Bruce McCormack on Barth, Christology and Kenoticism

The orthodox tradition has historically affirmed that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully human. The persistent question, however, is how far we ought to equate the man Jesus with the divine Logos, the second person of the Trinity who is eternally preexistent. This question of Jesus' relationship to the eternal Word of God is at the heart of the debate over kenoticism, which Bruce L. McCormack treats in a fresh way in his 2006 essay, "Karl Barth's Christology as a Resource for a Reformed Version of Kenoticism" (International Journal of Systematic Theology 8:3 [July 2006], 243-251). This article functions as a prologue to his 2007 Scottish Journal of Theology / T.F. Torrance lectures on kenoticism, titled "The Humility of the Eternal Son: A Reformed Version of Kenotic Christology." (Here is an outline of the lecture cycle; the published volume is reportedly forthcoming from Cambridge University Press, though I still have not seen any announcement.)

Kenoticism is, in a sense, an attempt to answer the question of how the divine and the human exist not simply side-by-side in Jesus, but are hypostatically united with neither confusion nor separation. Paul wrote that Jesus "did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing (ekenwsen), taking the nature of a servant, being made in human likeness" (Phil. 2:6-7). The central problem is this: How did God become human, taking on mortal flesh with its attributes and limitations, without ceasing to be fully God? Or, to state the question from the other side: How did God become human without his divinity overwhelming and superseding human finitude?

The desire among kenoticists is generally to describe the self-emptying of the second person of the Trinity in a way that affirms Chalcedon. Sixteenth century Lutheranism dealt with this in terms of willed non-use – suggesting that the eternal Son did not lose any divine attributes, but chose to use them in a self-limited way after becoming incarnate. Jesus performed miracles and knew the hearts of men and women when it pleased him to do so. But he did not make use of the divine attributes all the time, and some attributes perhaps not at all (244-5). The fault of this position, McCormack suggests, is that it relies upon a problematic understanding of the communication of attributes which ultimately shifted the "emptying" from the divine side to the human. That the incarnate Logos can do anything, know anything, or be anywhere present, and simply chooses not to, does not take the principle of kenosis seriously enough – nor does it sufficiently explain how the human nature is not overcome by these divine attributes.

But "kenoticism" is more often associated with the version that emerged in nineteenth century German theology, represented by Gottfried Thomasius. Here the argument is that the divine Logos divests himself of attributes that are not essential to the divine being. This he must do in order to make the incarnation possible, for human nature is incompatible with the divine – its inherent limitations would be instantly swallowed up by omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. But these "relative" attributes, Thomasius suggested, are not essential to the being of God; rather, they describe what God is in relation to the world. It is the "immanent" attributes of truth, holiness, and love that describe who God is in se. The Logos could surrender the relative divine attributes without ceasing to be what he is (246). While this attempted solution persisted in isolated quarters until the 1940s, it did not take long for critics to expose the flaws of Thomasius' proposal. "If the second person of the Trinity had to divest himself of any attributes in order to become incarnate (only to take those attributes up again later), then what you had was not a genuine incarnation but only a theophany" (246).

As the title of his article suggests, McCormack suggests that the better parts of kenotic Christology may be rescued from the errors of its sixteenth and nineteenth century incarnations. Although Karl Barth rejected kenoticism in its previous forms, his own doctrine of Christ in fact lends support to a Reformed kenoticism which coheres with the classic Two Natures doctrine and the logic of Chalcedon. For Barth (and for McCormack), election is the controlling theological motif, and so even the being of God cannot be properly described apart from the incarnation – God’s free decision to be God-for-us in Jesus Christ. God is, in his very being, actus purus et singularis – pure act in the particular event of Jesus Christ. And so the incarnation of the Logos into a state of humility, while still an event in time, is a part of who the Son is in all eternity.

With Barth's doctrine of election and its impact on divine ontology in view, we begin to see the implications for the question of the self-limitation of the Logos. Kenosis is "by addition," not by subtraction: in becoming human, God does not divest himself of any attributes, but adds the "form of a servant" (248). The divine being is veiled in creaturely flesh, but is in no way altered. Within the triune being of God, God has made room for "an above and a below, a prius and a posterius, a superiority and a subordination" (CD IV/1, 200-1; cited p. 249) – and these are constitutive of who God is. The story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples illustrates: the master chooses to become a servant not as a negative divestment of his power and glory, but as an expression of the positive virtues of love and humility. His receptive obedience is a sign of his great strength.

