"Christlike?"... I Don't Think So!

The word isn't in my dictionary. I don't like it. I don't use it. It is an incoherent-contradictory-absurd- oxymoron.

 No One is Like God!

No one is like Christ! No one in this world is Christlike! Categorically!

For two reasons. First, Jesus Christ is a divine person; he is human and divine; but he is a divine person. He is the creator; everyone else is a creature. There is an infinite abyss between creator and creature. No one is like God! Categorically! 

Secondly, Christ is absolute holiness and goodness; we are all sinful. There is an infinite abyss between the holy God and us sinners. Infinite! (Exception: Mary is sinless. Rather than call her Christlike we see that Jesus Christ is Mary-like by virtue of biology and maternal influence. Jesus is also Joseph-like in his humanity by paternal influence.)

Imaging God as Not-God:  Analogy

Yes we are made in the image of God. In imaging God we have similarity. But it is by way of analogy: the similarity is within a greater dissimilarity. Every grain of sand, every bedbug, every tyrannosaurus rex, every psychopathic sadist images God just by being alive. A creature images God as a creature, as not-God. Every creature proclaims, with St. Augustine: "Yes I am beautiful! But this is the faintest reflection of the One who created me beautiful and is Absolute Beauty." The structure of our "likeness to God" is our essential "difference from God."  In our very "not-God-ness" we witness to God. A marvelous book on the 12-steps of AA is entitled Not God. The simple theology of that program is summed up:  "There is a higher power. And I am not it."

When Paul heals the lame man at Lystra the pagans declare him and Barnabas to be Zeus and Hermes and start to worship; the apostles tear their clothes and denounce this saying they are of the same human nature but bring a Gospel of one who is different. The message is clear: if anyone calls you Christlike, tear your clothes and scream at the top of your lungs: "I am not Christlike! Only Jesus is the Christ!"

In this life on earth no person should be put on the pinnacle of being Christlike. No...not Padre Pio or Mother Theresa or John Paul. In this life none of us have reached the top. All of us carry within us the consequences of original sin, the propensity to evil, the fragility of the flesh. The most holy among us...Pio and Theresa and JP...would be the very first to agree. The really holy ones are always asking for prayers. They are aware of their infinite distance from God. They know that this abyss has been overcome by his Mercy. Mother Theresa was exorcised near the end of her death because she was vulnerable to the attacks of Lucifer. The higher you go the deeper you fall!

As canonized saints we can now call these three Christlike. God has certified the judgement of the Church with miracles. But consider the reality of purgatory. Did these three go to purgatory for final cleansing before reception into heaven? We don't know!  We know that Mary was free of sin and therefore bypassed purgatory. But it would be presumption to assume that anyone else did. It is certainly possible that, with God's grace, some go straight to heaven so cleansed are they of sin. I would put my money on these three, St. Joseph, St. John the beloved apostle, those who have passed through the Dark Night (St. John of the Cross, etc.) and those who suffered greatly here in earth in the spirit of reparation (St. Theresa of Lisieux). 

Presumption

Presumption is in the spiritual air we inhale with each breath. It contradicts faith, in the opposite direction from despair, in that it takes salvation for granted in a lazy, superficial manner. It is the piety of the progressives: inclusion, unconditional acceptance, "niceness," kindness and compassion. Void of real transcendence, wrath, justice or truth, it is effete, mediocre, sentimental, emasculated, bourgeois, and saccharine to the point of nausea. 

Go to any funeral and you will hear a eulogy that places the deceased immediately, securely in heaven. That is presumption! People receive communion who haven't bothered to go to mass for decades. That is presumption and sacrilege! Should the priest offer a blessing for those unprepared to receive, he is cursed as a dogmatic, legalistic, exclusionist clericalist. That is arrogance as well as presumption! There is an assumption that Dives' life of bourgeois comfort and indifference to the suffering of Lazarus is extended indefinitely into an eternity in heaven.

What happened to praying for the souls in purgatory? Protestantism threw that out the window; fashionable progressive Catholicism emulates that. The funeral Eucharist should be, as every Eucharist, first and foremost praise and thanksgiving, particularly for the life now passed. But secondly, really, it should be a prayer for the soul to be delivered from hell and purgatory into God's Mercy in heaven. Only in third place should we have a eulogy of praise of the deceased. But these priorities are now misplaced. 

