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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
One of the problems confronting the doctrine of the Incarnation concerns Jesus’ apparent limitation in knowledge. This paper assesses various constructive proposals by modern theologians and philosophers, focusing on three of the most widely discussed solutions, namely Ontological Kenoticism, Two Consciousnesses Model, and Divine Subconscious Model. I argue that despite recent work done on the first two, the difficulties of avoiding the implication that the Logos ceased to be divine (for the first) and the implication of Nestorianism (for the second) remain. I conclude that the most promising solution is to defend Functional Kenoticism and develop the Divine Subconscious Model.
1 Adapted from O'Collins, Gerald, ‘The Incarnation: The Critical Issues’, in Davis, Stephen, Kendall, Daniel and O'Collins, Gerald (eds.), The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 1–3, 6–7Google Scholar.
2 For recent discussions, see Cross, Richard, ‘Incarnation’, in Flint, Thomas and Rea, Michael (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)Google Scholar, and Adams, Marilyn, Christ and Horrors: The Coherence of Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 5.
3 Stump defends a two-minds interpretation of Aquinas inStump, Eleonore, Aquinas (London: Routledge, 2003), ch. 14Google Scholar. The two-minds account will be discussed in later sections.
4 Marmodoro, Anna and Hill, Jonathan (eds.), The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 5–6Google Scholar.
5 This point concerning actual model and the need for possible models is made in Loke, Andrew, ‘On the Coherence of the Incarnation: the Divine Preconscious Model,’ Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, 51 (2009), pp. 51–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Thompson, Thomas, ‘Nineteenth-Century Kenotic Christology: the Waxing, Waning, and Weighing of a Quest for a Coherent Orthodoxy’, in Evans, C. Stephen (ed.), Exploring Kenotic Christology: the Self-emptying of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 76–77Google Scholar.
7 Crisp, Oliver, Divinity and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 118CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Thompson, ‘Nineteenth-Century Kenotic Christology’, p. 102.
9 Crisp, Oliver, Divinity and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 118–147CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 Ibid, pp. 119–120.
11 Ibid, p. 122. Crisp also notes what he calls the standard-plus ontological account, which states that the Logos never resumes divine attributes abdicated at the Incarnation (ibid, pp. 122,134).
12 Ibid, p. 120.
13 Ibid, p. 144n.43, citing Evans as an example.
14 E.g. Gore, Charles, The Incarnation of the Son of God (London: J. Murray, 1891), p. 159Google Scholar.
15 Torrance, Alan, ‘Jesus in Christian Doctrine’, in Bockmuehl, Markus (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Jesus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 212–213Google Scholar. A more consistent Functional Kenoticist is Frank Weston .Weston states that the Kenotic position is not satisfactory, but the Kenotic position which he rejects is a position which affirms that the Logos abandoned his divine properties at the incarnation, i.e. Ontological Kenoticism. By contrast, Weston affirms that the Logos remained in possession of his powers at the incarnation, but in the sphere of the incarnation exercised a law of ‘self restraint’ the measure of which was the growing capacity of the human nature to receive, assimilate, and manifest divine power. See Weston, Frank, The One Christ; An Enquiry into the Manner of the Incarnation (London: Longmans, 1914)Google Scholar, esp. pp. 150, 153, 169, 173. Rather similarly, P.T. Forsyth suggests that the Son of God did not renounce but rather retracted the divine attributes from being actual to being potential, setting aside the style of a God and took on the style of a servant. See Forsyth, P.T., The Person and Place of Jesus Christ (London: Independent Press, 1961), pp. 307–308Google Scholar).
16 Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, pp. 121–122.
17 Thompson, ‘Nineteenth-Century Kenotic Christology’, p. 102.
18 Gess, Wolfgang Friedrich, Die Lehre von der Person Christi Entwickelt aus dem Selbstbewusstsein Christi und aus dem Zeugnisse der Apostel (Basel: Bahnmaiers Buchhandlung, 1856), pp. 304–305Google Scholar.
19 Yeago, David, ‘The New Testament and the Nicene Dogma’ in Fowl, Stephen (ed.), The Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Classic and Contemporary Readings (Malden: Blackwell, 1997), pp. 91–92Google Scholar.
