Chapter III (continued, part 2)
authoritatively decided in favour of the doctrine that in the one person of Christ, as there are two distinct natures, human and divine, there are of necessity two intelligences and two wills, the one fallible and finite, the other immutable and infinite. Christ was tempted, and there was, therefore, the metaphysical possibility that He should have yielded. According to this Council the person of Christ was not only formed, ἐκ δύο φύσεων, but consists since the hypostatic union ἐν δύο φύσεσι, and it says in the name of the Church that there are δύο φυσικὰς θελήσεις ἤτοι θελήματα ἐν αὐτῳ, καὶ δύο φυσικὰς ἐνεργείας ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀμερίστως, ἀσυγχύτως κατὰ τὴν τῶν ἁγίων πατέρων διδασκαλίαν ὡσαύτως κηρύττομεν. The Monothelites being thus condemned were persecuted and driven eastward, where they have perpetuated themselves in the sect of the Maronites.
With this council the conflict on this doctrine so far ceased that there has since been no further modification of the Church doctrine. The decision against Nestorius, in which the unity of Christ's person was asserted; that against Eutyches, affirming the distinction of natures; and that against the Monothelites, declaring that the possession of a human nature involves of necessity the possession of a human will, have been received as the true faith by the Church universal, the Greek, Latin, and Protestant.
During the Middle Ages, although the person of Christ was the subject of diverse speculations on the part of individual writers, there was no open or organized opposition to the decisions of the above named councils.
§ 6. Doctrine of the Reformed Churches
At the time of the Reformation the Reformed adhered strictly to the doctrine of the early Church. This is apparent from the different Confessions adopted by the several Reformed bodies, especially from the Second Helvetic Confession, which, as will be seen, reviews and rejects all the ancient heresies on this subject, and repeats and
adopts the language of the ancient creeds. In this Confession it is said: "Credimus præterea et docemus filium Dei Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum ab æterno prædestinatum vel præordinatum esse, a Patre, salvatorem mundi: credimusque hunc esse genitum, non tantum, cum ex virgine Maria carnem assumsit, nec tantum ante jacta fundamenta mundi, sed ante omnem æternitatem, et quidem, a Patre, ineffabiliter.… Proinde Filius est Patri juxta divinitatem coæqualis et consubstantialis, Deus verus, non nuncupatione, aut adoptione, aut ulla dignatione, sed substantia atque natura.… Abominamur ergo Arii et omnium Arianorum impiam contra filium Dei doctrinam.… Eundem quoque æterni Dei æternum filium credimus et docemus hominis factum esse filium, ex semine Abrahæ atque Davidis, non ex viri coitu, quod Hebion dixit, sed conceptum purissime ex Spiritu Sancto, et natum ex Maria semper virgine: … Caro ergo Christi, nec phantastica fuit, nec cœlitus allata, sicuti Valentinus et Martion somniabant. Præterea anima fuit Domino nostro non absque sensu et ratione, ut Apollinaris sentiebat, neque caro absque anima, ut Eunomius docebat, sed anima cum ratione sua, et caro cum sensibus suis, per quos sensus, veros dolores tempore passionis suæ sustinuit.… Agnoscimus ergo in uno atque eodem Domino nostro Jesu Christo, duas naturas [vel substantias, as it is in several editions], divinam et humanam: et has ita dicimus conjunctas et unitas esse, ut absorptæ, aut confusæ, aut immixtæ non sint: sed salvis potius et permanentibus naturarum proprietatibus, in una persona, unitæ et conjunctæ; ita ut unum Christum Dominum, non duos veneremur: unum inquam verum Deum et hominem, juxta divinam naturam Patri, juxta humanam vero nobis hominibus consubstantialem, et per omnia similem, peccato excepto. Etenim, ut Nestorianum dogma ex uno Christo duos faciens, et unionem personae dissolvens, abominamur: ita Eutychetis et Monothelitarum vel Monophysicorum vesaniam, expungentem naturæ humanæ proprietatem execramur penitus. Ergo minime docemus naturam in Christo divinam passam esse, aut Christum secundum humanam naturam adhuc esse in hoc mundo, adeoque esse ubique. Neque enim vel sentimus, vel docemus veritatem corporis Christi a clarificatione desiisse, aut deificatam, adeoque sic
deificatam esse, ut suas proprietates, quoad corpus et animam, deposuerit, ac prorsus in naturam divinam abierat, unaque duntaxat substantia esse cœperit.… Præterea credimus Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, vere passum et mortuum esse pro nobis.… Interim non negamus et Dominum gloriæ, juxta verba Pauli, crucifixum esse pro nobis. Nam communicationem idiomatum, ex scripturis petitam, et ab universa vetustate in explicandis componendisque scripturarum locis in speciem pugnantibus usurpatam, religiose et reverenter recipimus et usurpamus."
It thus appears that the Reformed distinctly rejected all the errors concerning the person of Christ, condemned in the early Church; the Arian, the Ebionitic, the Gnostic, the Apollinarian, the Nestorian, the Eutychian, and the Monothelite, as well as the peculiar Lutheran doctrine introduced at the time of the Reformation. The Reformed taught what the first six general councils taught, and what the Church universal received,—neither more nor less. With this agrees the beautifully clear and precise statement of the Westminster Confession: "The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance, and equal with the Father, did, when the fulness of time was come, take upon Him man's nature, and and all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin: being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man."
§ 7. Lutheran Doctrine
The Lutherans in their symbols adopt all the doctrinal decisions of the early Church respecting the person of Christ. They therefore hold, (1.) That Christ is very God and very man. (2.) That He has two distinct natures, a human and divine; that as to the latter He is consubstantial with the Father, and as to the former He is
consubstantial with men. (3.) That He is one person. There is one Christ and not two. (4.) That the two natures are intimately united, but without confusion or change. Each nature retains its own peculiar properties. Nevertheless they hold that the attributes of the one nature were communicated to the other. They admit a "communio idiomatum" in the sense that whatever is true of either nature is true of the person. But beyond this they insist upon a "communicatio naturarum." And by nature, in this connection, they mean essence. In their symbols and writings the formula "natura, seu substantia, seu essentia" is of frequent occurrence. The divine essence is communicated to the human. The one interpenetrates the other. They "are mixed" (commiscentur). They do not become one essence, but remain two; yet where the one is the other is; what the one does the other does. The human is as truly divine as the eternal essence of the Godhead, except that it is not divine ex se, but by communication. (5.) As however it would be derogatory to the divine nature to suppose it to be subject to the limitations and infirmities of humanity, this communication of attributes is said to be confined to the human nature. It receives divine perfections; but the divine receives nothing from the human. (6.) The human nature of Christ, therefore, is almighty, omniscient, and everywhere present both as to soul and body. (7.) As this transfer of divine attributes from the divine to the human nature is the consequence of the incarnation, or rather constitutes it, it began when the incarnation began, and consequently in the womb of the Virgin Mary. (8.) The humiliation of Christ consisted mainly in the hiding or not using the divine perfections of his human nature while here on earth; and his exaltation in the manifestation of the divine glory of his humanity. On this subject the "Form of Concord" says, "Eamque Majestatem, ratione unionis personalis, semper Christus habuit: sed in statu suæ humiliationis sese exinanivit; qua de causa revera ætate, sapientia et gratia apud Deum atque homines profecit. Quare majestatem illam non semper, sed quoties ipsi visum fuit, exseruit, donec formam servi, non autem naturam humanam, post resurrectionem plene et prorsus deponeret, ut in plenariam usurpationem, manifestationem et declarationem divinæ majestatis collocaretur, et hoc modo in
gloriam suam ingrederetur." (9.) Nevertheless Christ while here on earth, and even when in the womb of the Virgin, was as to his soul and body everywhere present.
