€¦ · Web viewLuther’s Legacy and the Origins of Kenotic Christology. David R. Law. According to legend, on 31 October 1517 Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the

Luther’s Legacy and the Origins of Kenotic Christology

David R. Law

According to legend, on 31 October 1517 Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the

door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, thereby initiating a chain of events that would

transform the European political and religious landscape. The 500th anniversary of Luther’s

epoch-making act is an opportune moment to reflect on the theological energies he

released and how they led to new insights into the central doctrines of the Christian faith. In

this essay we shall reflect on one of these insights, namely the development of kenotic

Christology.

The phrase ‘kenotic Christology’ is derived from the term ‘kenosis’, which is in turn

derived from Paul’s use of the Greek term ekenōsen (Phil. 2.7) to describe how Christ

‘emptied’ himself to assume the form of a servant. ‘Kenotic Christology’, then, refers to a

type of theology that holds that in order to become a human being the Logos or Son of God

renounced the attributes or prerogatives belonging to his divine nature in order to assume

human nature and live a genuinely human existence.

Although there are hints of kenotic Christology in the early Church Fathers, it was

not until the Reformation that kenosis became a major theological issue. Despite occasional

kenotic-sounding passages in his own works, Luther himself, however, did not develop a

kenotic Christology. As we shall see, Luther’s legacy was to bequeath to theology a problem

that would compel subsequent Lutheran theologians to think in kenotic terms, namely, does

the believer receive Christ in the Eucharist solely in his divine nature or is Christ’s human

nature also present? Luther’s answer to this question was the doctrine of ubiquitarianism,

which affirms that Christ’s human nature is ubiquitous and therefore present in the

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Eucharist by virtue of its participation in the omnipresence of the divine nature with which it

has been united in the Person of Christ. This solution, however, raised the further question

of the character of the relationship between Christ’s divine and natures and how they could

be united in Christ without either undermining the integrity of the other. It is this problem

that would prompt the development of the notion of kenosis.

Several major events laid the foundations for kenotic Christology, namely the

aforementioned Eucharistic Controversy, the Christologies of Johannes Brenz (1499-1570)

and Martin Chemnitz (1522-86), the attempt to fix Lutheran theology in the Formula of

Concord (1577), the so-called ‘Kenosis-Krypsis’ Controversy of the early seventeenth

century, and the rise of kenotic Christology as a major theological force in the nineteenth

century through the works of Ernst Wilhelm Christian Sartorius (1797-1859) and Gottfried

Thomasius (1802-75).

THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY

Behind the Eucharistic controversy lay an important theological concern, namely, how is the

salvation effected by Christ mediated to the believer in the sacraments? This was no mere

academic debate but had consequences for the salvation of the believer. An erroneous

doctrine of the Eucharist would undermine believers’ reception of the grace mediated by

the sacraments, thereby threatening their salvation.

The issue concerning how Christ is present in the Eucharist, however, cannot be

treated in isolation, for it raises the question of the relationship between Christ’s divine and

human natures during his earthly ministry. The Christological problems underlying the

Eucharist thus inevitably lead to Christological problems concerning the Person of Christ

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during the incarnation. As we shall see, it is in addressing these latter problems that

Lutheran theologians turned to kenosis as a solution.

The Protestant Rejection of the Roman Catholic Mass

The Eucharistic Controversy1 has its roots in the Reformers’ rejection of the Roman Catholic

view of the mass as a sacrifice offered up by the priest to God on behalf of the congregation.

The Reformers reject this doctrine on the grounds that it detaches the Eucharist from faith

and reduces it to works righteousness. The Reformers also rejected the Roman doctrine of

transubstantiation as a confusion of natures, arguing that just as in the incarnation Christ’s

human nature was not changed into the divine nature, so too can there be no change in the

substance of bread and wine in the Eucharist. Despite his rejection of Roman Catholic

Eucharistic doctrine, however, Luther insisted that Christ’s body and blood are genuinely

and really present in the bread and wine. It is this doctrine of the ‘Real Presence’ that led to

Luther’s conflict with Zwingli.