At first blush, this revised kenoticism appears to cohere with the sixteenth century Lutheran view – that Jesus retained the divine attributes and simply chose not to use them (see p. 250). And clearly, the Logos' choosing humility and the form of a servant does involve his self-restraint with respect to omnipotence, omniscience, etc. The difference is that McCormack wishes to make this state an eternal one, so that the pre-incarnate Word and the incarnate Christ are maintained as one, unchanging subject. Humility and obedience to the Father have always been characteristics of the Son. And so in "humbling himself" and taking the form of a servant, the Son is not ceasing to be anything that he is but is expressing his eternal humility. This is where Barth and McCormack have put Hegel into play: the being of God and the divine-humanity of the Son are not based on a predetermined metaphysic, but are actualized in gospel history. God's act, not Greek philosophy, informs us of who God is.

Thus we can see why McCormack wishes to describe kenosis in terms of "the humility of the eternal Son." This is a striking rescue of a doctrine which has been in disfavor in theological circles for generations – but it does require certain theological moves. Barth's theology once again challenges us to rethink everything we thought we knew, and allows us to affirm both the biblical teaching and the orthodox tradition. He challenges us to consider the union of the two natures in Christ, and the being of God, in terms of divine action rather than in terms of attributes. For Barth, God is "the One who loves in freedom." As important as the question of Jesus' divine attributes is, it only gets the discussion so far.

Instead, a proper kenotic Christology is one that describes the incarnation of the Word and the glorification of the human Jesus in terms of the freedom and love of God. What is essential to God’s being is not that God is all-powerful, but that God has embraced self-humiliation and acted for our redemption. What is essential is not that God is everywhere present, but that God elected to be present on the cross as the servant – the suffering servant – of God's own creation.

Related Post:
Barth on the Humility of God and the Atonement

Upcoming Theology & Bible Conferences

I'm compiling a list of upcoming theology and biblical studies conferences, with an eye toward which ones I'm going to attend and to which I'm going to try and get a paper proposal submitted (especially now that I am headed for the U.K.).

If you know of any that aren't on this list, please let me know and I'll consider adding it! Also, if you are in-the-know at these host institutions and know of any missing dates or conference topics, that info would be much appreciated as well.

2009

Aug. 24-27: Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference – "The Doctrine of the Church" (Edinburgh)

Aug. 23-25: "Theology and the Humanities" (Aberdeen)

Sept. 3-5: British New Testament Society (Aberdeen)

Nov. 7-10: American Academy of Religion (Montreal)

Nov. 21-24: Society of Biblical Literature (New Orleans)


2010

Apr. 12-15: Society for the Study of Theology – "Theology and the Arts" (Manchester)

Mid-April: Wheaton Theology Conference (Wheaton)

June: Karl Barth Conference – "Karl Barth’s Missional Theology" (Princeton)

July: Scripture and Christian Theology (St. Andrews)

Sept. 2-4: British New Testament Society (Univ. of Bangor)

Oct. 30 - Nov. 2: American Academy of Religion (Atlanta)

Nov. 19-23: Society of Biblical Literature (Atlanta)

The Uniqueness of the Union

In revisiting John Webster's chapter on the incarnation in his collected book of essays Word and Church, I came across this helpful passage on the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in Jesus Christ:

The union is utterly unique, an instance of itself, and in no sense a complement, completion or parallel to any other realities. The hypostatic union is not the most exalted instance of human self-transcendence, of humanity's being 'in God' or of the immanence of God in creation. The incarnation cannot be traced either on the trajectory of humanity's capacity to transcend itself and lose itself in God, or on the trajectory of God's indwelling of creaturely reality. These trajectories may or may not have theological validity; but the hypostatic union is categorically different, neither generalizable nor the condensation of more general realities. Like the relations between the persons of the Trinity, the relation of divinity and humanity in the incarnate one defies analogies.

The ground for affirming this uniqueness is the fact that the hypostatic union is an utterly free, uncaused and wholly underiveable act of divine omnipotence, and not merely the culmination of a series or the intensification of an ontological principle of wide application.

Word and Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001), 146-7

There is something very significant in this distinction. Classical debates over Christ's person have at many points come down to the way in which God became man. Did the Word enter into human flesh, wearing our nature like a garment? (This analogy is still easy to find in the literature.) Did the Word become a human being? Or did the Word elevate human nature into some sort of mystical participation in the Word's own being?