The above statement is believed to be a correct exhibition of the doctrine of the Lutheran Church as presented in the eighth chapter of the "Form of Concord." There is, however, no little difficulty in determining what the Lutheran doctrine really is. The Christology of Luther, although very clear and pronounced on certain points, was indefinite and doubtful in others. His successors differed seriously among themselves. It was one of the principal objects of the "Form of Concord" to settle the matters in dispute. This was done by compromise. Both parties made concessions, and yet both insisted upon the assertion of their peculiar views in one part or other of that document. It is, therefore, difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile some portions of the "Form of Concord" with others. It did not in fact put an end to the divisions which it was designed to heal.
Different Views among the Lutherans
The principal points of difference among the Lutheran divines concerning the person of Christ were the following: The nature and effects of the union of natures in Christ; the ground of that union; and the time of its occurrence. The Reformed Church in adhering to the doctrine as it had been settled in the Council of Chalcedon, maintained that there is such an essential difference between the divine and human natures that the one could not become the other, and that the one was not capable of receiving the attributes of the other. If God became the subject of the limitations of humanity He would cease to be God; and if man received the attributes of God he would cease to be man. This was regarded as a self-evident truth. The "communion of attributes" which the Reformed, in accordance with the common faith of the Church, admitted, concerned only the person and not the natures of Christ. Christ possessed all the attributes of humanity and of divinity, but the two natures remained distinct; just as a man is the subject of all that can be predicated of
his body and of his soul, although the attributes of the one are not predicable of the other. The Lutherans maintained that, according to this view, the two natures were as separate as duo asseres agglutinatos. This they pronounced to be no real incarnation. The Reformed acknowledged that Jesus Christ the son of the Virgin Mary is a divine person, but denied that his human nature was divine. The Lutherans maintained that man became God, and that the human did become divine. Otherwise, Christ as clothed in our nature, could not be an object of divine worship. As though we could not reverence a man unless we believed that the attributes of his mind were transferred to his body.
Although the Lutheran theologians agree as to the fact that the man Christ Jesus became God, they differ as to the mode in which this was accomplished. Their language as to the fact is as strong as it can be made. Thus Brentius, the friend of Luther and the Reformer of Würtemberg, in his work "De Personali Unione," says, If the Logos "did not intend to remain either personally or with his nature outside of Christ, but purposed to become man, He must needs exalt the humanity into his own majesty. Therein, in fact, consists the incarnation, that the man Christ not merely never existed or worked without the Logos, but also that the Logos never existed or worked without the man, whom He had assumed; and as this was only possible through the elevation of the humanity to equal dignity with the Logos, the incarnation consists precisely in this elevation,—the one is identical with the other." "According to the philosophy of Zwingli, there is no proportion between the finite and the infinite; but in the philosophy of God, finite humanity also may become infinite."2 The human nature of Christ, therefore, possesses all divine attributes. It fills heaven and earth. It is omniscient and almighty. In the "Form of Concord" it is said, "Itaque non tantum ut Deus, verum etiam ut homo, omnia novit, omnia potest, omnibus creaturis præsens est, et omnia, quæ in cœlis, in terris et sub terra sunt, sub pedibus suis et in manu sua habet." And again,4 "Non in Christo sunt duæ separatæ personæ, sed unica tantum est persona. Ubicunque ea est, ibi est unica tantum et indivisa persona. Et
ubicunque recte dixeris: hic est Deus, ibi fateri oportet, et dicere, ergo etiam Christus homo adest." This being the case, it being admitted that man becomes God, that the human becomes divine, the finite infinite, the question arises, How can this be? How is divinity thus communicated to humanity? It is in the answer to these questions that the diversities and inconsistencies in the views not only of theologians but also of the symbolical books, appear. It was a principle with the Wittenberg school of the Lutheran theologians that human nature is not capable of divinity. This is true also of Chemnitz, the greatest of the divines of the age after the Reformation. In his work "De Duabus Naturis in Christo, de Hypostatica Earum Unione, de Communicatione Idiomatum," etc., says Dorner, "he controverts in the most vigorous manner, a 'physica, naturalis communicatio,' or 'transfusio idiomatum;' and no less earnestly does he deny the 'capacitas' of a 'natura finita' for the 'infinitum,' if it signify more than that the divine can dwell and work in man." As to the ubiquity of Christ's body, the dissent was still more decided.6 Yet this idea of the capacity of human nature for divinity became the formative idea in the Lutheran doctrine of the person of Christ.
No less diversity appears in the answer to the question, What is meant by the communication of natures? Sometimes it is said to be a communication of the essence of God to the human nature of Christ; sometimes a communication of divine attributes; and sometimes it is said to mean nothing more than that the human is made the organ of the divine. The first has symbolical authority in its favour, and is the most consistent with the theory. It is the proper meaning of the words, for as natura in the "Form of Concord" is constantly in this connection explained by the words substantia and essentia, a communication of nature is a communication of essence. The one is not changed into the other, but they are intermingled and mixed without being confounded.
The favorite illustration of this union of two natures was derived from heated iron. In that case (according to the theory of heat then in
vogue) two substances are united. The one interpenetrates the other. The iron receives the attributes of the caloric. It glows and burns. Where the iron is, there the caloric is. Yet the one is not changed into the other. The iron remains iron, and the heat remains heat. This is very ingenious; but, as is often the case, the analogy fails in the very point to be illustrated. The fact to be explained is how man becomes God and God man; how the human becomes divine, and the finite becomes infinite. In the illustration the heat does not become iron nor the iron heat. The only relation between the two is juxtaposition in space. But in the doctrine the human does become divine; man does become God.
A second and minor point of difference was that some referred the communion of the attributes of the two natures to the hypostatical union, while others held that that union was the result of the communication of the divine nature to the human.