Luther and Zwingli

Zwingli’s understanding of the Eucharist stems from his strict distinction between the

infinite and the finite. The infinite and the finite are radically different, which means that the

infinite can never be enclosed in the finite. Consequently, Christ’s words at the Last Supper

do not mean that the bread and wine are literally Christ’s body and blood, for, as infinite,

divinity cannot be imprisoned within the material and physical. Christ’s words should

instead be understood as ‘external signs’ of Christ’s sacrifice on behalf of sinful human

beings. The sacraments do not confer grace or merit of themselves, but are merely aids to

faith. These considerations led Zwingli to reject Luther’s doctrine of the real presence of

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Christ in the Eucharist, which he condemned as a reformulation of the Roman Catholic

doctrine of transubstantiation.

For Luther, however, Christ must be really present in both his divine and human

natures if Christ’s saving work is to be mediated to believers. Luther asks, ‘The passion of

Christ occurred but once on the cross. But whom would it benefit if it were not distributed,

applied, and put to use? And how could it be put to use except through Word and

sacrament?’2 Just as Christ’s divinity was mediated through his humanity during his

incarnation, so too must his divinity be mediated through his body and his blood in the

consecrated Eucharistic elements of bread and wine.

The differences between Luther and Zwingli with regard to the Eucharist re-emerge

in the two theologians’ conception of the incarnation. For Zwingli, since the finite is

incapable of assuming the infinite (finitum non capax infiniti), there can be no real

communication to the human nature of the attributes belonging to the divine nature. We

can indeed speak of the Person of the God-man possessing the attributes of both natures,

but we can do so only by alloiosis, i.e., by the interchange of characteristics.3 Thus we can

say ‘Christ is eternal God’ and ‘Christ died for us.’ Such statements do not mean, however,

that the human nature has acquired the attributes of divinity, but are merely figures of

speech arising from the union of two natures in the one Person of Christ. The mutual

predication of the attributes of the two natures by virtue of the hypostatic union is merely a

‘praedicatio verbalis’. On these grounds, Zwingli rejects Luther’s Christology as a failure to

recognise the distinctiveness of Christ’s two natures, which then leads Luther to the crude

materialism of his doctrine of the real presence.

In contrast, Luther affirms the possibility of real communion between divinity and

humanity, so that the finite is indeed capable of acting as a vehicle for the infinite (finitum

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capax infiniti). Indeed, for Luther the mutual communication of attributes (the

communicatio idiomatum) between the two natures is the basis of our salvation. The

‘hypostatic union’, i.e., the personal union of divine and human natures in Christ, is the

means by which God descends into the depths of the human condition and exalts human

beings to divine majesty. Furthermore, since the divine attributes are communicated

through the hypostatic union to Christ’s human nature, Christ, as the archetype of the true

human being, can communicate his righteousness to the humanity of believers. This ‘joyful

exchange’ is what make Christ Redeemer and Saviour.4

The Colloquy of Marburg (1529)

Concerned at the impact of the Eucharistic dispute on the survival of the Reformation, in

1529 Philip of Hesse called the leading Reformers to a meeting at his residence in Marburg

to resolve the issue and to persuade Luther and Zwingli to negotiate a common position.

The two men, however, were unable to reach an agreement. Zwingli continued to maintain

a radical opposition between flesh and spirit, while Luther insisted on a literal interpretation

of Christ’s words at the Last Supper.

Luther’s insistence on the real presence of the Christ in the Eucharist bequeathed

Lutheran theology with a set of Christological problems that would occupy theologians for

many years to come and are still of importance today. If Christ is truly divine and truly

human and his true divinity and humanity are united within his Person as a result of the

incarnation, then what is the effect of each nature on the other nature with which it has

been united? If Christ’s human nature is a genuinely human nature and thus subject to

change, development, and limited knowledge, what effect does this have on his divinity and

the attributes that belong to it, namely omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience? That

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is, what is the mode of Christ’s divinity in the status exinanitionis, i.e., the state of

humiliation he endured during the incarnation? On the other hand, what is the effect on

Christ’s humanity of his ascension into heaven and exaltation to the right hand of the

Father? Is Christ’s humanity discarded or retained and, if retained, then in what way? That

is, what is the mode of Christ’s humanity in the status exaltationis, i.e. the state of

exaltation in which Christ has subsisted since his ascension?

