Dr. Bruce McCormack, the Frederick and Margaret L. Weyerhaeuser Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, has written an essay focused on the Christology of the HTFC report. It is at his request that I am posting the essay in its entirety here.
Reformed Christology and the Westminster HTFC Report: A Critical Comment
The recent upheaval at Westminster Seminary has been a cause of concern and of not a little academic interest for many who stand outside of that institutional family. The reason for the concern has to do with the specter of Presbyterians fighting with Presbyterians (yet again). The damage done to the Reformed witness in this world may prove to be significant. Certainly, more is at stake than Westminster’s internal relationships. The academic interest, for me at least, has to do primarily with the Christology presupposed by those who question Pete Enns’ orthodoxy.
The issue for the writers of the Historical and Theological Field Committee Report [hereafter HTFC] does not seem to lie in the use of a Christological analogy for assessing the relation of divine and human “causality” in the production of Holy Scripture; the writers are quite willing to argue for their own version of the analogy in question. The real issue is: which Christology counts as “orthodox” for Reformed Christians? The presumption throughout is that a simple and straightforward equation can be made between the Chalcedonian Formula and Reformed Christology. But can it? I will state my conclusion at the outset and then seek to explain how I arrived at it. My conclusion is that the Christology of the writers of HTFC is certainly “orthodox” in the ecumenical sense of the word, but – ironically, given the current situation at WTS – it is not Reformed.
For Reformed Christians, it is not simply Chalcedon which defines “orthodoxy” within the realm of Christological reflection; it is Chalcedon as interpreted by the Reformed Confessions. Or, in the case of denominations like the OPC and PCA, it is Chalcedon as interpreted by the Westminster standards. Westminster’s Christology stands, however, at the end of a long history of confessional reflection on the person of Jesus Christ and cannot be rightly understood without careful attention to that history.
As is well known, Reformed Christology was born out of a conflict with the Lutherans over the nature of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper. As the debate unfolded, both sides made appeal to Chalcedon (and to the theologies of various Church Fathers) in their efforts to establish their case. But they differed in laying emphasis on differing parts of the Chalcedonian Definition. The Lutherans placed all of their weight on the unity of the Person. The Reformed placed the emphasis upon the formula “two natures unimpaired in their original integrity subsequent to their union.” As Calvin put it, “For we affirm his divinity so joined and united with his humanity that each retains its distinctive nature unimpaired, and yet these two natures constitute one Christ” (Institutes II.xiv.1).1 This was said in order to lay a foundation for the rejection of the Lutheran doctrine of a direct communion or inter-penetration of the natures. The properties of each nature, the Reformed said, are rightly ascribed to the “person” but not to each other. God remains God, the human remains human – precisely in the hypostatic union.
From this emphasis on the integrity of the natures, another characteristic emphasis would eventually follow; that, namely, of a robust doctrine of the “communication of operations.” In classical Reformed theology, the meaning of this doctrine is that in every act of the one God-human, both natures are fully involved – and involved in a way that protects their integrity. The Westminster Confession defines the “communication of operations” this way: “Christ, in the work of mediation, acteth according to both natures; by each nature doing that which is proper to itself…” (Chapter VIII, vii). It is not the case, on Reformed soil, that the “Person” acts through His human nature as His instrument, much less upon it. Rather, the God-human acts according to both natures.
From this second point flows a third. Because the Reformed insisted upon the integrity of the human nature and resisted its instrumentalization as a consequence of the hypostatic union, they were also willing to insist that the “excellencies” of the human nature of Christ were the consequence of the work of the Holy Spirit who bestowed upon Him certain gifts. It is important to note that these gifts were understood to be “created graces” – gifts of knowledge, power, faith and love which were appropriate to the “substance” of the creaturely which He shared with us. As Francis Turretin put it, “Here belong the passages in which he is said to be anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power (Acts 10:38), anointed with the oil of gladness (Ps.45:7), which can pertain only to the gifts of the Spirit, wonderfully rejoicing his soul. The plenitude of these is also designated when Christ is said to be ‘full of grace and truth’ (Jn.1:14) and to have received the Spirit without measure (Jn.3:34). Still it must not be supposed that this plenitude is simply infinite, both because the humanity is finite in itself and cannot be receptive of the infinite and because this grace is a created thing” (Thirteenth Topic, Q.12). It is because these excellencies are created and therefore compatible with his humanity, that Turretin can then go on to say that he finds it appropriate to ascribe to the human Jesus both faith and hope (Thirteenth Topic, Q.13).