How we answer this question is vital for our understanding of the incarnation. At its simplest, one school attempts to protect the divine nature from being diminished by its contact with human nature (so the Word puts on humanity but does not become it); while the other school is so set on affirming the humanity of the Word that it may (in the opinion of some) push that union too far (to a becoming human). In the case of the former, we might say that the doctrine of the hypostatic union is controlled by the divine nature; while in the case of the latter, it is the human nature that is setting the agenda for how we describe the incarnation.

Webster suggests that neither of Christ's two natures has a priority of place, but rather than the hypostatic union is utterly unique. It is neither an instance of humanity's being 'in God' nor of God's immanence in the created realm. That is not to say that these ideas are ruled out of court, says Webster -- elsewhere in dogmatics we might talk about the elevation of the human nature, and we will certainly want to say something about divine immanence (including in the incarnation). But the hypostatic union, that way of conceiving the fellowship and unity of two natures in Christ, is neither of those things. It is "categorically different."

What, then, is the hypostatic union? Not the intensification or necessary conclusion of a principle (be it creation, election, or something else that would make us want to say that the Word had to become human), but a free and unconditioned act of divine grace.

The 2009 Karl Barth Conference: Recap

For those looking for the day-by-day recaps of the fourth annual Karl Barth Conference in Princeton, here are the direct links:

Conference Announcement & Program
Day 1: Garrett Green, Ben Myers, Scott Jones, Charles West
Day 2: Richard Fox Young, Lai Pan-Chiu, Mark Lindsay
Day 2: Katherine Sonderegger
Day 3: Matthew Myer Boulton, panel discussion

Also visit Der Evangelische Theologie for photos and updates from Travis.

The 2010 conference will be on the topic of Barth's missional theology. Watch the Center for Barth Studies Web site for details.

2009 Barth Conference: Day 3

This year's Karl Barth Conference at Princeton Theological Seminary has concluded, with a final lecture this morning and a panel discussion with six of the nine presenters.

Matthew Myer Boulton (Harvard Divinity School) lectured on the topic 'True Idolatry - Karl Barth on the Christian Religion.' As I mentioned yesterday, a great deal of this conference has been preoccupied with what Barth had to say about individual world religions, most prominently Islam and Buddhism, and how he might be a resource (or hindrance) to interfaith dialogue. But this doesn't seem to be the thrust of Barth's own writing on religion and the religions, particularly in §17 of the Church Dogmatics.

I like Boulton's presentation so much because he gets right to the heart of this important distinction. Barth was addressing the church, and his critique of religion as "unbelief" is more a critique of the Christian religion than any other. Drawing heavily from Barth's Romans commentary, Boulton (a student of the history and theology of liturgy) notes that here Barth's critique of religion is framed as a critique of worship. Law, or the Torah of God, sets the terms of our relationship with God.

"Religion," as a matter of definition, is therefore a moral and legal ordering. It is a human undertaking, insofar as it is self-justification -- or, as Barth would later put it in CD, idolatry. In this sense "religion" is not to be defined narrowly as Christianity, or Judaism, or Islam, or Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Wicca ... no, religion is any universal concept we erect to order our lives and to which we pay homage, all in the attempt at self-justification. So, Boulton says, fascism, "Americanism" (patriotism), ad infinitum, are religions in the Barthian sense. And most pressing for Barth's own day, National Socialism is a religion standing in need of critique and, ultimately, condemnation from the theological perspective.

But again, it is Christianity that Barth has squarely in his sights. If Christianity is the greatest religion, then it is the greatest at being idolatrous. It is the most effective of all the religions in its claim to be able to escape the judgment of God. And so "it is not against religion that we are warned," Boulton says, "but against our religion." Our comfort and self-justification is what gets us into the most trouble when we engage with others and when we stand before God.

The Christian faith is also "true," in that it has Jesus Christ as its object of worship. What, then, when we fall into such traps? This is the "true idolatry" of the lecture's title: We actually overlook God's self-presentation and self-offering (CD I/2, p. 87). And so Christian idolatry is the greatest idolatry, because we actually have Jesus Christ, the living God, and the gospel of his grace as our object. Losing sight of that object, falling into disorder in our relationship with God, is a much greater sin than the sin of unknowing committed by someone of another religious tradition.