BRENZ AND CHEMNITZ ON THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES OF THE INCARNATE CHRIST

Luther’s successors developed and refined his theological legacy. With regard to Eucharistic

theology this meant the continued defence of the ubiquitarianism upon which the doctrine

of real presence depended. With regard to Christology this meant defending Luther’s

understanding of the communicatio idiomatum. The development and refinement of these

doctrines was carried out in different ways within Lutheranism, however, and it was this

that led to inner-Lutheran conflict and ultimately to the kenosis controversy of the

seventeenth century.

In South Germany Johannes Brenz (1499-1570) took up the defence of the

communicatio idiomatum, while in North Germany Martin Chemnitz (1522-86) was its most

important advocate. These two theologians shared the same presuppositions. Both

subscribed to the orthodox Lutheran teaching that Christ’s human nature possessed the

attributes of the divine nature from the moment of conception. They also agreed that the

divine attributes communicated to the human nature in the hypostatic union were not fully

expressed during Christ’s earthly ministry but were subject to the lowliness of the servant

form the Logos had assumed on becoming incarnate. Where Brenz and Chemnitz differed

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was on the question, firstly, of the way in which the divine nature was subject to the human

form and, secondly, of the manner of the ubiquity of Christ’s body.

Brenz’s Theory of Christ’s Concealment of Divine Majesty

From 1557 onwards Brenz attempted to defend ubiquitarianism against the criticism of

Melanchthon, Bullinger, Beza, and others, and to refine the doctrine. In his writings of 1561-

64 Brenz argued that the omnipresence of the human nature of Christ is the ontological

consequence of the personal unity of the divine and human natures brought about by the

incarnation.5 The relationship between the two natures in the Person of Christ should be

understood in terms of the communicatio idiomatum.

By virtue of the hypostatic union the attributes of divine nature were completely

transferred to Christ’s humanity. Consequently, Christ’s human nature possessed not only

omniscience and omnipotence, but even omnipresence. Indeed, Christ was omnipresent not

only as God but also as a human being even in Mary’s womb, and exercised his cosmic rule

as a human being both in the cradle and in the grave. Brenz justifies these claims by arguing

that Christ’s ascension to heaven and the glorification of his human nature occurred not

after his resurrection but at his conception. The ascension described in Acts 1 was merely

the visible confirmation of the invisible ascension that had already taken place. It is the

incarnate, yet ascended Christ’s full possession of the divine nature, including the attribute

of omnipresence, that allows him to be present both in his divinity and in his humanity in

the Eucharist.

This raises the question of how the two natures interacted during Christ’s earthly

ministry. Since, for Brenz, Christ was by virtue of the communicatio idiomatum in full

possession of the divine attributes throughout his earthly ministry, the status exinanitionis

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could not entail the relinquishing of any aspect of the divine nature. If this were not the

case, then the hypostatic union would be undermined. Nevertheless, Brenz insists that

Christ underwent the humiliation of a genuine human existence. Interpreting Phil. 2.5-8 in

the light of Deutero-Isaiah’s servant songs (Isa. 42.1-4; 49.1-6; 50.4-9; and 52.13-53.12),

