER-AT-ccmail.sunysb.edu
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 13:05:47 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: BHA: Jesus, Son of God (amongst other attributes)



               State University of New York at Stony Brook
                       Stony Brook, NY 11794-3355

                                            Michael Sprinker
                                            Professor of English & Comp Lit
                                            Comparative Studies
                                            516 632-9634
                                            12-Jun-1998 01:01pm EDT
FROM:  MSPRINKER
TO:    Remote Addressee                     ( _bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu )
 
Subject: Jesus, Son of God (amongst other attributes)

I don't think the horse we're beating is quite dead, though it
doubtless is prayng for a speedy deliverance.

Whether Jesus of Nazareth (let's say he was an actual historical
person, just for the sake of argument) was or was not "really" the
Son of God and the Messiah does not matter to:  a) his
historical existence (Colin concedes this); and b) his identity
as Jesus, Son of God and Messiah in the rituals and practices of
Christianity.  The Jews of ancient Palestine found these claims offensive and 
denied them, arranging to have the Romans crucify the guy into the bargain.
And of course, at least one empirical realist in the crowd at
the Crucifixion put him to the test of proving he was the Son of
God by coming down off the Cross.  Christian doctrine holds that 
Jesus would not be drawn; one imagines that others thought his
non-compliance and eventual death definitive proof that he could
not be the Son of God.  But surely we devotees of criticial realism
would not accept such a judgment as the final word.

The point would be:  how would one go about proving one is the
Son of God?  Turning water into wine?  Walking on water?  Healing
the sick? Raising the dead?  Even if Jesus, or someone calling
himself Jesus, failed each of these tests, it would do nothing
to touch the emergent reality of Jesus as a causal power.

To repeat a point I made previously:  the existence of social,
ideological entities does not depend on the physical existence
and demonstrable physical actions of that thing, but on the
actions of agents who perform the rituals and practices of that
ideology (there doesn't really have to be someone at the observing
end of the shaft in the Panopticon for the incarcerated person
to act in the ways prescribed by the regimen and guaranteed by
the surveilling power of the watchman).  To hold otherwise is to
plump for the classic Enlightenment concept of ideology as 
a set of cynical lies foisted upon duped people by priests
and despots.

Fraternally,

Michael


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