The main difficulty, however, and the principal source of diversity related to the time and manner of the union of the two natures. We have already seen that one party held that this union took place at the moment of the "miraculous conception." The conception was the ascension. As the union of the divine with the human nature rendered the human divine, it became instanter omnipresent, almighty, and infinitely exalted. The effect of the incarnation was that the λόγος no longer existed extra carnem, neither was the caro extra λόγον. Whatever the one is the other is; whatever the one knows the other knows; whatever the one does the other does; and whatever majesty, glory, or blessedness the one has the other also has. "So certainly as the act of incarnation communicates the divine essence to humanity, even so certainly must this actual omnipresence, and not merely its potence, which does not exist, be communicated to the flesh of Christ." The "Form of Concord" teaches the same doctrine;2 it says, "Ex eodem etiam fundamento credimus, docemus et confitemur, Filium hominis ad dexteram omnipotentis majestatis et virtutis Dei, realiter, hoc est, vere et reipsa, secundum humanam suam naturam, esse exaltatum, cum homo ille in Deum
assumptus fuerit, quamprimum in utero matris a Spiritu Sancto est confectus, ejusque humanitas jam tum cum Filio Dei altissimi personaliter fuerit unita." This, however, supposes the whole earthly life of Christ to be an illusion. There could be no growth or development of his human nature. He was omniscient and omnipotent when an unborn infant. The Bible says He increased in knowledge; this theory says that He knew all things from the beginning; that He was the ruler of the universe coöperating in all the activity of the Logos when in the womb of the Virgin; that He was supremely blessed as to his human nature when in the garden and upon the cross; and that as to soul and body He was living while lying in the grave. If this be so He never suffered or died, and there has been no redemption through his blood.
To avoid these fatal consequences of their theory, the Lutherans were driven to different and conflicting subtle explanations. According to some there was no actual communication of the divine essence and attributes to the human nature until after his resurrection. The Logos was in Him only potentially. There was on the part of the divine nature a retractio, or ἡσυχάζειν, or quiescence, so that it was as though it were not there. According to others, there was a voluntary κρύψις or veiling of itself or of its divine glory on the part of the humanity of Christ. According to others, this humiliation was rather the act of the Godman, who only occasionally revealed the fact that the human nature was divine. No explanation could meet the difficulties of the case, because they are inseparable from the assumption that the human nature of Christ was replete with divine attributes from the moment of its miraculous conception. It is a contradiction to say that the same individual mind was omniscient and yet was ignorant and increased in knowledge; that the same rational soul was supremely happy and exceeding sorrowful, at the same time; that the same body was potentially alive and yet actually dead. From the nature of the case there can be no difference between the κτῆσις and χρῆσις of such divine attributes as omniscience and omnipresence. It would require a volume to give the details of the controversies between the different schools of the Lutheran divines
on these and kindred points. This general outline is all that can here be expected.
Remarks on the Lutheran Doctrine
1. The first remark which suggests itself on this Lutheran doctrine is its contrast with the simplicity of the gospel. The New Testament predicates of our Lord Jesus Christ all that can be predicated of a sinless man, and all that can be predicated of a divine person. It is only stating this fact in another form to say that the Bible teaches that the eternal Son of God became man by taking to Himself a true body and a reasonable soul, and so was, and continues to be, God and man, in two entire distinct natures, and one person forever. Whatever is beyond this, is mere speculation. Not content with admitting the fact that two natures are united in the one person of Christ, the Lutheran theologians insist on explaining that fact. They are willing to acknowledge that two natures or substances, soul and body, are united in the one person in man, without pretending to explain the essential nature of the union. Why then can they not receive the fact that two natures are united in Christ without philosophizing about it? The first objection, therefore, is that the Lutheran doctrine is an attempt to explain the inscrutable.
2. A second objection is that the character of the explanation was determined by the peculiar views of Luther as to the Lord's Supper. He believed that the body and blood of Christ are really and locally present in the Eucharist. And when asked, How can the body of Christ which is in heaven be in many different places at the same time? He answered that the body of Christ is everywhere. And when asked, How can that be? His only answer was, That in virtue of the incarnation the attributes of the divine nature were communicated to the human, so that wherever the Logos is there the soul and body of Christ must be.
There are two things specially prominent in Luther as a theologian. The one is his entire subjection to the authority of Scripture, as he
understood it. He seemed, moreover, never to doubt the correctness of his interpretations, nor was he willing to tolerate doubt in others. As to matters not clearly determined in the Bible, according to his view, he was exceedingly tolerant and liberal. But with regard to points which he believed to be taught in the Word of God, he allowed neither hesitation nor dissent. The other marked trait in his character was his power of faith. He could believe not only what was repugnant to his feelings, but what was directly opposed to his system, and even what was in its own nature impossible. His cardinal doctrine was "justification by faith alone," as he translated Romans 3:28. He constantly taught not only that no man could be saved without faith in Christ, but that faith alone was necessary. Yet as he understood our Lord in John 3:5, to teach that baptism is essential to salvation, he asserted its absolute necessity, although sorely against his will. To reconcile this with his doctrine of the necessity and sufficiency of faith, he held that new-born infants, when baptized, exercised faith, although he meant by faith the intelligent, voluntary, and cordial reception of Christ as He is offered in the gospel. In like manner, he hated the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation, and was bitterly opposed to all the subtleties of scholasticism. Yet as he understood our Lord's words, "This is my body," literally, he adopted all the subtleties, inconsistencies, and, we may say, impossibilities, involved in the doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's body. Body includes the idea of form as well as of substance. A man's body is not the water, ammonia, and lime of which it is composed. It is certainly a strong objection to any doctrine that it owes its existence mainly to the desire to support a false interpretation of Scripture.
Lutherans, indeed, deny that their doctrine concerning the person of Christ is thus subordinate to their views of the Lord's Supper. Even Dorner, in one place, seems to take the same ground. Elsewhere, however, he fully admits the fact. Thus when speaking of Luther, he says that he "did not develop his deep and full Christological intuitions in a connected doctrinal form. His controversy with the Swiss, on the contrary, had led him, as we have shown, to the adoption of single divergent principles, which aided in reducing
Christology to the rank of a follower in the train of another doctrine, instead of conceding to it an independent life and sphere of its own." And on the next page he says, "Even the champions of peace between the evangelical parties put their Christology in a position of dependence on the doctrine of the Eucharist, which almost involved the entire loss of the grand features of Luther's doctrine."
3. It is to be objected to the Lutheran doctrine, not only that it undertakes to explain what is an inscrutable mystery, and that the explanation derives its character from Luther's views of the Eucharist, but also that the explanation itself is utterly unsatisfactory. In the first place, it is one sided. It insists on a communication of natures and a communion of attributes. Lutherans maintain that God became man as truly, and in the same sense that man became God. Yet they deny that the divine nature received anything from the human, or that God was in any way subject to the limitations of humanity. Nevertheless, such limitation appears to be involved in the Lutheran doctrine of Christ's humiliation. The idea is that after the incarnation the Logos is not extra carnem, that all his activity is with and through the activity of his humanity; and yet it is affirmed that the humanity did not exercise, while on earth, except occasionally, its divine perfections. This seems of necessity to involve the admission that the Logos did not exercise those perfections during the period of the humiliation. That is, while Christ was on earth, the knowledge and power of the Logos were measured and circumscribed by the knowledge and power of the human soul of Christ. This is the modern doctrine of κένωσις which Luther rejected. He refused, says Dorner, "to purchase an actual growth of the divine-human vital unity at the price of a depotentiation or self-emptying of the Logos."