Brenz stresses the lowliness of the servant form, which, he writes, has ‘on this earth a

despicable, ugly, and contemptible reputation.’ Servants, Brenz points out, have to ‘perform

the foulest of services’ and have scarcely more rights than livestock in the eyes of their

masters.6 Christ was born in a stable, lived in poverty, had no place to lay his head, and died

a shameful death on cross.7 He attended the sick, like a servant called to his master, and

washed the feet of his disciples, which is the lowly act of a servant.8 In addition, through

assuming human nature Christ was subject to the needs, weaknesses, and limitations

common to all human beings. ‘In summary,’ Brenz writes, ‘there is no splendour, no

adornment or faithful escort, but sheer destitution and beggary.’9 Christ underwent this

humiliation for the purposes of salvation, firstly to reconcile human beings with God

through his atoning death, and secondly as a sign of love. This loving service is the

‘antithesis’ of Adam’s pride and arrogance.10

How, then, does Brenz reconcile these apparently contradictory affirmations of

Christ’s full possession of divine attributes and Christ’s experience of the humiliation of a

genuine human existence? Brenz’s solution is to argue that Christ’s humiliation consists not

in the reduction or limitation of his divinity, but in his concealment of his divine majesty,11

which he continued to exercise despite his servant form. Christ could have revealed the

glory of his divine nature had he wished, but, for the salvation of humankind, he freely

chose not to do so.

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Chemnitz’s Theory of the Restraint of Divine Fulness

Whereas Brenz argued that the human nature of Christ enjoyed full and absolute

omnipresence, Chemnitz qualified Christ’s omnipresence by arguing for ‘multivolipresence’.

For Chemnitz, Christ’s omnipresence is a voluntary ubiquity, whereby the exalted Christ can

be present wherever he wills to be present. Since Christ promised at the Last Supper to be

present with believers in the bread and wine, believers can be assured of his real presence

in the Eucharist. Chemnitz provides the Christological grounding of this theory in his De

duabus naturis in Christo (1578).12

Chemnitz rejects the view that the fulness of the Godhead did not dwell in Christ

bodily until after the resurrection. If this were the case it would imply that during Christ’s

early life ‘either an empty vacuum or only a portion of the deity had dwelt in Christ bodily.’13

Furthermore, the denial of divine fulness to the incarnate Christ could be taken to mean

that the personal union and the indwelling of the Godhead were subject to growth and

development during the life of Christ, so that Christ’s divinity ‘became greater, closer, fuller,

and more perfect as the years went by.’14 In opposition to such views, Chemnitz insists that

‘from the very moment of the hypostatic union the whole fullness of the Godhead dwelt

bodily in Christ or in His flesh or His assumed nature.’15

To articulate this point, Chemnitz divides the communicatio idiomatum into three

subcategories, namely, the genus idiomatum, the genus apotelesmaticum, and the genus

auchematicum or majesticum. Of these three genera the genus majesticum is the most

significant for the development of kenotic Christology, for it states that Christ’s human

nature genuinely possesses the majesty belonging to divinity by virtue of its unification with

the divine nature in the hypostatic union. It is how this divine majesty manifests itself during

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the incarnation that is the cause of Chemnitz’s disagreement with Brenz and which raises

the kenotic problem.

If, as Chemnitz insists, the fulness of divinity dwells in Christ for the entirety of the

incarnation and the divine attributes were communicated to Christ’s human nature by virtue

of the genus majesticum, then what was the manner of the presence of the fulness of

divinity in Christ’s earthly life, for, as Chemnitz readily admits ‘the brilliance of Christ did not

always shine out in the time of His humiliation, since it was covered with infirmity, and it did

not always assert itself plainly and clearly because of the humiliation.’16 To answer this

question, Chemnitz turns to Phil. 2.5-8

Phil. 2.5-8 should not be taken to mean that Christ has been deprived of the fulness

of his divinity on becoming incarnate. The passage is concerned rather with how Christ

exercised his divinity during his earthly ministry. Chemnitz bases this claim on the

appearance of ekenōsen in Phil. 2.7. Pointing to scriptural passages in which the adjective

kenos and the verb kenoō are employed ‘with reference to the use and working of things’,17