Barth, on Boulton's reading, thus regards religion as the human counter to revelation. Revelation is God's reaching toward us, offering of God's self to us in grace; religion is human grasping, clawing at God to try and obtain and to possess God. (I love this distinction, as it shows how Barth's critique of religion fits like a glove with his doctrine of revelation.) The proper human response is instead "a reaching out, an entreating and inquiring, a therefore a prayer."

The lecture was followed by a concluding panel discussion, with Ben Myers, Garrett Green, Scott Jones, Matthew Boulton, Katherine Sonderegger and Richard Fox Young. This was a chance for them to ask questions of one another and for the attendees to ask questions on their own terms. There was nothing earth-shattering or new that emerged from this conversation, but it did help to begin to draw together the variety of presentations that were made this week. §17 seems to be a shared center to each of these sub-topics, and a good place to begin reading further on this topic. (Look for Green's new translation, published as On Religion.)

One final point, highlighted by Green's reading of a statement from Barth in that volume (and here I paraphrase): Christianity is a religion in the sense of a "justified sinner." The sinner is flawed and guilty on its own, but by grace Christ has declared her to be simil iustus et peccator. Likewise Christianity is a "religion" that is no good (even idolatrous) on its own, but is at once both "justified and sinner" in the gracious acting of God.

My thanks to this year's speakers for their hard work, and to the Center for Barth Studies, Karl Barth Society of North America, and PTS, who co-sponsored the event. Special props to Clifford Anderson and his team, who ran a smooth and successful event. I have been at PTS for three years and, quite shockingly to myself, never made it to a Barth conference until now. It was stimulating and well worth the time, and I commend to you the June 2010 conference on the topic of Karl Barth's missional theology.

2009 Barth Conference: Katherine Sonderegger

Continuing on (or rather kicking off) Day 2 of the Karl Barth Conference, Tuesday began with an anticipated lecture from Katherine Sonderegger (Virginia Theological Seminary), titled 'Karl Barth's Christology and the Faith of Israel.' This paper culminated in a challenge to Barth and Barth studies, and to actualized metaphysics, and generated some terrific responses and discussion throughout the day.

The doctrine of Christ's person and work is, for Barth, all about the divine covenant -- and so it is anchored in God's covenant with Israel. (Barth believes in a single covenant, consistent from one Testament to the next, I think in rejection of Lutheranism's law/gospel contrast and all talk of a "covenant of works" versus a "covenant of grace".) So the Word did not just become any flesh, but Jewish flesh. This is a particularity which Christian doctrine cannot afford to overlook. The Jewishness of Jesus is not incidental, lest we create our own abstract doctrine that is separate from the lived history of Jesus Christ, the God-Man.

A major theme of Barth's doctrine of reconciliation is, again, that of covenant. But Sonderegger suggests that a key loci is missing -- that of law. The two go together; as the fulfillment of the covenant with Israel Jesus is also the fulfillment of the law of Israel, the law given to Israel as an irrevocable component of the covenant relationship. As Paul indicates in Romans and elsewhere, the law is not a bad thing to be abolished but a gift given by God. Jesus himself does not supercede the law, but gives it its true and gracious interpretation as the one who is Lord of all.

And thus the church does not by any means replace Israel as the elected people of God, but Christians are grafted into the one covenant with Israel. That one covenant is "lifted up, given its proper form, maintained and affirmed" in Christ (§57.2).

Barth just doesn't do enough with the category of law. He is so committed to history as the vehicle for divine-human relations, Sonderegger says, that he loses the sheer variety of the Scriptural testimony about the law and its role in God's reconciliation (especially in the Christian interpretation of the New Testament, where the law is often cast in a negative light). This is a written and therefore static component to God's relationship with God's people. The law is given, given by God as an instrumental part of covenant history. Sonderegger even goes so far as to identify the eternal Word with the law -- given (again?) by God in the incarnation as the fulfillment of covenant. There is no covenant for Israel without the law, and so Barth's actualist account (invoking talk about the divine command, the living will of God, etc. -- but not the written law itself) reduces the covenant to merely the history of Israel's obedience and disobedience, without the markers of the law itself and its ratification ceremonies to give content and meaning (as I understand it) to that category "covenant."