In the second place, the doctrine in question is destitute of any Scriptural support. Almost all the arguments derived from the Scriptures, urged by Lutherans, are founded on passages in which the person of Christ is denominated from his human nature when divine attributes or prerogatives are ascribed to Him; whence it is
inferred that those attributes and prerogatives belong to his humanity. Thus because it is said, "The Son of Man is in heaven," it is inferred that the human nature, i.e., the soul and body of Christ, were in heaven while He was on earth. But they do not carry out the principle, and argue that because Christ is denominated from his divine nature when the limitations of humanity are ascribed to Him, that therefore his divine nature is limited. But if his being called God when He is said to have purchased the Church with his blood, does not prove that the divine nature suffered death, neither does his being called the Son of Man when He is said to be in heaven, prove the ubiquity of his humanity. Still less force is due to the argument from passages in which the Theanthropos is the subject to which divine perfections and prerogatives are ascribed. That our Lord said, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth," no more proves that his human nature is almighty, than his saying, "Before Abraham was I am," proves that his humanity is eternal. If saying that man is a rational creature does not imply that his body thinks, saying that Jesus Christ is God, does not imply that his human nature is divine. If the personal union between the soul and body in man, does not imply that the attributes of the soul are communicated to the body, then the personal union of the two natures in Christ does not imply that the divine attributes are communicated to his humanity.
In the third place, the Lutheran doctrine destroys the integrity of the human nature of Christ. A body which fills immensity is not a human body. A soul which is omniscient, omnipresent, and almighty, is not a human soul. The Christ of the Bible and of the human heart is lost if this doctrine be true.
In the fourth place, the Lutheran doctrine is contrary to the entire drift of the teaching of the Word of God, and of the whole Church. If anything is plainly revealed in the Scriptures concerning our Lord, and if there is anything to which the heart of the believer instinctively clings, it is that although He is God over all and blessed forever, He is nevertheless a man like ourselves; bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; one who can be touched with a sense of our
infirmities; and who knows from his own experience and present consciousness, what a weak and infirm thing human nature is. He became and continues a man that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God. But a man whose body and soul fill immensity, who "as man" is omniscient and omnipotent, as just said, ceases to be a man. His humanity is merged into divinity, and He becomes not God and man, but simply God, and we have lost our Saviour, the Jesus of the Bible, who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, who was one with us in his humanity, and therefore can sympathize with us and save us.
Finally, it is a fatal objection to the doctrine under consideration that it involves the physical impossibility that attributes are separable from the substances of which they are the manifestation. This is the same kind of impossibility as action without something acting; or, motion without something moving. It is an objection urged by Lutherans as well as others against the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation that it supposes the accidents, or attributes of the bread and wine in the Eucharist, to continue when their substance no longer exists. In like manner, according to the Lutheran doctrine, the attributes of the divine nature or essence are transferred to another essence. If there be no such transfer or communication, then the human nature of Christ is no more omniscient or almighty, than the worker of a miracle is omnipotent. If the divine nature only exercises its omnipotence in connection with the activity of the humanity, then the humanity is the mere organ or instrument of the divine nature. This idea, however, the Lutherans repudiate. They admit that for God to exercise his power, when Peter said to the lame man, "Rise up and walk," was something entirely different from rendering Peter omnipotent. Besides, omnipresence and omniscience are not attributes of which a creature can be made the organ. Knowledge is something subjective. If a mind knows everything, then that mind, and not another in connection with it, is omniscient. If Christ's body is everywhere present, then it is the substance of that body, and not the essence of God that is omnipresent. The Lutheran doctrine is, however, that the essential
attributes or properties of the two natures remain unchanged after the hypostatical union. The properties of the divine essence do not become the properties of the human. Then the humanity of Christ has the attributes of his divinity without its essence, and yet those attributes or properties do not inhere in his human substance.
It seems a plain contradiction in terms, to say that the human becomes divine, that the finite becomes infinite; and no less a contradiction to say that the humanity of Christ has infinite attributes and yet itself is not infinite.
The Lutheran doctrine of the Person of Christ has never been disconnected from the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper. Both are peculiar to that Church and form no part of Catholic Christianity.
§ 8. Later Forms of the Doctrine
During the period between the Reformation and the present time, the doctrine concerning the Person of Christ was constantly under discussion. The views advanced however were, for the most part, referrible to the one or other of the forms of the doctrine already considered. The only theories calling for special notice are Socinianism and that of the Preëxistent Humanity of Christ.
Socinianism
Socinus was an Italian, born of a noble family at Siena, in 1539. The earlier part of his life was not devoted to learning. Being a favourite of the Grand Duke, he passed twelve years at his court, and then removed to Basel that he might prosecute his theological studies, in which he had become deeply interested. After a few years he removed to Poland and settled at Cracow. There and in its vicinity he passed the greater part of his active life. He died in 1604.
The early Socinians erected a college at Racovia, in Lesser Poland, which attained so high a reputation that it attracted students from among Protestants and Romanists. It was however suppressed by the
government in 1658, and the followers of Socinus, after having suffered a protracted persecution, were expelled from the kingdom.
Socinus and his followers admitted the divine authority of the Scriptures. The sacred writers, they said, wrote, divino Spiritu impulsi eoque dictante. They admitted that the Bible contained doctrines above, but not contrary to reason. Of this contrariety reason was to judge. On this ground they rejected many doctrines held by the Church universal, especially the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Atonement. Socinus said that as there is but one divine essence there can be but one divine person. He denied that there is any such thing as natural religion or natural theology. Supernatural revelation he regarded as the only source of our knowledge of God and of divine things. The only religion was the Christian, which he defined to be "Via divinitus proposita et patefacta perveniendi ad immortalitatem, seu æternam vitam." This is the answer to the first question of the "Brevissima Institutio," of which Socinus was the author.
All men having sinned they became subject to the penalty of eternal death, which Socinus understood to be annihilation. To deliver men from this penalty God sent Christ into the world, and it is only through Him that immortality can be secured. Concerning Christ, he taught that He was in Himself and by nature a mere man, having had no existence prior to his being born of the Virgin Mary. He was, however, distinguished from all other men,—
1. By his miraculous conception.
2. Although peccable and liable to be tempted, He was entirely free from sin.
3. He received a special baptism of the Holy Ghost, that is, of the divine efficiency.
4. Some time before entering upon his public ministry He was taken up into heaven that He might see God and be instructed immediately
by Him. There are two passages which speak of Christ's having been in heaven (John 3:13, and John 6:62). "In priore loco," says Socinus, "ex Græco ita verba Christi legi possunt, ut dicat, filium hominis non quidem esse in cœlo, sed fuisse. Vox enim Græca ὤν quæ per præsens tempus reddita fuit, potest, ut doctissimi aliqui interpretes annotarunt (Erasmus et Beza), reddi per præteritum imperfectum; ut legatur non qui est, sed, qui erat in cœlo." As no preëxistence of Christ was admitted, these passages were regarded as direct assertions of his being taken up into heaven during his earthly life.