Chemnitz argues that Phil. 2.7 indicates that although Christ possessed the fulness of

divinity, he ‘drew in and restrained to some degree the divine power and presence which

dwelt bodily in Him by working in and through His humanity.’18 Furthermore, ‘He permitted

the natural characteristics and the other assumed infirmities to prevail and predominate

and assert themselves in His assumed human nature as if they were alone.’19 Christ, then,

retained the capacity to exercise his divine power, but he chose to make use of this power

only in limited circumstances. The incarnation, then, involved the deferral and temporary

suspension of the use and manifestation, but not the renunciation of the possession of the

divine fulness.20

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Christ does not completely restrain his divine powers, however, but exercises them

when appropriate such as in the miracles and the transfiguration.21 Nevertheless, Christ

always exercises these powers through and by means of his human nature. It is this exercise

of divine power through human nature that accounts for the (partial) concealment of

Christ’s divinity: ‘the whole fullness of the Godhead, which dwells personally in Christ’s

assumed nature, exercises His power, authority, and activity in and through the assumed

nature even at the time of the humiliation, although not without means and not always fully

and openly.’22 Consequently, although ‘the divine Logos because of the personal union could

have shone forth and manifested His power, glory, and activity over all things in a most

marvellous manner, in the time of the humiliation He hid Himself, as it were, under a

covering of infirmities.’23

At his ascension, however, Christ laid aside the human infirmities and humiliation of

his earthly life. Through his exaltation to the right hand of God, ‘He entered into a fuller and

more open use and manifestation of the power, authority, and glory of the Deity which in

complete fullness had dwelt personally in the assumed nature from the beginning of the

union, so that now He no longer, as in the humiliation, restrains or withdraws Himself or

hides Himself, as it were, but in, with, and through the assumed human nature He fully,

openly, and gloriously reveals Himself.’24 It is this unrestricted use of his divine powers

through his assumed, but now glorified human nature that allows Christ to be present in

both natures to believers in the Eucharist.

THE FORMULA OF CONCORD

These Christological differences between North and South German Lutherans, combined

with the identity crisis they created, made it necessary to reach an agreement on the

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principles of Lutheranism and to formulate them as precisely as possible. To achieve this,

the churches in the Lutheran territories convened a theological commission to address

inner-Lutheran doctrinal divisions, which resulted in the publication in 1577 of the Formula

of Concord.25 Of importance for our discussion of the origins of kenotic Christology is

chapter 8, which provides a formal statement of the doctrine of ubiquitarianism and makes

explicit its Christological foundations.

The Formula of Concord rejects conceiving of Christ’s sitting at the right hand of God

as if it were a geographical location in heaven.26 Instead, it takes the sessio ad dextram to

express ‘the almighty power of God, which fills heaven and earth, in which Christ is installed

according to his humanity.’27 It is the unified Person of Christ who is Lord over time and

space, not merely the divine nature alone. As such, the human nature of Christ possesses

omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience.28 Yet despite possessing the divine

attributes and sitting at the right hand of God, Jesus Christ remains truly human. Just as

metal and fire are united in an heated piece of iron, so too ‘there is and remains in Christ

only one divine omnipotence, power, majesty, and glory, which is peculiar to the divine

nature alone; but it shines, manifests, and exercises itself fully, yet voluntarily, in, with and

through the exalted human nature in Christ.’29

It is, however, not only the human nature of the ascended Jesus Christ that

possesses divine majesty. Following Brenz, the Formula of Concord teaches that Christ ‘did

not first receive it when he arose from the dead and ascended into heaven, but when He

was conceived in His mother’s womb and became man, and the divine and human natures

were personally united with one another.’30 This raises the question of how this exalted

status was present in the earthly Christ.

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The Formula of Concord argues for the concealment of Christ’s majesty, but

acknowledges that Christ sometimes willed to make use of this majesty,31 for example, in his

miracles,32 though even when performing miracles he still concealed his majesty.33 The

kenosis thus consists of the concealment of the full use of the divine majesty of the human

nature. From this, it would seem that the Formula of Concord is advocating the krypsis

theory of kenosis, namely, the view that the incarnate Christ was in full possession of his

divine powers, which he exercised in a concealed way.

