God Sent His Son: A Contemporary Christology

by Christoph Schönborn

In this work of Christology, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, a world-renowned theologian, takes as his starting point the Apostle Paul’s statement, “But when the time had fully come, God sent for his Son, born of woman, born under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4-5). Based on many years of lecturing on Christology, Cardinal Schönborn’s work moves from the solid conviction of faith that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah of Israel, the Son of the Living God, through the development of the Church’s understanding of this truth, to the consideration of contemporary issues and the views of various modern theologians. Cardinal Schönborn sees Christology as based on the original Illumination granted by the Father in manifesting his Son, which divides, as if through a prism, into a rainbow of Christological themes. “Christology,” he writes, “in every phase of its development, follows its path by this ‘in thy light do we see light’ (Ps 36:10).” Christology is always faith seeking understanding—trying to understand that to which the believer already says, “Yes!” God Sent His Son has the comprehensiveness and scholarly precision of a textbook but the insights and personal relevance of a work of spirituality. It carefully explores ancient and medieval.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Christianity

412 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Christoph Maria Michael Hugo Damian Peter Adalbert Graf von Schönborn, O.P.
is a Bohemian-born Austrian Dominican friar and theologian, who is a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He serves as the Archbishop of Vienna and President of the Austrian Bishops' Conference. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1998. He is also the chaplain of the Order of the Golden Fleece (Austrian branch), of which he has been a member since 1961. He is a member of the formerly sovereign princely House of Schönborn, several members of which held high offices of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church.

Reviews

[Jacob Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough, systematic discussion of nearly every point of belief and controversy growing out of the Catholic understanding of Christ. Schönborn's M.O. is to always return to the question of what the available evidence suggests that the apostles and early Christian community understood and believed about Jesus. This helps to avoid a lot of superfluous modern speculation, and keeps the book relatively lean and concise. My only real critique, possibly misplaced in the case of this genre of book, is that it's not exactly a page-turner; I read it is small increments over a fairly long period of time. Nonetheless if I had to recommend a textbook on the subject of Catholic Christology, I could think of a better on than this.

[Tim Grumbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Began reading this early on in my time in seminary. I wasn’t quite ready for the more technical parts on the personhood of Christ in the Trinity. Makes a little more sense to me know, but it’s for sure worth it to get through the more technical parts to get the more devotional parts. So this book is a good accessible summary of the history of Christology. Very much feels in a similar school as Pope BXVI. Love the conclusion with St. Therese of Lisieux, to show what the theology looks like lived out.

[Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be honest a lot of this was skimmed for a class. But I’m putting it as read anyway because I got a “B”

[Vyacheslav Okun sj · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good book on Christology, with a good and clear exploration of the ecumenical councils of the early Christian church. Cardinal Schonborn managed to explain the basics of Christology with a keen grasp of the historical issues and factors involved...
Highly recommended!

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dense but good