5. The great distinction of Christ is that since his resurrection and ascension all power in heaven and in earth has been committed to Him. He is exalted above all creatures, and constituted God's viceroy over the whole universe. The question is asked, "Quid tamen istud ejus divinum imperium nominatim complectitur?" To which the answer is, "Propter id quod jam dictum est, nempe quod hoc potestatem complectitur plenissimam et absolutissimam in verum Dei populum, hinc necessario sequitur, eodem divino imperio contineri potestatem et dominationem in omnes angelos et spiritus tam malos, quam bonos." And again: "Nonne ex eadem tua ratiocinatione sequitur, Jesum Christum in omnes homines plenum dominatum habere? Sine dubio; nec solum in omnes homines sed praeter ipsum unum Deum 1 Cor. 15:27, prorsus in alia omnia, quemadmodum divina testimonia nos diserte docent."
6. On account of this exaltation and authority Christ is properly called God, and is to be worshipped. Socinus would recognize no man as a Christian who was not a worshipper of Christ. The answer to Question 246 in the Racovian Catechism, declares those "qui Christum non invocant nec adorandum censent," to be no Christians, because in fact they have no Christ.
7. Socinus acknowledges that men owe their salvation to Christ. He saves them not only in his character of prophet by teaching them the truth; not only in his character of priest by interceding for them; but especially in virtue of his kingly office. He exercises the divine and
absolute power and authority granted to Him for their protection and assistance. He operates not only over them and for them, but also within them, so that it is through Him that immortality or eternal life is secured.
From all this it appears that Socinus and his early followers held much more exalted views of Christ than those who in Great Britain and America are called Socinians, by whom our Lord is regarded as an ordinary man. The term Unitarian, especially in this country, is used in a sense which includes all who deny the doctrine of the Trinity and retain the name of Christians. It therefore includes Arians, Semi-Arians, genuine Socinians, and Humanitarians.
Preëxistence of Christ's Humanity
Swedenborg
This theory has been held in different forms. The doctrine of Swedenborg is so mystical that it is very difficult to be clearly understood, and it has been modified in a greater or less degree by his recognized disciples. Swedenborg was the son of a Swedish bishop. He was born in January, 1688, and died in March, 1772. He enjoyed every advantage of early education. He manifested extraordinary precocity, and made such attainments in every branch of learning as to gain the highest rank among the literati of that day. He wrote numerous works in all the departments of science before he turned his attention to matters of religion. Believing that the existing Church in all its forms had failed to arrive at the true sense of Scripture, he regarded himself as called by God, in an extraordinary or miraculous manner, to reveal the hidden meaning of the Word of God and found a new Church.
1. Concerning God, he taught that He was not only essence but form, and that that form was human. He called God "the eternal Godman." There are two kinds of bodies, material and spiritual. Every man, besides his external material body has another which is
internal and spiritual. The latter has all the organs of the former, so that it can see, hear, and feel. At death the outer body is laid aside, and the soul thereafter acts through the ethereal or spiritual vestment. This is the only resurrection which Swedenborg admitted. There is no rising again of the bodies laid in the grave. As however the spiritual corresponds to the material, those who know each other in this world will enjoy mutual recognition in the world to come. This feature of his anthropology is connected with his doctrine concerning God. For as the soul from its nature forms for itself a body for action ad extra, so the essence of God forms for itself a spiritual body for external manifestation.
As there is but one divine essence, Swedenborg maintained that there can be but one divine person. The Church doctrine of the Trinity he regarded as Tritheistic. He admitted a Trinity of principles, but not of persons. As soul and body in man are one person, and from them proceeds the activity which operates without, so in God the divine and human are the Father and the Son, as one person, and the Holy Spirit is their efficiency or sanctifying influence.
2. Concerning man, Swedenborg taught that he was created in the image of God, and was a creature of a very exalted nature. The Scriptural account of the fall he understood allegorically of the apostasy of the Church. Men, however, he admits, are sinful, and are even born with a bias to evil, but they have not lost their ability to do good. They consequently need redemption. They are susceptible of being delivered from evil not only because they retain their moral liberty, but also because in virtue of the inward spiritual body they are capable of intercourse with spiritual beings. As man by means of his material body is conversant with the world of sense, so in virtue of his spiritual body he is capable of intercourse with the inhabitants of the spiritual world. Swedenborg reports many instances in which he conversed with God and angels, good and bad. By angels, however, he meant men who had departed this life. He did not admit the existence of any created intelligence other than man.
3. Christ he held to be Jehovah, the only living and true God, the creator, preserver, and ruler of the world. As this divine person was God and man from eternity, his incarnation, or manifestation in the flesh, consisted in his assuming a material body with its psychical life in the womb of the Virgin Mary. This was the body which grew, suffered, and died. In the case of ordinary men the material body is left forever in the grave, but in the case of Christ the outward body was gradually refined and glorified until it was lost in that which is spiritual and eternal. This idea of a twofold body in Christ is not by any means peculiar to Swedenborg. Barclay, the representative theologian of the Quakers, says: "As there was the outward visible body and temple of Jesus Christ, which took its origin from the Virgin Mary: there is also the spiritual body of Christ, by and through which He that was the Word in the beginning with God, and was and is God, did reveal Himself to the sons of men in all ages, and whereby men in all ages come to be made partakers of eternal life, and to have communion and fellowship with God and Christ." And again, P. Poiret, of Amsterdam, teaches that "La Majesté divine voulut couvrir son corps glorieux de notre chair mortelle, qu'il voulut prendre dans le sein d'une Vierge." "Le corps de Jésus Christ, se revêtant de la chair et du sang de la bien heureuse Vierge, fera aussi peu un composé de deux corps différents, qu'un habit blanc et lumineux plongé dans un vase de couleur chargée et obscure, ou il se charge de la matière, qui produit cette opacité, ne devient pour cela un habit double ou deux habits, au lieu d'un."
4. Christ's redemptive work does not consist in his bearing our sins upon the tree, or in making satisfaction to the justice of God for our offences. All idea of such satisfaction Swedenborg rejects. The work of salvation is entirely subjective. Justification is pardon granted on repentance. The people of God are made inwardly righteous, and being thus holy are admitted to the presence of God and holy spirits in heaven. His peculiar views of the state of the departed, or of Heaven and Hell, do not call for consideration in this place.
Isaac Watts
No one familiar with Dr. Watts' "Psalms and Hymns," can doubt his being a devout worshipper of our Lord Jesus Christ, or call in question his belief in the doctrine of the Trinity. Yet on account of his peculiar views on the person of Christ, there is a vague impression that he had in some way departed from the faith of the Church. It is, indeed, often said that he was Arian. In his works, however, there is a dissertation on "The Christian Doctrine of the Trinity: or, Father, Son, and Spirit, three persons and one God, asserted and proved, with their divine Rights and Honors vindicated, by plain evidence of Scripture, without the aid or incumbrance of human Schemes. Written chiefly for the use of private Christians." In that dissertation the common Church doctrine is presented in the usual form, and sustained by the common arguments, with singular perspicuity and force.