The Formula of Concord, however, fails to reconcile this view with its assertions that

Christ’s humanity enters into full possession of divine majesty only with the resurrection

and ascension.34 Nor is it explained how Christ ‘truly increased in all wisdom and favor with

God and men’,35 a statement which would seem to contradict the Formula of Concord’s

assertion that the incarnate Christ was in full possession of divine majesty.

These tensions can be attributed to the Formula of Concord’s unsuccessful attempt

to reconcile the theologies of Brenz and Chemnitz. The Formula of Concord oscillates

between the Christologies of these two theologians without achieving a satisfactory

resolution. In the Formula of Concord, then, no complete and clear solution concerning the

argument between Brenz and Chemnitz was forthcoming. The Formula of Concord is a

compromise between North and South German Lutheranism, and contains traces of both of

the rival theories, but fails to combine them into a coherent Christology.

THE KENOSIS-KRYPSIS CONTROVERSY

In the early seventeenth century the differences between the Christologies of Brenz and

Chemnitz resurfaced in an argument between the Lutheran theologians of Giessen and

Tübingen concerning the extent to which Christ exercised his divine powers during his

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earthly ministry. The dispute between the two camps had its roots in the unresolved

Christological tensions embedded in the Formula of Concord. Both the theologians of

Giessen and those of Tübingen accepted the Formula of Concord’s teaching on the

communicatio idiomatum, and acknowledged that the mutual communication of attributes

is possible by virtue of the hypostatic union of divine and human natures. The two camps

also agreed that the fulness of the divine majesty has been communicated to Christ and that

Christ therefore possessed the attributes of divine majesty – omnipresence, omniscience,

and omnipotence – even during the incarnation. Where the two sides differed was in their

view of how the divine attributes were present together with the human nature in the

incarnate Christ. The Giessen position, which was represented by Bathasar Mentzer the

Elder (1565-1627) and his son-in-law Justus Feurborn (1587-1656), followed Chemnitz and

argued for the incarnate Christ’s non-use or ‘kenosis of use’ (kenōsis chreseōs) of his divine

attributes. The Tübingen position, on the other hand, which was defended by Matthias

Hafenreffer (1561-1619), Lucas Osiander II (1571-1638), Theodor Thumm (1586-1630), and

Melchior Nikolai (1578-1659), followed Brenz and held Christ to have concealed (krypsis,

occultatio) the use of his divine powers during the incarnation. For this reason, the dispute

has come to be known as the kenosis-krypsis controversy.36

The Kenosis of Use

What initially prompted the dispute was Mentzer’s defence of ubiquitarianism by arguing

that divine omnipresence should be thought of as praesentia operativa, ‘operative

presence’. This view was controversial among some of Mentzer’s colleagues at Giessen, who

were concerned that Mentzer’s view reduced ubiquitarianism to merely an activity. News of

Mentzer’s views also reached Tübingen, whose theologians became concerned that

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Mentzer’s position would play into the hands of Reformed theology by weakening the

doctrine of ubiquitarianism. Mentzer responded to these concerns in his Necessaria et justa

defensio contra injustas criminationes L. Osiandri, M. Nicolai, Th. Thummii, in qua multi de

persona et officio Christi errores deteguntur et refutantur (1624). It is in the course of

addressing his Tübingen critics that Mentzer develops his notion of the kenosis of use.

Mentzer’s view is that if Christ genuinely assumed a human form, then, apart from

the occasional exceptions of the miracles, he must have abstained from exercising the

majesty belonging to his divine nature. A continued and merely concealed use of divine

power during Christ’s earthly life would reduce Christ’s hunger and thirst, poverty and

contempt before men to pure deceit. Mentzer, however, does not deny that Christ

possessed divine majesty even as a human being. Christ retained possession (ktēsis)of his

divine majesty, but as a human being he refrained from making full use (chrēsis) of it.