It could be argued that John Owen represents the logical outcome of the Reformed insistence upon the integrity of the natures and resistance to an instrumentalizing of the human when he says, “The only singular and immediate act of the person of the Son on the human nature was the assumption of it into subsistence with himself” (John Owen, Works, vol.3, “Pneumatologia”, p.160). Every other act, then, including all of Christ’s miracles, were performed by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the human Jesus. “The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, no less than the Spirit of the Father. … And hence he is the immediate operator of all divine acts of the Son himself, even upon the human nature. Whatever the Son of God wrought in, by, or upon His human nature, he did it by the Holy Ghost, who is his Spirit, as he is the Spirit of the Father” (ibid., p.162). With these words, Owen introduced a final clarification into the doctrine of a “communication of operations.” In every act of the God-human, both natures operate in a manner consistent with each nature – but the Logos acts by bestowing His Spirit upon the human Jesus. In this way, the full humanness of the activities of the Mediator is preserved.
The unifying ground of these three concerns – the integrity of the natures, resistance against an instrumentalizing of the human nature and the emphasis on the Spirit’s ministry in the life of Jesus – was found in the Reformed understanding of the person of the union. There is, you see, an ambiguity at the heart of the Chalcedonian Definition where the “Person” is concerned. On the one hand, the Definition can say that “the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent being.” On the other hand, the Definition can say, “he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-begotten Son, God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ…” On the basis of the first formulation, it would seem that the person is formed out of the coming together of the natures. On the basis of the second, it would seem that a straightforward and direct equation is being made of the “person” and the pre-existent Logos as such. It is because of this ambiguity that patristic scholars are, to this day, divided over the question of which party to the controversy actually attained the upper hand at Chalcedon (which already, by itself, would render untenable any simplistic appeal to “Chalcedonian Christology”).. There are those who, leaning heavily on the first of these formulations, say that the Formula grants a certain victory to Nestorius. But there are also those who say that it is Cyril’s theology which triumphed at Chalcedon. In the first group is to be found Aloys Grillmeier and Brian Daley; in the second, John McGuckin. My own view is that a carefully contextualized reading of the Definition will show that it is the second of these opinions which is correct. But here’s the thing: classical Reformed theology clearly stood on the side of the first of these options – not the second.
Heinrich Bullinger offers the most extreme example. In his Second Helvetic Confession, he writes, “We therefore acknowledge either two natures or two hypostases or substances, the divine and the human, in one and the same Jesus Christ our Lord.” Two hypostases is extreme; indeed, it is something less than orthodox. According to Chalcedon, there is but one hypostasis in which the two natures subsist. What led Bullinger to this conclusion, however, was something that is to be found in the Definition, viz. the idea that the person of the union is formed out of the “coming together” of the natures. The same idea can be found in Calvin (who mistakenly believed that this was the view of all the orthodox Fathers). “Now the old writers defined ‘hypostatic union’ as that which constitutes one person out of two natures. This expression was devised to refute the delusion of Nestorius, because he imagined that the Son of God so dwelt in the flesh that he was not man also” (Institutes II.xiv.5). Clearly, Calvin’s grasp of Nestorius’ views was shaky at best. But he was not wrong to think that the idea that the “person” is formed out of the union had orthodox support – not only in one of the strands of the Chalcedonian Definition but also in later orthodoxy. John of Damascus, whose great work “On the Orthodox Faith” was newly translated into Latin in the early sixteenth century (and pored over by Zwingli), understood the “person” as a “compound person”2 – an idea that finds resonance in the Westminster Confession. “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 “person”, according to this teaching, is not simply the Logos as such but is very God and very man – the two natures having come together to form a single person.