His peculiar views on the person of Christ are brought out in three discourses on "The Glory of Christ as God-man," published in 1746. In the first of these he refers to the "visible appearances of Christ, as God before his incarnation," and brings into view all the texts in which He is called Jehovah, God, and Lord, and those in which divine attributes and prerogatives are ascribed to Him.
In the second, he treats of the "extensive powers of the human nature of Christ in its present glorified state." In a previous essay he took the position that the "human soul of Christ is the first, the greatest, the wisest, the holiest, and the best of all created spirits." He argues this point from all those passages of Scripture which speak of the exaltation of Christ and of the gift to Him of absolutely universal dominion. As the divine nature of Christ does not admit of exaltation or of receiving anything as a gift, he inferred that these passages must be understood of his human nature, and therefore that Christ as a man must be regarded as exalted over all created beings. To the objection, "How is it possible that a human spirit should be endued with powers of so vast an extent?" he answers, first, that the power in question is not infinite; and secondly, that if the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of matter be true, we cannot fix the minimum of
smallness, and how then can we determine the maximum of greatness. "Why," he asks, "may not the human soul of Christ be as well appointed to govern the world, as the soul of man is appointed to govern his body, when it is evident the soul of man does not know one thousandth part of the fine branchings of the muscles and nerves, and the more refined vapour or animal spirits which are parts of this body?"3 Thirdly, we can hardly set a limit even to our own capacity; and yet the "soul of Christ may be reasonably supposed in its own nature to transcend the powers of all other souls as far as an angel exceeds an idiot, and yet be but a human soul still, for gradus non mutant speciem." Fourthly, if the powers of the soul of Christ were not in his state of humiliation sufficient for the purposes of government and judgment, that does not prove that they are not now sufficient in his glorified estate. "Who knows what 'amazing enlargement may attend all the natural powers of man when advanced to a state of glory?' "5 Fifthly, and mainly, this supreme exaltation of the power of the human soul of Christ is due to its union with the divine nature. It was because of this union that when the soul of Christ, while here on earth, willed to perform a miracle, the effect immediately followed. So "the man Christ may give forth all the commands of God whereby the world is governed." "Upon this representation of things," he adds, "the various language of Scripture appears to be true, and is made very intelligible. Christ says 'He can do nothing of Himself, He knew not the day of judgment' when He was here on earth, etc., and yet He is said to 'know the hearts of men, and to know all things'; for as fast as the divine mind united to Him was pleased to communicate all these ideas, so fast was his human nature capable of receiving them."2
The third discourse is devoted to proving the preëxistence of the human soul of Christ. He argues from the fact that there are many expressions in the Bible, which seem to imply that He had a dependent nature before He came into this world. He is called the angel or messenger of God, and is represented as sent to execute his will. He urges also the fact that He is said to be the image of God. But the divine essence or nature cannot be the image of itself. That term
can only apply to a created nature united to the divine, so that the "complex person" thus constituted, should reveal what God is. An argument is also drawn from all those passages in which Christ is said to have humbled Himself, to have become poor, to have made Himself of no reputation. All this cannot, he says, be properly understood of the divine nature, but is perfectly intelligible and full of meaning if referred to the human soul of our Lord. It was an act of unspeakable condescension for the highest intelligent creature to "empty Himself" and become as ignorant and feeble as an infant, and to submit not only to grow in wisdom, but to subject Himself to the infirmities and sufferings of our mortal state. If asked how so exalted an intellect can be reduced to the condition or state of an infant, he answers, that something analogous to this not unfrequently occurs, even in human experience. Men of mature age and of extensive learning have lost all their knowledge, and have been reduced to the necessity of learning it all over again, though in some cases it has returned suddenly. It was the same nature that emptied itself that was afterwards filled with glory as a recompense. Another argument for the preëxistence of the soul of Christ, he says, may be drawn from the fact that his incarnation " 'is always expressed in some corporeal language, such as denotes his taking on Him animal nature, or body, or flesh, without the least mention of taking a soul.' "
Again, " 'The covenant betwixt God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ for the redemption of mankind, is represented in Scripture as being made and agreed upon from or before the foundation of the world. Is it not then most proper that both real parties should be actually present, and that this should not be transacted merely within the divine essence by such sort of distinct personalities as have no distinct mind and will? The essence of God is generally agreed by our Protestant divines to be the same single numerical essence in all three personalities, and therefore it can be but one conscious mind or spirit. Now can one single understanding and will make such a covenant as Scripture represents?' I grant the divine nature which is in Christ from eternity contrived and agreed all the parts of this covenant. But does it not add a lustre and glory, and
more conspicuous equity, to this covenant, to suppose the man Christ Jesus who is most properly the mediator according to 1 Tim. 2:5, to be also present before the world was made, to be chosen and appointed as the redeemer or reconciler of mankind, to be then ordained the head of his future people, to receive promises, grace, and blessings in their name, and to accept the solemn and weighty trust from the hand of his Father, that is, to take care of millions of souls?"
He also argues from what the Bible teaches of the Sonship of Christ. "When He is called a Son, a begotten Son, this seems to imply derivation and dependency; and perhaps the Sonship of Christ, and his being the only begotten of the Father, may be better explained by attributing it to his human soul, existing by some peculiar and immediate manner of creation, formation, or derivation from the Father, before other creatures were formed; especially if we include in the same idea of Sonship his union to the divine nature, and if we add also his exaltation to the office of the Messiah, as King and Lord of all."
Dr. Watts explains clearly what he means by the preëxistence of the humanity of Christ, when he says: "All the idea which I have of a human soul is this, namely, a created mind or spirit which hath understanding and will, and rational powers, and which is fit to be united to a human body, in such a manner as to exert the powers of a man, to feel the appetites and sensibilities and passions of a man, as to receive impressions or sensations, whether pleasant or painful, by the means of that body, and is also able to actuate and influence all the animal powers of that body in a way agreeable to human nature."
The above is very far from being a full exposition of the considerations urged by Dr. Watts in support of his theory. It is simply a selection of the more plausible of his arguments presented in order that his doctrine may be properly understood.
It appears that he believed in the eternal Godhead of the Logos as the second person of the Trinity; and that God, before any other creatures were called into existence, created a human soul in personal union with the Logos of such exalted powers as to render him the greatest of all created spirits; that the incarnation consisted in this complex person assuming a material human body with its animal life; that the humiliation of Christ consisted in his human soul thus exalted in its own nature, emptying itself of its knowledge, power, and glory, and submitting not only to the gradual development of his humanity, but also to all that made our Lord while here on earth a man of sorrows. His exaltation consisted in the enlargement of the powers of his soul during his state of humiliation, and in his resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God.