Mentzer then applies this concept of possession-but-not-use to the question of

Christ’s ubiquity. Ubiquity, Mentzer argues, is a feature not of essence but of will. It is an

activity enacted by a free act of will on the part of the divine nature of Christ. If the human

nature of Christ has received this type of omnipresence by virtue of the indwelling of the

Logos, then what Christ’s humanity has received is not an infinity of essence that cancels out

all the limitations that characterise human bodies but has merely acquired an omnipresent

efficacy or activity, which rests on the will of the Logos to exercise it. Such a solution eases

the difficulties associated with ubiquitarianism. Ubiquity or omnipresence is indeed a divine

attribute that belongs to the incarnate Christ as a result of the hypostatic union, but it is an

attribute Christ can choose not to exercise, if he should so wish.

In his Kenosigraphia Christologikē (1627), Feurborn follows Mentzer in condemning

the view that Christ exercised his cosmic functions during his earthly ministry. Since Christ as

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a human being assumed the form of the servant, he cannot as a human being have

exercised dominion over human beings, for servanthood and dominion are opposites that

cannot exist simultaneously in the same person in the same relation at the same time.

Consequently, as a human being Christ did not rule omnipresently, omnisciently, and

omnipotently over all creatures, otherwise Christ’s becoming human would not have been a

genuine human existence, but hypocrisy and deception.37 Furthermore, if Christ were

omnipresent during his incarnation, this would mean that Christ would have been

omnipresent in his humiliated human nature. Since ‘therefore the incarnate Logos did not

want his humiliated flesh to be present to all the creatures who were everywhere to be

ruled, for that reason [the humiliated flesh] did not fill all creatures.’38

The solution Feurborn proposes to the problem of the omnipresence of Christ’s

human nature mirrors that of Mentzer. Since the Logos assumed human nature by an act of

will and the personal union between divine and human natures was the result of a freely

willed act on the part of the Logos, then it ‘it was also actu that the flesh assumed by the

Logos was immediately and for ever everywhere present to all creatures’.39

In response to the objection raised by Melchior Nikolai that the Giessen position

means ‘that a merely potential presence and not an actual presence belongs to the Logos,’40

Feurborn, like Mentzer, argues for the kenosis of use, stating that the Giessen theologians

‘believe and confess that the entire fulness of the divinity and majesty of the Logos, existing

actu, was communicated to the flesh immediately at the conception, but that the entire

fulness was not taken into use by the [Logos] on the spot, but was divested in respect of the

complete use.’41

The problem with the Giessen theologians’ notion of kenosis of use is: how can

divine powers be present and yet not be used? In what way are the divine powers

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quiescent, and how can they suddenly awaken in order to perform miracles? Is not a non-

active omnipotence a contradiction? Similarly, how can omniscience be limited or held only

potentially during the incarnation?

The strength of the Giessen position, however, is its attempt to do justice to the

historical life of Christ. Mentzer and Feurborn were aware that the exercise of

omnipresence was not compatible with Christ living a genuinely human life. They also took

seriously Scripture’s statement that Christ grew in age and wisdom (Luke 2.52).

Krypsis

The Tübingen theologians believed that Mentzer and Feurborn, by their denial of the

incarnate Christ’s use of omnipresence, jeopardised the unity of the two natures in the

Person of Christ and undermined the communicatio idiomatum. Consequently, the Tübingen

theologians insisted that omnipresence is not an activity but an inherent divine attribute

which consists in Christ’s being ontologically present always and everywhere in the entire

universe. This is the necessary consequence of the unio personalis and the communicatio

idiomatum. If both natures are genuinely united in the hypostatic union, then no aspects of

the two natures can be given up. Consequently, there can be no renunciation of certain

attributes of the divine nature, because any such renunciation would undermine the reality

of the hypostatic union. This point is made by Thumm in his Maiestas Jesus Christi, where he

writes: ‘With the two natures in Christ there took place such an inward and deep

interpenetration that neither of the natures subsists or exists outside the other, the Logos is

not anything other than ensarkos [enfleshed], never and nowhere asarkos [unfleshed], the

flesh never not existing and subsisting in the Logos.’42 From this Thumm concludes that, ‘no

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local distances can bring it about that the Son of God on earth may be with the creatures

without his humanity also being with the creatures.’43

The Tübingen theologians thus insist that Christ’s divine majesty was present and

active throughout his earthly life from his conception in the womb to his death on the cross.