It was this understanding of the “person” which made possible the Reformed doctrine of the communication of the attributes of both natures to the person. Indeed, the Reformed understanding of the communicatio is inexplicable without it.
We come back then to the HTFC report. What surprises me in this report is the ease with which the writers ally themselves with the Eastern Orthodox and Lutheran equation of the “person” with the Logos as such, thereby turning their backs on the Reformed tradition. “…the divine is essential and the locus of personality” (HTFC, p.20). That is an interesting statement, since “personality” means something rather more than mere “subsistence” – which is the Chalcedonian equivalent of prosopon or “person.”. To be “personal” is to possess mind, will and energy of operation. Do the writers intend to say that only the divine is “personal” in this sense, thereby denying to the human Jesus a mind, will and energy of operation? They certainly seem to. They speak of the “unipersonality in the God-man” (p.23), and they explain what they mean in a footnote as follows. “Orthodox Christology affirms that the human nature of Christ has no personality or subsistence of its own, but subsists only in its union with the Logos.” In truth, this is a very confused statement. The anhypostasia of the post-Chalcedonian Church was meant only to say that that the human nature of Christ had no subsistence in itself but subsisted in the person of the Logos; it was not intended to deny to the human Jesus a human “personality.” To say then that the human nature has “no personality or subsistence of its own” is to confuse two things which must be kept distinguished if we are to avoid a fairly radical form of Apollinarianism. I am confident that the writers do not intend such an outcome; this is just a sloppy formulation. But sloppy or not, it does tell us something rather significant. It tells us that the Christology of these writers stands in much closer proximity to the Christology of the Eastern Orthodox and the Lutherans than it does to the Christology of the Reformed tradition.
It is clear what has led the writers of this report down this path. They want a Christology which will allow them to argue (by analogy) for an asymmetry in the relationship of divine authorship to human authorship of the Bible. But in their haste to reach this end, they have unwittingly abandoned the tradition they claim to defend.
I have to say that this is the last thing I expected to discover in a report issued by Westminster Seminary theologians. I live in an ecclesial world in which those who value Christian orthodoxy as a concept seem invariably to drift towards either Rome or Constantinople or some amalgamation of the two which is represented by no existing church. The last thing most of my friends want is a truly Protestant theology (whether Lutheran or Reformed); theosis is the hot topic in soteriology and both Lutheran and Reformed theologians are struggling mightily to find something akin to a theosis doctrine in their own church fathers (in Luther but also in Calvin – as Todd Billings’ recent book amply demonstrates). Mind you, I am not accusing the theologians of Westminster of abandoning Reformed soteriology! But they do not seem to realize that in advocating the version of Chalcedonian Christology they do, unreconstructed by Reformed sources, they have taken a most important step in that direction. After all, which soteriology do they think the Chalcedonian Definition was originally designed to support? For the sake of a more responsible Reformed theology – responsible that is to its originating sources – the theologians at Westminster need to attend more closely to their own tradition. Polemical situations rarely provide a seed-bed for careful theology. And that, it seems to me, is worth thinking about.