20 Dunn, James D.G., ‘Was Jesus a Monotheist? A Contribution to the Discussion of Christian Monotheism’, in Stuckenbruck, Loren and North, Wesley (ed.), Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism (London, T & T Clark international, 2004), pp. 104–112Google Scholar.
21 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics vol. 4 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–1975), pp. 179–180, 183Google Scholar.
22 Thompson, ‘Nineteenth-Century Kenotic Christology’, pp. 48, 70.
23 Ibid.
24 Davis, Stephen, Christian Philosophical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 176–177CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid, pp. 177, 188.
27 Ibid, p. 175.
28 Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, pp. 139–140.
29 Ibid, pp. 145–146. For another version of Functional Kenoticism which does not use such non-standard analysis of divine attributes, see Section 4.
30 Evans, C. Stephen, ‘The Self-Emptying of Love: Some Thoughts on Kenotic Christology’, in Davis, Stephen, Kendall, Daniel and O'Collins, Gerald (eds.), The Incarnation: An interdisciplinary symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 260Google Scholar; idem, ‘Kenotic Christology and the Nature of God’, in Evans, C. Stephen (ed.), Exploring Kenotic Christology: the Self-emptying of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 198CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
31 Evans, ‘The Self-Emptying of Love’, p. 261; Evans, ‘Kenotic Christology’, pp. 209–212.
32 Crisp claims that Evans has given a kenotic account that, at certain points, sounds functionalist while at other times sounds ontological (Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, p. 144n.43).
33 Evans, ‘Kenotic Christology’, p. 200.
34 Evans, ‘The Self-Emptying of Love’, pp. 255–256.
35 Evans, ‘Kenotic Christology’, p. 213.
36 Evans, ‘The Self-Emptying of Love’, pp. 262–263.
37 See Craig, William Lane and Moreland, J. P., Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), pp. 607–608Google Scholar.
38 Blumenfeld, David, ‘On the Compossibility of the Divine Attributes’, in Morris, Thomas (ed.), The Concept of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 203Google Scholar.
39 I thank Professors Stephen Williams and C. Stephen Evans for suggesting this objection. See also Senor, Thomas, ‘Drawing on Many Traditions: An Ecumenical Kenotic Christology’, in Marmodoro, Anna and Hill, Jonathan (eds.), The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 104Google Scholar.
40 For arguments against the Anselmian view, see Loke, Andrew, ‘Divine Omnipotence and Moral Perfection’, Religious Studies 46 (2010), pp. 525–538Google Scholar.
41 See Loke, ‘On the Coherence of the Incarnation’, pp. 51–63.
42 Craig and Moreland, Philosophical Foundations, pp. 607–608.
43 Ibid.
44 The Two Consciousnesses Model has also been called ‘the two minds model’, ‘the split mind model’, and the ‘inclusion model’ in the literature. The reason for choosing ‘Two Consciousnesses model’ is that the term ‘two consciousnesses’ brings out what is distinctive about this model in comparison with the model which I will discuss in the next section.
45 Morris, , The Logic of God Incarnate (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986)Google Scholar. Morris argues that hints of this view can be found in the writings of Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, and Cyril of Alexandria (p. 102n.20).
46 Ibid, pp. 102–103.
47 Ibid, p. 103.
48 Ibid, p. 103.
49 Ibid, p. 104.
50 Ibid, p. 104.
51 Ibid, p. 104.
52 Ibid, pp. 104–105.
53 Swinburne, Richard, The Christian God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), p. 201CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
54 Ibid, p. 201.
55 Ibid, p. 202.
56 Ibid, pp. 201–203.
57 See, for example, Crisp, Oliver, ‘Compositional Christology without Nestorianism’, in Marmodoro, Anna and Hill, Jonathan (eds.), The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)Google Scholar; O'Collins, Gerald, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic study of Jesus Christ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 246–247Google Scholar; Sturch, Richard, The Word and the Christ (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cross, ‘Incarnation’.
