A PROMETHEAN CHRISTOLOGY OF ERNST BLOCH (MARXISM, UTOPIANISM, HOPE)

This work consists of two parts: the identity of Jesus (Christology) and the works of Jesus (Soteriology). Bloch's Christology has three distinctive categories: the Ophite (serpent) Christology, the Exodus Christology, and the Son of Man Christology.;Jesus was the subversive Savior-serpent who has seduced humans to be fully human by rebelling against, and becoming like, God (The Ophite Christology). Jesus, who was a Promethean savior serpent, preached the same good news as the serpent in Paradise did: Eritis sicut Deus, which is the basic good news of the Bible.;Jesus was the exodus leader and liberator (the Exodus Christology). The exodus, which remains the fundamental tone in the Bible, is the prototypal motive force in the history of man's liberation from slavery, whether socio-political or spiritual. Christ, who preached the exodus God of Moses and who through his self-injection into the Above (the transcendental realm), made himself the ultimate exodus, i.e., the exodus from and into God, came to the world to replace a Pharaoh-like oppressor God. He himself became a new God, being the usurper of God's throne.;Jesus was the Son of Man, the meaning of which is the Messiah, the Heavenly Adam (Man), and the Makanthropos (the great Man) (The Son of Man Christology). Jesus as the political Messiah preached the political gospel and the Kingdom of God as the earthly reality. He was the rebel of love against the dominant power of the present world and transcendental dominion. Jesus was a Promethean rebel against God over human, the archetypal man, an eschatological revelation of true humanity, and a new God and the true Creator of a new heaven and new earth at the eschaton.;Bloch's soteriology contains three dimensions of salvation: a humanistic-utopian dimension (eritis sicut Deus), a liberationist dimension (incipit vita nova), and an eschatological dimension (eh'ye asher eh'ye). For Bloch, salvation is the human attainment of the divine essence in the reconciled and transformed world and nature which is a new heaven and new earth to be realized at the end of this aeon, without transcendent being or any non-human heteronomy.;Bloch's Christology with its soteriology of atheist humanism and utopianism is insufficient for Christian thought, mainly because it is grounded on human autonomy and self-sufficient optimistic social Darwinism and rejects Jesus' cross and resurrection. Furthermore, it does not give humanity ultimate salvation from the power of sin and death.