1The Reformed Confessions which were written after the definitive edition of the Institutes all contained this emphasis. The French Confession: “We believe that in one person, that is Jesus Christ, the two natures are actually and inseparably joined and united, and yet each remains in its proper character: so that in this union the divine nature, retaining its attributes, remained uncreated, infinite, and all-pervading; and the human nature remained finite, having its form, measure and attributes; and although Jesus Christ, in rising from the dead, bestowed immortality upon his body, yet he did not take from it the truth of its nature, and we so consider him in his divinity that we do not despoil him of his humanity” (Art. XV). The Belgic Confession: “We believe that by this conception the Person of the Son is inseparably united and connected with the human nature; so that there are not two Sons of God, nor two persons, but two natures united in one single person; yet each nature retains its own distinct properties” (Art.XIX). The Second Helvetic Confession: “We therefore acknowledge either two natures or two hypostases or substances, the divine and the human, in one and the same Jesus Christ our Lord. And we say that these are conjoined or united in such a way that they are not absorbed, or confused, or mixed, but are united or conjoined in one person – the properties of the natures being unimpaired and permanent” (Chapter XI). I should note that this translation of the Second Helvetic Confessions constitutes a modification of the one found in Arthur Cochrane’s much-used Reformed Confessions of the 16th Century, p.243. Cochrane left out the phrase – original to Bullinger’s Latin text – “two hypostases.” If he did so deliberately, it is likely due to the fact that he could only understand the phrase as tilting decidedly in the direction of Nestorianism. I will return to that problem in a moment. For now, my attention continues to be directed wholly to emphasis upon the integrity of the two natures in their distinctiveness. The Westminster Confession of Faith: “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” (Chapter VIII, ii).
2John of Damascus, Writings, trans. by Frederic H. Chase, Jr. (Washington, D.C.: 1958, pp.274-278.
20 May 2008 at 11.18 am
[...] You can read the essay here. [...]
20 May 2008 at 11.27 am
art, this essay seems to stop short. can you post the entire thing?
20 May 2008 at 11.30 am
forget my last comment, the part that seems to stop short is just a long footnote.
20 May 2008 at 11.30 am
Try re-freshing your browser. I had some trouble with the footnotes at first.
The final two sentences of the essay should read: “Polemical situations rarely provide a seed-bed for careful theology. And that, it seems to me, is worth thinking about.”
20 May 2008 at 11.51 am
This is a very interesting piece. I’m looking forward to the response from the writers of the HTFC report (or from Dr. Hart on here?). Hopefully, Dr. McCormack will write more later.
Thanks so much for posting this.
20 May 2008 at 1.06 pm
Thanks for posting this. It was a very interesting read. I look forward to seeing more interaction between the writers of the HTFC report and other authors.
20 May 2008 at 2.54 pm
[...] Hit: ‘Conn’-versationDr. Bruce McCormack of Princeton Theological Seminary has just written a thought provoking essay on the Christology of the HTFC report and how it does not reflect a Reformed Christology. You can read the essay here. [...]
20 May 2008 at 2.57 pm
That is brilliant.
20 May 2008 at 4.18 pm
This is very helpful.
20 May 2008 at 6.20 pm
“Polemical situations rarely provide a seed-bed for careful theology.”
And yet, all of the creedal formulations were forged in the midst of controversy. I can’t say the Nicene Creed with “and the Son” and not think about how I’m making a polemical statement against the East.
21 May 2008 at 3.01 am
[...] of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, has written an essay focused on thttp://aboulet.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/reformed-christology-and-the-westminster-htfc-report/Each day offers a new start Carroll County OnlineI rarely get things right the first time. I can’t [...]
21 May 2008 at 5.00 am
[...] McCormack on WTS Enns’ Report For those interested here is an interesting piece by Princeton theologian Bruce McCormack on the Christology of the WTS Enns’ [...]
21 May 2008 at 12.03 pm
[...] that is exactly what has happened. Bruce McCormack has weighed in to the WTS/P “Enns Controversy and he does so on the basis of the Westminster Confession of [...]
21 May 2008 at 1.03 pm
[...] Josh’s entertainment, more Reformed muddle-headedness: Bruce McCormack examines the bizarre implications for the Christology of the accusers’ report against Peter Enns. It [...]
21 May 2008 at 5.40 pm
Thanks for posting this. It makes interesting reading. Are we to expect a similar evaluation of the Hermeneutics Faculty Group’s paper? The mere disclosure of McCormack’s opinions about one paper does not necessarily translate into an endorsement of the other. I am certain that McCormack can spot daylight in one as well as the other.
21 May 2008 at 8.01 pm
[...] reformed christology and the westminster htfc report Dr. Bruce McCormack, the Frederick and Margaret L. Weyerhaeuser Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton [...] [...]