58 Bayne, Tim, ‘The Inclusion Model of the Incarnation: Problems and Prospects’, Religious Studies 37(2001), p. 136CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
59 Ibid.
60 I thank Richard Sturch for raising this line of thought in private correspondence.
61 Garrett DeWeese, ‘One Person, Two Natures: Two Metaphysical Models of the Incarnation’, in Fred Sanders and Klaus Issler Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective: An Introductory Christology (Nashville, B & H Academic, 2007), pp. 133–134. cf. Richard Cross, who, following Rahner, thinks that it is favourable to allow that the human Jesus and the Logos can engage in dialogue and conversation Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation: Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 316). Cross does not offer any reason why this is favourable, and neither does he engaged the vexing problem of I-thou relationship that this would entail. There is, of course, no account of the human consciousness of Jesus addressing the divine Logos in the New Testament.
62 Morris, Logic of God Incarnate, p. 104.
63 Bayne, Tim, ‘Unity of Consciousness’, in Bayne, Tim, Cleeremans, Axel and Wilken, Patrick (eds.), The Oxford Companion to Consciousness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
64 Ibid.
65 For example, it was not mentioned in Oliver Crisp's entry in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology and Richard Cross's entry in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology.
66 See the Christological models discussed in Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics (St. Louis, Concordia Publishing House, 1951), p. 165Google Scholar; and the discussion of Dun Scotus, Opus Oxoniense (Ordinatio), I.3, dist.14, q.2, n.20 in Sturch, The Word and the Christ, p. 27.
67 Sanday, William, Christologies Ancient and Modern (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910)Google Scholar; Matthews, W.R., The Problem of Christ in the Twentieth Century: An Essay on the Incarnation (London: Oxford University Press, 1950)Google Scholar; Erickson, Millard, The Word Became Flesh (Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1991)Google Scholar; Craig and Moreland, Philosophical Foundations, ch. 29; Tim Bayne, ‘The Inclusion Model’, pp. 138–139; Yandell, Keith, ‘A Gross and Palpable Contradiction?: Incarnation and Consistency’, Sophia 33(1994), pp. 30–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; DeWeese, , ‘One Person, Two Natures’; Andrew Cullison, ‘Omniscience as a Dispositional State’ Philosophia Christi 8 (2006), pp. 151–160Google Scholar.
68 See Jedwab, Joseph, ‘The Incarnation and Unity of Consciousness’, in Marmodoro, Anna and Hill, Jonathan (eds.), The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Loke, ‘On the Coherence of the Incarnation’.
69 For further details, see Loke, ‘On the Coherence of the Incarnation,’ pp. 50–63; Andrew Loke, ‘Solving a paradox against concrete-composite Christology: a modified hylomorphic proposal,’ Religious Studies (forthcoming 2011, published online at http://journals.cambridge.org/repo_A79PrfiX).
70 Robert Audi, ‘Dispositional beliefs and dispositions to believe’, Nous 28 (1994), p. 420.
71 See Kittel, Gerhard et al., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament vol. 5 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), pp. 116–119Google Scholar.
72 Cullison, ‘Omniscience as a Dispositional State’, pp. 157–158.
73 On this point, see Bruce, F.F., Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), p. 116Google Scholar.
74 Koester, Craig, Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 2001), p. 283CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
75 Adapted from Bruce, Hebrews, p. 116.
76 See Loke, ‘On the Coherence of the Incarnation’, pp. 57–63.
77 I defend a concrete composite Christology with the Divine Preconscious Model in ‘Solving a paradox against concrete-composite Christology.’
78 The distinctions between common and essential properties, and truly but not merely human, are taken from Morris, Thomas, ‘The Metaphysics of God Incarnate’, in Feenstra, Ronald and Plantinga, Cornelius (eds.), Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement: Philosophical and Theological essays (Notre Dame, Ind., University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), pp. 115–117Google Scholar.
79 Erickson, Millard, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1998), p. 752Google Scholar.
80 See, for example, Loke, ‘Solving a paradox against concrete-composite Christology’, where I show that the Divine Preconscious Model can help to resolve certain difficulties with concrete-composite Christology.
81 I would like to thank Professor Alister McGrath for his helpful comments.