Objections
The more obvious objections to this theory are,—
1. That it is contrary to the common faith of the Church, and, therefore, to the obvious sense of Scripture. The Bible in teaching that the Son of God became man, thereby teaches that He assumed a true body and a rational soul. For neither a soul without a body, nor a body without a soul, is a man in the Scriptural sense of the term. It was the Logos which became man; and not a God-man that assumed a material body.
2. The passages of Scripture cited in its support are interpreted, for the most part, in violation of the recognized principle that whatever is true of either nature in Christ, may be predicated of his person. As Christ could say, "I thirst," without implying that his divine nature was subject to the wants of a material body; so He could say, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth," without teaching that such power vests in his humanity.
3. The doctrine that Christ's human soul was the first and most exalted of created spirits, raises Him beyond the reach of human
sympathies. He is, as man, farther from us than the angel Gabriel. We need, and the Bible reveals to us a, so to speak, more circumscribed Saviour, one who, although true God, is nevertheless a man like unto his brethren, whom we can embrace in the arms of our faith and love.
§ 9. Modern Forms of the Doctrine
Dorner, in the first edition of his work on the "Person of Christ," says that the Lutheran theology carried the attempt to preserve the unity of Christ's person, on the Church assumption that He possessed two distinct natures, to the utmost extreme. If that attempt be a failure, nothing more remains. He holds it to be a failure not only because it involves the impossible assumption of a transfer of attributes without a change of substance, but also because it is one-sided. It refuses to admit of the communication of human attributes to the divine nature, whilst it insists on the transfer of divine perfections to the human nature. And moreover, he urges, that admitting all the Lutheran theory claims, the union of the two natures remains just as unreal as it is on the Church doctrine. Any distinction of natures, in the ordinary sense of the words, must, he says, be given up. It is on this assumption that the modern views of the person of Christ are founded. These views may be divided into two classes, the Pantheistical and the Theistical. These two classes, however, have a good deal in common. Both are founded on the principle of the oneness of God and man. This is admitted on all sides. "The characteristic feature of all recent Christologies," says Dorner, "is the endeavour to point out the essential unity of the divine and human." The heading of the section in which this admission occurs, is, "The Foundations of the New Christology laid by Schelling, Hegel, Schleiermacher." This is equivalent to saying that the New Christology is founded on the principles of the pantheistic philosophy. Baur3 says the same thing. He entitles the last division of his work on the Trinity, "Die gegenseitige Durchdringung der Philosophie und der Theologie," i.e., The mutual interpenetration of Philosophy and Theology. The latter is merged into the former. Dr.
Ullmann says, the doctrine of the oneness of God and man, which he represents as the fundamental idea of Schleiermacher's theology and of Christianity itself, is not entirely new. It was inculcated by the German Mystics of the Middle Ages. Hegel says that what the Bible teaches of Christ is not true of an individual, but only of mankind as a whole; and Hegel's Christological ideas, Dr. John Nevin of Mercersburg, says, "are very significant and full of instruction."2 The objection that these principles are pantheistical, he pronounces "a mere sound without any force whatever," and adds that we need a Christian pantheism to oppose the antichristian pantheism of the day. Schleiermacher says that a pantheism which holds to the formula "One and All" ("the all-one-doctrine") is perfectly consistent with religion, and differs little in its effects from Monotheism! Similar avowals might be adduced without number. Theologians of this class deny that God and man are essentially different. They repeat, almost with every breath, that God and man are one, and they make this the fundamental idea of Christianity, and especially of Christology.
Pantheistical Christology
As Christian theology purports to be an exhibition of the theology of the Bible, every theory which involves the denial of a personal God, properly lies beyond its sphere. In modern systems, however, there is such a blending of pantheistic principles with theistic doctrines, that the two cannot be kept entirely separate. Pantheistical and theistical theologians, of the modern school, unite in asserting "the oneness of God and man." They understand that doctrine, however, in different senses. With the former it is understood to mean identity, so that man is only the highest existence-form of God; with the others, it often means nothing more than that "natura humana capax est naturæ divinæ." The human is capable of receiving the attributes of the divine. Man may become God.
It follows, in the first place, from the doctrine, that God is the only real Being of which the world is the ever changing phenomenon, that
"die Menschwerdung Gottes ist eine Menschwerdung von Ewigkeit." The incarnation of God is from eternity. And, in the second place, that this process is continuous, complete in no one instance, but only in the whole. Every man is a form of the life of God, but the infinite is never fully realized or revealed in any one manifestation. Some of these philosophers were willing to say that God was more fully manifested in Christ than in any other individual of our race, but the difference between Him and other men is only one of degree. Others say that the peculiar distinction of Christ was that He had a clearer view and a deeper conviction of the identity of God and man than any other man. It all amounts to the summation of the doctrine as given by Strauss. "If," says he, "the idea of the oneness of the divine and human natures, of God and man, be a reality, does it follow that this reality is effected or manifested once for all in a single individual, as never before and never after him?… An idea is never exhibited in all its fulness in a single exemplar; and in all others only imperfectly. An idea is always realized in a variety and multiplicity of exemplars, which complement each other; its richness being diffused by the constant change of individuals, one succeeding or supplanting another.… Mankind, the human race, is the God-man. The key to a true Christology is that the predicates which the Church applies to Christ, as an individual, belong to an idea, or to a generic whole." So Blasche2 says, "We understand by God's becoming man, not the revelation of Himself in one or more of the most perfect of men, but the manifestation of Himself in the race of men (in der ganzen Menschheit)."
Theistical Christology
We have the authority of Dorner for saying that the modern speculations on Christology are founded on the two principles that there is but one nature in Christ, and that human nature is capax naturæ divinæ, is capable of being made divine. To this must be added a third, although Dorner himself does not hold it, that the divine is capable of becoming human.
The advocates of these principles agree, First, in admitting that there was a true growth of the man Christ Jesus. When an infant He was as feeble, as ignorant, and as unconscious of moral character as other infants. When a child He had no more intellectual or physical strength than other children. There is, however, a difference in their mode of statement as to what Christ was during the maturity of his earthly life. According to some, He had no superhuman knowledge or power. All He knew was communicated to Him, some say by the Father, others say by the Logos. The miracles which He wrought were not by his own power, but by the power of God. At the grave of Lazarus He prayed for power to restore his friend to life, or rather that God would raise him from the dead; and He gave thanks that his prayer was heard.
Secondly, they agree that the development of the humanity of our Lord was without sin. He was from the beginning holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. Nevertheless He had to contend with all the infirmities of our nature, and to resist all the temptations arising from the flesh, the world, and the devil, with which his people have to contend. He was liable to sin. As He was subject to hunger, thirst, weariness, and pain, as He had feelings capable of being wounded by ingratitude and insult, He was liable to the impatience and resentment which suffering or injury is adapted to produce. As He was susceptible of pleasure from the love and admiration of others, He was exposed to the temptation of seeking the honour which comes from men. In all things, however, He was without sin.