22 May 2008 at 12.44 pm
[...] For the full text of the McCormick article, go here. [...]
22 May 2008 at 3.35 pm
So, am I understanding Dr. McCormack’s contention, that we Calvinists are something like monophysites confessionally? Is that his assertion in distinguishing the Eastern Orthodox position from Reformed?
22 May 2008 at 5.48 pm
Michael P,
It seems to me he’s almost saying the opposite; namely, that Calvinists have tended to side with the strand of Chalcedonian thinking more akin to Nestorianism than Monophysitism. See especially the paragraph of his post beginning with “The unifying ground…” and tell me if you do not agree.
22 May 2008 at 6.58 pm
I thought that Nestorianism almost divided the 2 natures, but monophysitism subsummed the human will under the divine will, thus onely one will of Christ. I thought that was Dr. McCormack’s point about Calvinist Christology.
22 May 2008 at 7.50 pm
You seem basically right about what monophysitism and Nestorianism ARE, but I still think McCormack puts Reformed Christology closer to (though not at) the Nestorian side.
22 May 2008 at 8.31 pm
Jason, I think I got it. But if John of Damascus was close to our position, then why is the Calvinist position not in full keeping with a Chalcedonian Position? In other words, why is the WTS study committee’s view not Reformed but straining at being closer to the Eastern Orthodox?
22 May 2008 at 9.01 pm
I don’t think Bruce said simply that the Calvinist position is not in keeping with a Chalcedonian position. It’s complicated because he thinks Chalcedon was a compromise, and it’s difficult to know who got the upper hand at Chalcedon. Bruce thinks historically the Cyrillian position did, but he thinks Calvin and his followers have typically not followed that interpretation or strand of Chalcedon. Fast forward to today, the WTS committee’s position, says Bruce, reverses that against the Reformed tradition. At least that is my interpretation of Bruce. Note, Bruce doesn’t necessarily give HIS position on Christology, he only questions whether the WTS report is right in claiming to be judging Enns by the teaching of the Westminster confession.
22 May 2008 at 9.35 pm
Jason, yes, I got the dynamic there. In fact I’m really leaving behind the real reason he wrote (the WTS study committee’s report) & wondering why the Reformed position [in his mind] is away from the Eastern Orthodox position & the WTS position is stretching for it. Not fightin’ nor a feudin’ just trying to get my mind around the distinction he seems to be making. I’ve always thought our Westminster Confession of Faith position was actually the standard, plain vanila Chalcedonian, Cyrillian, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic position. But he’s saying (if I’ve got this right) that we’re not in the plain vanila section, but more on the Neapolitan side of things.
Sorry for the Ice Cream metaphor, but maybe you can figure out my meaning & what I’m after here.
22 May 2008 at 11.14 pm
I suspect the Reformed tradition is actually less unified on christology than McCormack’s brief discussion might suggest. Of course, he is entirely correct that there is a significant strand of the Reformed tradition that leans towards – for lack of a better way of putting it – a more Nestorian-friendly reading of Chalcedon. And this is an important point to make vis-a-vis the WTS HTFC report and Enns’s book.
But, in some respects, figures such as Bullinger and Owen are not entirely representative of the larger Reformed tradition, which would include, for instance, Vermigli’s Dialogue on the Two Natures of Christ or John Forbes of Corse’s Instructiones Historico-theologicae. It seems to me that both of these provide a more Cyrillian-friendly or, at least, mediating christology, without at all moving into a fully Lutheran position.
It’s also arguable that Reformed christology moved towards a more Nestorian-leaning direction partly in response to anti-Reformed Lutheran polemics. As I recalls Willis’s Calvin’s Catholic Christology suggests that some of the images and metaphors used in early Reformed colloquies with the Lutherans were later taken up in new contexts and deployed in new ways that pushed them in more christologically problematic directions.
So, I would suggest that something like the Westminster Standards is content simply to gesture toward the broad strokes of Chalcedon without getting too specific on the details of how Chalcedon is to be read, though excluding Lutheran readings.
