Person of Christ and the Incarnation

The doctrine of the incarnation holds that the eternal Son of God assumed a complete human nature, so that Jesus Christ is one person who is both truly God and truly human.

Definition

The teaching that the divine Son took on human nature in Jesus Christ, who is one person in two natures.

Scope

This topic examines the New Testament basis for Christ's divinity and humanity, the patristic controversies (Arianism, Apollinarianism, Nestorianism, monophysitism), the Chalcedonian definition of the hypostatic union, and later models such as kenotic Christology. It treats the conceptual puzzles of the incarnation, including how one person can bear two sets of properties and the communication of attributes. The account is descriptive, presenting the doctrine and its interpretations rather than arguing for its truth.

Core questions

• What does it mean for the Son of God to become human?
• How can a single person be both omniscient and limited in knowledge?
• What did Chalcedon affirm and deny about Christ's natures?
• How do kenotic models reinterpret the incarnation?

Key theories

Hypostatic union

The Chalcedonian doctrine that the divine and human natures are united in the one hypostasis (person) of the Son, without confusion or separation, so that the natures are neither mixed into a third thing nor divided into two persons.

Kenotic Christology

The modern view that in becoming human the Son emptied himself (kenosis) of, or temporarily set aside the use of, certain divine prerogatives such as omniscience, in order to live a genuinely human life.

History

Athanasius defended the full divinity of the Son against Arianism, and the Cappadocians secured Nicene orthodoxy. Debates over how the divine and human are joined produced the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies, resolved at Chalcedon (451) with the two-natures formula, refined again at the second and third Councils of Constantinople. Nineteenth-century kenotic theories and modern analytic Christology have revisited the metaphysics of the incarnation.

Debates

Coherence of the incarnation

Whether it is coherent for one person to possess both the divine attributes (omniscience, omnipotence) and the limitations of a human being, with proposals including the two-minds view and qua-qualified predication.

Christology from above versus from below

Whether to begin with the descent of the pre-existent Word or with the human Jesus whose divine identity is disclosed historically, especially through the resurrection.

Key figures

• Athanasius
• Cyril of Alexandria
• Leo the Great
• Wolfhart Pannenberg
• Oliver Crisp

Seminal works

• athanasiusInc
• pannenberg1968
• crisp2007

Frequently asked questions

What is the hypostatic union?

It is the union of the divine and human natures in the single person of Christ, such that he is one 'who' (person) existing in two 'whats' (natures), fully God and fully human.

What is kenosis?

Kenosis (from the Greek for 'emptying', drawn from Philippians 2) refers to the self-limitation of the divine Son in the incarnation; kenotic theories debate exactly which divine attributes, if any, were set aside.