It may be evident now that Sonderegger's challenge to Barth runs far deeper than "not just covenant, but also law." She believes that Barth's actualist ontology is metaphysically unconvincing and enables him to take theological risks that are not worth the dangers they introduce -- namely, Barth's elevation of the obedience of the Son into the divine being itself in §59 ("The Way of the Son of God Into the Far Country"). This is a dangerous innovation for the doctrine of God, she suggests.

What of Barth's Christology? Jesus Christ is not merely the one who follows in obedience, or who fulfills the covenant, as Barth intimates. Most properly and fully, he is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 10:4). The telos of the law is to give light to the people, and this is the work of Christ -- the light that has shined in the darkness (John 1:5). Such an idea, Sonderegger suggests, lets us use those metaphysical categories such as "natures" as well as act. (Footnote: In the Q&A portion, Bruce McCormack rightly pushed Katherine here, saying that in emphasizing givens rather than dialectic she has replaced Barth's actualist reading of natures with natures -- a mere retreat to substance metaphysics.) It is law and justice, not an obedience that leads to subordination in the Triune life, that is at the heart of God's nature.

With this proper reorientation to "law" as the content of the divine covenant, Sonderegger concludes, we may rightly say with Paul that the gospel of Jesus is "first for the Jew" (Rom. 1:16). The word of reconciliation is made to be an honoring and a fulfilling of the law of Israel. Because "Christ is the law," he is thereby the Savior of Israel.

This is a summary of Professor Sonderegger's paper, without much of any critical engagement. I had the benefit of continuing the conversation with her in a small group discussion this afternoon, and was able to ask a question or two of my own. I hope to get back to this later this week, as I have a lot to say particularly about her critique of §59 (the humility of the Son as a part of God's own eternal being) -- though this is admittedly only a side remark in her paper.

Check out Day 1 of the Barth Conference here, and the rest of Day 2 here.

The conference concludes Wednesday with a final lecture from Harvard's Matthew Myer Boulton, plus a panel discussion. Stay tuned for a final wrap-up.

2009 Barth Conference: Day 2

Day 2 of the fourth annual Karl Barth Conference draws to a close on the campus of Princeton Theological Seminary, with lectures today by four scholars on a wide variety of topics on the theme of Karl Barth on Religion and the Religions.

Allow me to leave today's opening lecture for last. Once again, I make no pretense that this recap is anything approaching a full and fair summary of these presentations -- only what stands out to me as I look over my notes.

After a very well-received lecture from Katherine Sonderegger (more below), PTS professor Richard Fox Young addressed the conference with the evocative lecture title, 'My 'No!' and My 'Yes!' to Karl Barth on Religion and the Religions Might Mean a 'Maybe.'' As the title suggests, much of this talk was autobiographical, as Young (a professor of the history of religions here at Princeton) described the various incidents in which he was exposed to Barth as a young man -- some positive, some causing consternation.

Barth's theological comments about other religions, and religion in general, are troublesome for those in the history of religions field. Young cited, for example, a 1960 essay by Johannes Olgaard (certainly misspelled here) on the impact dialectical theology had had on Christianity's view of other religions. Olgaard suggested that Karl Barth's approach "brings all dialogue between Christians and other religions to a standstill." Young is concerned over the Barth of CD §17 (recently retranslated by Garrett Green in the volume On Religion), in which the Swiss theologian calls all religion "unbelief." The latter Barth (the Barth of §69), he suggests, seems to allow more room for inter-religious dialogue.

In addition to small-group discussions, the afternoon session consisted of a pre-taped lecture from Lai Pan-Chiu (Chinese University of Hong Kong) on the topic of 'Barth's Interpretation of Buddhism and a Buddhist Interpretation of Barth.' In the first half of the paper Pan-Chiu elaborates on a particular tradition(s) within Buddhism, Mahayana and "Pure Land" Buddhism. This material is detailed, and I found it difficult to follow as one who has little knowledge of the Buddhist faith. But the second half of the lecture was much more rewarding, as Pan-Chiu launched into a comparative study of Barth and Buddhism, as well as a brief evaluation of Barth's comments on that religion (about which he seems to have said more than any other, save Judaism). Pan-Chiu believes that Barth gets Pure Land Buddhism right.