With regard to Enns’s book, personally I actually was thinking of the incarnational analogy in the book in more Cyrillian terms, insofar as that can be pushed in an almost theopaschite direction, where the human can be truly taken up into the divine life, without that compromising either the transcendence of God or the humanity of the human.
22 May 2008 at 11.28 pm
arthur, excellent article…
i looked at your profile and saw you attend liberti…. say hello to pastor geoff for me – he’s a good friend.
robert austell
23 May 2008 at 12.11 am
[...] Historical and Theological Field Committee Report from WTS in regard to Peter Enns. You can read it here. Several people have responded to this essay, among them are Scott Clark and Mark Jones. Prof. [...]
23 May 2008 at 6.31 pm
[...] Hermeneutics, Scholarship, Westminster Theological Seminary Recently Bruce McCormack posted some reflections on the Christology of the HTFC position paper on Art Boulet’s blog. For those of you who do not know, McCormack is a recognized, [...]
24 May 2008 at 8.16 am
[...] L. Weyerhaeuser Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, has written an essay focused on the Christology of the HTFC report. Art Boulet posted the essay in its entirety – a [...]
24 May 2008 at 11.26 am
[...] Bruce McCormack: Reformed Christology and the HTCF Report [...]
25 May 2008 at 9.49 am
[...] McCormack on Theosis Posted by Ben under General Bruce McCormack gives an analysis here of Westminster’s response to Peter Enns. In a nutshell, McCormack argues that WTS gives a [...]
26 May 2008 at 6.18 am
Having read the essay by MacCormack as a Catholic I am quite interested. In suggesting that the WESTMINSTER Document is closer to a Chalcedonian reading than a Reformed Christology. It could also be seen as close to a Monophysite Christology as well. In that it would appear that in suggesting that the divine person is the only active principle in the hypostatic union. If the Westminster Seminary want to get in with the Oriental Churches in Union with Rome or the Coptic Church I am sure they will happy to welcome them !!!
28 May 2008 at 10.04 am
A good response to McCormack
http://thomasgoodwin.wordpress.com/2008/05/22/review-of-mccormacks-essay/#more-341
28 May 2008 at 10.09 am
occcum,
Please return your WTS diploma if you are so ashamed of your school. WTS is never about scholarship, it’s always about defending the Historical Christianity that PCUSA and PTS has abandoned. The current neo-orthdoxy at PTS is merely “new modernism” as Van Til has so sharply pointed out. As a WTS grad you sure have no idea what WTS historically is all about.
The Enns controversy might be no big deal in your typical neo-orthodoxy seminary, however, at a Confessional School like WTS one should not be shock on the development.
If you want scholarship, by all means go to PTS. If you want the faith of Christ, come to WTS.
29 May 2008 at 7.29 pm
Thanks for this…
4 June 2008 at 12.24 am
[...] exauditu 10:52 pm Bruce McCormack’s recent foray into confessional Reformed debates (i.e. the Enns Affair) has gotten me in the mood for reviewing [...]
4 June 2008 at 1.10 pm
Today I was reading *In Christ Alone* by Sinclair Ferguson. When I got to this passage (page 67), I thought it would be a helpful reminder (without trying to aim at anyone or any side, since we are all vulnerable):
“Do you know the Christ of the Gospels? Or have you fallen into the trap to which Christians (especially, perhaps, Reformed Christians) who love doctrine and systematic theology are sometimes susceptible (unlike John Calvin, it should be said): fascination with dogmatic formula at the expense of love for the Savior’s person?….False teaching, be it doctrinal or ethical, always will have the effect of making us “major on minors”, obscuring from us the central glory of the Lord Jesus Himself. We cannot always easily articulate what is wrong with such influences. But the context suggests we should ask: ‘Is this teaching by which I am being influenced leading me to love and trust Jesus Christ more? Or less? Have I exchanged communion with Christ for caviling about incidentals?’”