So we have today the triumph of presumption. My assertion here is that to speak of anyone here on earth as "Christlike" is a dangerous flirtation with such.

Scandal

If you had polled informed Catholics about 15 years ago, after the deaths of Mother Theresa and John Paul, about the most Christlike people alive you would have found Maciel and McCarrick with strong showings and Vanier competing for first place. For decades they succeeded in camouflaging the vilest spiritual-sexual perversity not-imaginable. The dark side has a genius for disguise and deception. Much of the shock of the sex scandal in the Church is how edifying, inspiring, and admirable in presentation were so many of the worst predators. This is a cautionary tale: beware of placing anyone on a pedestal. As I type this I am pausing momentarily to pray for the holiest people I know. It is good for me not to assume their sanctity and security but rather a vulnerability to sin and evil and pray that they "be delivered from temptation."

Arian

As I type this we are celebrating St. Athanasius, the great doctor-bishop who heroically declared the divinity, undiluted, of Christ as the Word of God. He renounced the "low-Christology" of the Arian heresy which saw Christ as less than God. Progressive theology in our time tends to such a view: an "ascending" view of Jesus as the best of us, who opens himself completely to the Father in the Holy Spirit and brings the rest of us with him. This perspective obviously obscures if it does not outright deny the descent of the Word into humanity. Jesus is presented as a "man for others" in his compassion and generosity: the horizontal plane is emphasized, the more primal intimacy of the Son of God with his Father is blurred. Such a Jesus is in a fashion closer to us, since he is really one of us, although the best of us. But the Father remains distant, utterly transcendent. We have a superficial immanence of the divine conjoined with an absolute transcendence. Pope Benedict tells us that Athanasius makes clear that God really is available to us. Has really come among us. The actual, triune God!

To describe one of us as Christlike is to flirt with just such Arianism. It accentuates the humanity of Christ at the expense of his divinity. The similarity is affirmed, but the far greater dissimilarity is implicitly denied. True analogy is violated in favor of a vague univocity: God is placed on the same plane as the human and the natural. The abyss between creator and creature and that between sin and the Holy One are both obscured. Bad theology!

Pantheism

This leaning into univocity away from authentic analogy leads into pantheism. "God in all things" or pantheism denies creation and creaturehood and attributes a "divine dimension" to vital, natural life. This is the Jungian view of the spiritual self that covertly denies the Trinity. This is "the force" of the Star Wars universe. This is "new age," quasi-Eastern non-religious spirituality. This is the environmentalists love for "Mother Nature." 

The word "Christlike," intended to honor both Christ and his disciple, runs the danger of a foggy, confused merger that dissolves the foundational distinction.

Recovered? Not Really!  Saved?  Not exactly!

A good 12-stepper would never say "I am Joe. 35 years sober. I am a recovered alcoholic." Rather, he might say: "Through the grace of God, I am sober 35 years. I am Joe, a grateful recovering alcoholic."

One might say: "Come on! 35 years! What are the chances of a relapse?" Well, actually, pretty good. Joe respects his inner addict. He respects its strength, persistence, ambition. He knows it to be like a cancer, recessive at the moment, but capable of exploding at any time. He knows his fragility and vulnerability. He knows that this toxic propensity is constitutive of his inner person, as long as he is alive. He knows that arrogance and presumption together are an Achilles heal that can bring him down.

Likewise, a good Catholic, even an Evangelical-Charismatic one like myself, would never say "Hi! I am Joe. I am Catholic. I have been saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Spirit! How about you? Are you saved?" A correct answer to this would be: "Not really! I am working out my salvation, in fear and trembling, trusting in the work of the Holy Spirit!"

A priest once told me that I would be cold in my grave four days before I would be relieved of my struggles with the flesh. It was strangely reassuring and comforting. In this life we are not ever "recovered" or "saved" or "Christlike." We are still in the battle! We are fragile and vulnerable! We call across the Great Abyss trusting in God's Mercy!

Jesus Prayer

We conclude by considering this prayer that has come down to us from the ancient Eastern Church. In these few words we see clearly the absolutely unique identity of Jesus as ONLY Son of the living God. We present ourselves as sinners, Oh so different and distant! And plea trustingly for the Mercy that alone can traverse this abyss.

Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the living God, have mercy upon me a sinner!