Thirdly, they agree that it was only gradually that Christ came to the knowledge that He was a divine person, and into the possession and use of divine attributes. Communications of knowledge and power were made to Him from time to time from on high, so that both the knowledge of what He was and the consciousness of the possession of divine perfections came to Him by degrees. Christ's exaltation, therefore, began and was carried on while He was here on earth, but
it was not until his resurrection and ascension that He became truly and forever divine.
Fourthly, since his ascension and session at the right hand of God, He is still a man, and only a man. Nevertheless He is an infinite man. A man with all the characteristics of a human soul possessed of all the perfections of the Godhead. Since his ascension, as Gess expresses it, a man has been taken into the adorable Trinity. "As the glorified Son remains man, a man is thus received into the trinitarian life of the Deity from and by the glorification of the Son." Thomasius says the same thing. "Die immanente Lebensbewegung der drei Personen ist nunmehr gewissermassen eine göttlich-menschliche geworden; … So tief ist in der Person Christi die Menschheit in den Kreis der Trinität hereingenommen—und zwar nicht auf vorübergehende Weise, sondern für immer. Denn der Sohn bleibt ewig Mensch." That is: The immanent life movement of the three persons has now become in a measure divine-human; … so deep has humanity in the person of Christ been taken into the sphere of the Trinity,—and that not in a temporary manner, but forever. For the Son remains man eternally. On the following page he says that humanity, or manhood (Menschsein), has become the permanent existence-form of God the Son. And again2 he says that humanity (das menschliche Geschlecht) is "exalted to full equality with God" (schlecht Gott selbst gleichgesetzt). This would be absolutely impossible were not human nature in its original constitution capable of receiving all divine perfections and of becoming absolutely divine. Accordingly, in this connection, Thomasius says that man is of all creatures the nearest to God. "He must from his nature be capable of full participation in the divine glory; he must be the organ into which the entire fulness of the divine love can be poured, and through which it can adequately act, otherwise we cannot understand how God could appropriate human nature as his own permanent form of existence."
The result of the incarnation, therefore, is that God becomes man in such a sense that the Son of God has no life or activity, no
knowledge, presence, or power outside of or apart from his humanity. In Christ there is but one life, one activity, one consciousness. Every act of the incarnate Logos is a human act, and every experience of the humanity of Christ, all his sorrows, infirmities, and pains, were the experience of the Logos. "The absolute life, which is the being of God, exists in the narrow limits of an earthly-human life; absolute holiness and truth, the essential attributes of God, develop themselves in the form of human thinking and willing; absolute love has assumed a human form, it lives as human feeling, as human sensibility in the heart of this man; absolute freedom has the form of human self-determination. The Son of God has not reserved for Himself a special existence form (ein besonderes Fürsichseyn), a special consciousness, a special sphere or power of action; He does not exist anywhere outside of the flesh (nec Verbum extra carnem nec caro extra Verbum). He has in the totality of his being become man, his existence-and-life-form is that of a corporeal-spiritual man subject to the limitations of time and space. The other side of this relation is that the human nature is taken up entirely into the divine, and is pervaded by it. It has neither a special human consciousness nor a special human activity of the will for itself in distinction from that of the Logos, just as the latter has nothing which does not belong to the former; in the human thinking, willing, and acting, the Logos thinks, wills, and acts. All dualism of a divine and human existence-form, of a divine and human consciousness, of a concomitancy of divine and human action, is of necessity excluded; as is also any successive communication (Hineinbildung) of one to the other; it is an identical living activity, sensibility, and development, because it is one Ego, one divine human personality (unio, communio, communicatio, naturarum)."
As to the manner in which this complete identification of the human and divine in the person of Christ is effected, there are, as above intimated, two opinions. According to Dorner there is a human soul to begin with, to which the Eternal Logos, without subjecting Himself to any change, from time to time communicates his divinity, as the human becomes more and more capable of receiving the
perfections of God, until at last it becomes completely divine. With this Dorner connected a philosophical theory concerning the relation of Christ to the universe, and especially to the whole spiritual world.
The other view of the subject is, that the Eternal Logos, by a process of self-limitation, divested Himself of all his divine attributes. He ceased to be omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. He reduced Himself, so to speak, to the dimensions of a man. While an infant, as before said, He had no knowledge or power which does not belong to any other human infant. He went through the regular process of growth and development, and had all the experiences of ordinary men, yet without sin. But as the substance of the Logos was the substance of the infant born of the Virgin, it continued to develop not only until it reached a height of excellence and glory to which no other man ever attained, but until it ultimately culminated in full equality with God. On this point Thomasius says, First, that if the Eternal Son, after the assumption of humanity, retained his divine perfections and prerogatives, He did not become man, nor did He unite Himself with humanity. He hovered over it; and included it as a larger circle does a smaller. But there was no real contact or communication. Secondly, if at the moment of the incarnation the divine nature in the fulness of its being and perfection was communicated to the humanity, then Christ could not have had a human existence. The historical life is gone; and all bond of relationship and sympathy with us is destroyed. Thirdly, the only way in which the great end in view could be answered was that God Himself by a process of depotentiation, or self-limitation, should become man; that He should take upon Himself a form of existence subject to the limitations of time and space, and pass through the ordinary and regular process of human development, and take part in all the sinless experiences of a human life and death.
Ebrard
Ebrard puts the doctrine in a somewhat different form. He holds that the Logos reduced Himself to the dimensions of a man; but at the
same time retained and exercised his divine perfections as the second person of the Trinity. In answer to the question, How human and divine attributes can be united in the same person, he says the solution of the difficulty is to be found in the original constitution and destiny of humanity. Man was designed for this supreme dominion, perfect holiness, and boundless knowledge. "The glorification of God as Son in time is identical with the acme of the normal development of man." It is held by many, not by all of the advocates of this theory, that the incarnation would have taken place had men never sinned. It entered into the divine purpose in reference to man that he should thus attain oneness with Himself.
As to the still more difficult question, How can the Son as the second person of the Trinity retain his divine perfections (as Ebrard holds that He does), and yet, as revealed on earth, lay them aside? "The one is world-ruling and omniscient, and the other is not," he says we must understand the problem. It is not that two natures become one nature. "Two natures as two things (Stücken) are out of the question." The Logos is not one nature, and the incarnate Son of God, Jesus, another; but the incarnate Son possesses the properties of both natures. The question only is, How can the incarnate Logos, since He has not the one nature, the divine, in the form of God (in der Ewigkeitsform), be one with the world-governing Logos who is in the form of God? This question, which is equivalent to asking, How the same individual mind can be finite and infinite at the same time, he answers by saying, first, that the continuity of existence does not depend upon continuity of consciousness. A man in a swoon or in a state of magnetic sleep, is the same person, although his consciousness be suspended or abnormal. That is true, but the question is, How the same mind can be conscious and unconscious at the same time, How the same individual Logos can be a feeble infant and at the same time the intelligently active world-governing God. Secondly, he admits that the above answer does not fully meet the case, and therefore adds that the whole difficulty disappears when we remember (dass die Ewigkeit nicht eine der Zeit parallellaufende Linie ist), that Eternity and Time are not parallel lines. But, thirdly,