4 June 2008 at 4.05 pm
I don’t know whether anyone has referenced this article yet – but from the OPC’s Ordained Servant magazine (on-line) for June – you might want to check out
http://www.opc.org/os9.html?article_id=109
Incarnation, Inspiration, and Pneumatology: A Reformed Incarnational Analogy
Lane G. Tipton
12 June 2008 at 11.43 pm
It seems to me that on the Chalcedonian view that the operations or energies of the divine do in fact penetrate the human and this is not problematic since energies are not the same thing as essences so that if the humanity of Christ operates by divine operations, it is still human nonetheless. So for example, Christ is immortal in his humanity post resurrection and immortality is an energy or divine operation. Otherwise we are stuck with the doctrine of created grace.
Further, I do not understand the following so please clarify if possible. If on the Reformed view, the divine person does not act through his human nature as an instrument, how does this follow from the mere fact that the two natures act contiguously without any interpenetration, energetic or otherwise? Furthermore, if the “God-human acts according to both natures”, does the “God-human” denote the divine person of Christ, who is now composite hypostasis by virtue of bringing humanity into the divine person or does the “God-human” refer to a composite entity that is the product of the extrinsic/volitional union? Consequently saying that the “God-human” acts according to both natures is ambiguous. There are two possible notions of a composite person, one Nestorian and the other Orthodox. If Reformed writers have favored the former, why not interpret the Reformed confessions in light of their ideas, rather than say the Neo-Chalcedonianism of Maximus? And if the Reformed take on the communicatio is inexpeclicable without that view,then doesn’t this imply that Reformed Christology is incompatible with Chalcedonian Christology?
If the instrumentalization of the humanity of Christ is eschewed by the Reformed, why is the primary gloss via pneumatological structures? This starts looking like adoptionism to me. In fact, Lipton explicitly glosses the pneumatological relation as a subordinating one. Owen’s seems then not do deny an instrumentalizing relation per se, but simply relocates it. I also find the notion of “created grace” incoherent and arianizing. God’s relation to the world is direct and requires no created intermendiary, either platonic substances or legal/volitional relations. If Christ is the image of God, in which humanity is made, there is no need for a created intermediary, which is a hold over from Augustine’s platonism and Scholasticism.
Mccormack writes,“To be “personal” is to possess mind, will and energy of operation. Do the writers intend to say that only the divine is “personal” in this sense, thereby denying to the human Jesus a mind, will and energy of operation? They certainly seem to.”
Perhaps they wish to implicitly deny that will and mind are hypostatic, and affirm rather that they are essential, so that Jesus has two of them, seeing that he has two natures. That would put them squarely, not in Apollinarianism, but traditional Neo-Chalcedonian teaching. If the Reformed tradition is fallible, then we should expect, rather than bemoan, a departure from the “tradition.” It has been in error previously and perhaps Constantinople and Rome avoided some mistakes, even if not all.
15 June 2008 at 2.45 am
[...] this brings us to the main attraction. Bruce McCormack of that little school Princeton has chimed in giving a nice summary of how the Reformed have [...]
15 June 2008 at 1.05 pm
Reformed Sinner,
Why should scholarship and faith be separate? Going to PTS does not, by any stretch of the imagination, imply faith in Christ is lost. Or does Jerusalem have nothing to do with Athens?
10 July 2008 at 1.04 am
[...] became of my challenge to Dr. Lane Tipton to debate me on questions arising from my earlier post “Reformed Christology and the Westminster HTFC Report.” Dr. Tipton contacted me by phone the same day I issued my challenge. He wanted, he said, to [...]
14 July 2008 at 5.59 am
[...] first response begins by asking: “[W]hich Christology counts as “orthodox” for Reformed [...]
14 July 2008 at 4.05 pm
[...] McCormack offering some thoughts on the matter. [...]
11 February 2009 at 6.42 pm
[...] tradition, indicate again the troubling nature of “Reformed” Christology. Notice again McCormack’s important comments, For Reformed Christians, it is not simply Chalcedon which defines [...]