This conference on Barth and "religion and the religions" has suffered from a focus on the latter rather than the former -- sessions given to major religious traditions, but little (save the opening lecture) on religious phenomenology in general. This may not be fair to Barth: in §17 he appears to be concerned with "religion" as a concept (including Christianity, which is just as much "unbelief" as Islam) rather than various world religions. Pan-Chiu makes just this point! In choosing to discuss Buddhism here, Barth is motivated by his theological concerns, not by a desire to do an exercise in comparative religions. The Dogmatics is directed at the Christian church! Thus the critique of "religion" he puts forth has as much (more!) to do with issuing a prophetic word to Christian believers than with keeping non-Christians out of heaven.

Mahayana Buddhism, Pan-Chiu explains, bears theological concepts in common with the Christian faith (and the Reformation emphases in particular), such as sin, depravity (vis-a-vis the incapacity of one's ability to rightly understand), and salvation. Even the notion of salvation as a gracious and unmerited gift is there!

There is a point to all of this. Our Christian / Protestant / Reformed emphases don't make Christianity "true." The doctrine of salvation by grace through faith doesn't set the Christian faith apart! It is the name of Jesus Christ that does that. Ah, now you see Barth in the comparison to Mahayana Buddhism. (Barth called the Pure Land School "Japanese Protestantism" [CD I/2, p. 342].)

The day concluded with the after dinner lecture from Mark Lindsay (Melbourne College of Divinity), titled 'Markus Barth and Christian-Jewish Relations.' Once again, as family life demanded my presence at home, I'll defer to Travis to tell you about that one. He has also posted photos from the conference today!

I've saved the first and I think best paper of the day for last ... and now I see that this entry is long enough, and Katherine Sonderegger deserves a post of her own. More to come from the Barth Conference!

Welcome, Ye Newcomers!

With a big thanks to Ben at Faith and Theology for the "Myers Bump," I'd like to welcome all first-timers to Via Crucis. This week I am blogging about the 2009 Karl Barth Conference in Princeton -- and today's update will be along shortly!

This little theo-blog has sat quietly in the corner of the blogosphere as I posted off and on for a number of years, through three years at Wheaton College and three years at Princeton Seminary. Now that I have finished and am heading off to the University of Aberdeen for doctoral studies, I intend to make regular blogging more of a regular discipline.

My interests are in dogmatic theology, particularly Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity at present. Atonement theory is also a pet topic of mine. I am Reformed, and yes, I regard Karl Barth as something of a theological soul mate. So you will undoubtedly find all of the above here in short order. The name "Via Crucis" is Latin for "way of the cross," and reflects both my academic interest in the doctrines of Christ and his work, and also my desire to bring every thought and word into conformity with Christ and his saving grace.

I hope that you find something that you like here, and bookmark the site for a return visit.

2009 Barth Conference: Day 1

The fourth annual Karl Barth Conference is off and running! We have a good group of scholars, pastors, lay people, and students gathered at Princeton Seminary for Karl Barth on Religion and the Religions. The event is hosted by the Center for Barth Studies and the Karl Barth Society of North America.

Rather than pretend to offer you a thorough recap of each lecture, I'll simply share some elements that stood out to me.

After a brief welcome Sunday evening (followed by my first foray into the world of pub theology), the conference itself began this morning with a stimulating lecture from Garrett Green (Connecticut College emeritus), titled 'Imaginary Gods and Anonymous Believers.' This was an appropriate way to open the week's conversion on Barth's view of both "religion" (or, one might say, religious phenomenology) and "the religions" -- alternate theistic or spiritual world views to Christianity. Green worked largely from work presented to the Karl Barth Society in 2006 by Wolf Krötke -- an introductory section of paragraph 42 of the Church Dogmatics ("The Creator and His Revelation") which Barth excised from the KD before publication. These pages offer insight into Barth's view of "the gods" of the world, and of course raise the question of why it was that he removed it.

God's revelation, says Barth, denies divinity to any and all creatures. Those things we regard as "gods" (discussion focused heavily on the objects of worship for other world religions, though it seemed plain that he had such things as National Socialism squarely in view -- at least in addition to, if not instead of) are, in fact, revelations of "the Nothing." These "gods" are not a part of creation, but "intruders and enemies" who exist only in the human imagination. Yet they have a kind of reality and essence, says Green; "in their utter nullity they are not simply nothing." They exercise power over us, power that can be real and effective in the world around us. Although God has negated (or "sidelined," beseitigt) the gods, we give them quarter and fall under the enemy's dominion.

In the afternoon, Scott Jones (PTS) spoke on the topic 'In Whose Image? Barth, Islam and Monotheism.' This largely took the form of an engagement with sparse statements that Barth made on Islam in the Dogmatics, as well as Franz Rosenzweig's book The Star of Redemption, which was influential on Barth. Scott began with the observation that Barth saw National Socialism as a "new Islam," a false ideology led by a false messiah (Hitler). The compelling question, it seems, is why Barth would have seen this connection between Islam and National Socialism as such an obvious one to make. Why does he see Islam as more akin to paganism than to Judaism and Christianity?

After a bit of discussion of Islam's emphasis on revelation vis-a-vis a text (the Koran), the point was made that "nothing separates Islam and Christianity so radically as the different ways they say the same thing: that there is one God" (CD II/1, 449). There is in Islam a lack of a coming or a becoming of God. This is a point worthy of further exploration, particularly in Christian-Muslim relations.

My award for favorite presentation and discussion of the day goes to Ben Myers (Charles Sturt University), who is not only a stellar scholar and renowned theo-blogger, but as luck would have it also a darn good lecturer. Ben's topic was 'Karl Barth and Paganism: Toward a Theology without Nature.' (Read a brief excerpt at Faith and Theology.) Last summer I worked an internship at GreenFaith here in central New Jersey, and got a healthy exposure to the religious environmental movement and eco-theology -- including some secondary reading on Barth -- so this resonated with me very well.

After a concise and insightful examination of the growing neo-pagan movement and the historical roots of contemporary environmentalism (from Thomas and Calvin to romanticism's idealization of "nature"), Ben continued into Barth's doctrine of creation. Paganism is alive and flourishing, especially in the U.S., where it is perhaps the fastest-growing religious movement today. It is, according to Ronald Hutton, now a religious nostalgia, a love of nature "writ large" -- a desire to return to some idealized, pristine world in which human beings are at one with nature rather than separated from it (by industry, technology, ad infinitum).

In sharp contrast to this, Barth offers an alternate view of creation (not some abstract, idealized and fictive notion of nature) that is the theater of God's covenant. Creation is not nature; it is a specific Christian belief. And there is a sharp distinction between the human being and other creatures. He cannot "return" to nature or merge into his environment; he is not a part of it. Man exercises "lordship" (dominion), the exercise of which is to be respectful and friendly (as with the horse and rider). Dominion, Ben suggests, is a gift -- a gift to the creation that is subjected to human beings.

Ben's final call is to reimagine the romantic theologization of nature, which has set improper terms of discussion even for Christian eco-theology. The church has a need and desire to renew its ethical witness -- to demonstrate its concern for creation. But the biblical story of God's way with the world is in the city, where human beings are. Why, then, can't the worlds we actually inhabit (including urban environments) be regarded as a part of creation (cf. the New Jerusalem)?

Finally, the day capped off with an after-dinner talk from Charles West (Princeton emeritus) on 'Barth, Bonhoeffer and Kraemer on Religion.' As I missed this one, I'll leave it to Travis to recap here.

The conference continues all day tomorrow, and Wednesday morning. I'm particularly looking forward to Katherine Sonderegger's lecture on Barth's Christology as it relates to Judaism (or, as the lecture title puts it, "the Faith of Israel").

The Communicatio Idiomatum

The cornerstone of my research involves the classic doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum, or "communication of properties" (or attributes). Since the early generations of the church, this concept has been used to try and explain how Jesus Christ can be simultaneously both fully God and fully human -- that is, how these two natures (which are categorically distinct) could be hypostatically united in the God-Man.

The communicatio idiomatum is typically summarized in a rather flat sense: whatever we may say about Jesus according to his divinity we can also say about him according to his humanity, and vice versa. To put it another way: Jesus is one subject and not two, and so whatever language we use to describe him (vis-a-vis his attributes, or his actions) is true of Jesus in his full divine-humanity. And so it is perfectly appropriate for Scripture to speak of the "suffering" of God or of the "majesty" of Jesus.

This doctrine was arrived at by the church fathers to deal with a very specific problem, as they read the New Testament and passed on the tradition of Jesus' life and teachings: In what way is it appropriate to speak of the divine Son in human terms (walking, eating, suffering, and dying)? And in what way is it appropriate to speak of the man from Nazareth in divine terms (existing from all eternity, performing miracles, etc.)? Some had suggested that these two natures could be separated one from the other, so that when Jesus eats it is his human nature eating -- for human bodies (and not divine beings) masticate and digest food. Likewise when Jesus dies, it was suggested, we must not say in any way that God Himself has died.

This was largely an attempt to safeguard the majesty of God and of the divine nature, but the unavoidable result was a bifurcation of the person of the union. A variety of christologies arose over the early centuries of Christianity which postulated a division, to a greater or lesser degree, between the man Jesus and the Word of God who united himself with humanity. Perhaps the best known is Nestorianism, which suggested (in an attempt to correct and redeem the heresy of Paul of Samosata a century earlier) that the Word did not become Jesus but drew near to an intimate fellowship with Jesus.

The communicatio idiomatum found expression in the Chalcedonian Definition, the confession that resulted from the ecumenical council which declared Nestorianism to be heresy (A.D. 451). Chalcedon insisted that the two natures of Jesus are united "without confusion, without change, without division, without separation." Divinity and humanity are really united in the person of Jesus Christ in such a way that they are not confused or changed; they are not commingled nor combined to become a "third thing." But at the same time, divinity and humanity are really united in such a way that they are not held separate, not cordoned off from one another so that Jesus is 50 percent human and 50 percent divine. No, divinity and humanity are not merely present side-by-side, but united in Christ.

At its most simple, then, the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum states that whatever we may posit of one nature we may posit of the person of the union, Jesus Christ. To be "divine" is to be worthy of worship, for example -- and so Jesus Christ is worthy of worship. To be "human" is to be mortal, and so Jesus Christ was mortal.

Here is where the communication of properties typically ends in theology courses. It has served this basic christological function of describing the unity of the two natures in the one person, "without confusion, without change, without division, without separation." But there is much, much more to this doctrine and the work that it may do for systematic theology.

In the 1570s, Lutheran theologian Martin Chemnitz wrote The Two Natures In Christ, in which he described the communicatio idiomatum in a threefold way. This formed the conceptual groundwork for Section XIII of the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord (a foundational Lutheran confessional document), and while I disagree with his conclusions, the structure is of tremendous value for christology.

There are three genera of communication, according to Chemnitz -- three aspects in which the attributes of a nature are communicated in the hypostatic union (note, however, that he does not use these terms himself):

1) genus idiomaticum
What is proper to the divine nature (d) and the human nature (h) may be attributed to the person of their union (P), Jesus Christ. If divinity has the attribute of being all-knowing, for example, then Jesus Christ is all-knowing. (Let's set aside the question of kenosis, or self-limitation, for the moment.) If humanity is essentially mortal, then Jesus Christ is mortal.

2) genus apostelesmaticum
Everything that Jesus does, he does in and according to both natures. He does not act exclusively in and from his humanity when he is eating, or from his divinity when he is performing a miracle. Whatever he does, both of his natures are involved. Those natures are not both present in Jesus; they are united in Jesus.

(Note the implications that this has for the whole of the gospel story, especially the passion: When Christ is flogged and nailed to the cross, the divine nature is still involved. The Word does not withdraw from him.)

3) genus maiestaticum
The attributes of the divine nature are shared with not only the person of the union, but also with his human nature. Because the two natures share an intimate union, and because the divine nature is so much greater and more wonderful than the human nature, its benefits spill over onto the human nature. But the communication of attributes between the nature is one-way, Chemnitz insists: the divine nature does not receive human attributes in return, since it is perfect and needs for nothing.

This is the theological engine behind the Lutheran view of the Lord's Supper. Because such properties as omnipotence and omnipresence are shared with Christ's human nature, he may make his physical body and blood present in the bread and the cup all over the world.

There is also a fourth genus, the genus tapeinoticum ("genus of humility"). This reverses the third category above, and suggests (contra Chemnitz) that the attributes of the human nature are communicated to Christ's divine nature. It is somewhat rare to find a theologian who advocates for this; historically, most have been more concerned with protecting the divine nature from the human, maintaining the perfection and holiness of God even in the Incarnation.

Why worry about all of this? As we've already seen a couple of times in this short post, the communicatio idiomatum is a key theological principle that makes other doctrines work. It is an attempt to delve into the "how" of the fundamental Christian claim that "God was in Christ" (2 Cor. 5:19), that Jesus Christ is both one of us and God himself, come near in grace and love.