Throughout his earthly existence Christ was omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. He

exercised these divine attributes, however, in secret. Consequently, the incarnation is

merely a krypsis chrēseōs (concealment of use).44 The only difference between the status

exinanitionis and the status exaltationis is that in the latter the use of the divine majesty

concealed beneath the servant form of the incarnate Christ has now been fully manifested

in the status exaltationis.

The weakness of the Tübingen position is that it fails to do justice to the historical life

of Christ and to the Gospel record, which speaks of Christ’s hunger, thirst, development,

ignorance, suffering, and death. The danger faced by Tübingen theology is thus that of

Docetism.

The Decisio Saxonica

In 1623 a commission of Saxon theologians was appointed in Dresden to resolve the issue.

The commission declared in 1624 in favour of the Giessen position in a solida decisio.45

In reality, however, neither the Giessen nor the Tübingen position was satisfactory,

and both were undermined by internal inconsistencies. Nevertheless, the notion of kenosis

of use became the standard position in Lutheran Christology. A good example is provided by

David Hollaz (1648-1713), who comments, ‘The infinite and truly divine knowledge of all

things was communicated to Christ’s human nature in the first moment of its conception by

virtue of its innermost unity with the divine nature of the Logos. Nevertheless, in the state

18

of humiliation Christ did not always and everywhere make use of his omniscience, but

employed it freely whenever and wherever he wished.’46 It is this restrained use of the

divine attributes that accounts for Christ’s apparent ignorance of the lack of fruit on the fig

tree (Mk. 11.13) and the location of Lazarus’ grave (Jn. 11.34), which is the consequence of

Christ’s not always employing his divine omniscience.47 It is Christ’s willingness to allow his

human nature to limit the exercise of his divine attributes that constitutes the kenosis.

Hollaz writes: ‘The humiliation of Christ does not consist formally in the assumption of

human flesh, nor does it consist in the mere krypsis or concealment of the divine majesty,

nor does it consist in an absolute renunciation or emptying of the divine majesty. Rather it

consists in the renunciation of the full and continual use of the divine majesty, the

assumption of the servant form, becoming like other human beings, and the most humble

obedience.’48

The result of the Kenosis-Krypsis Controversy, then, was to introduce into Lutheran

thought the notion of some sort of limitation of Christ’s divine attributes during the

incarnation. A satisfactory solution had yet to be developed, but a precedent had been set

for conceiving of the incarnation in terms of the kenosis of Christ’s divine attributes or

prerogatives. It would not be until the nineteenth century, however, that Lutheran

theologians would return to this idea.

ERNST SARTORIUS: KENOSIS AS THE TRANSITION FROM ACTUALITY TO POTENTIALITY

The responsibility for re-igniting the debate about kenosis appears to lie with Ernst Wilhelm

Christian Sartorius (1797-1859). According to arguably the most important kenotic

theologian of the nineteenth century, namely, Gottfried Thomasius (1802-1875), it was

‘Sartorius’ merit to have first provided again a portrayal of the dogma [of Christ] on the old

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foundations, and at the same time to have done so in the direction which contains within it

the advance towards a deeper conception of kenosis.’49 In a footnote Thomasius then goes

on to express his sincerest gratitude to Sartorius for the service he has thereby rendered to

Thomasius and many others.50

Like the theologians of Giessen and Tübingen who preceded him, Sartorius’ forays

into kenotic Christology were motivated by controversy concerning the Lutheran doctrine of

the Eucharist. Firstly, Sartorius was troubled at recent publications on the Eucharist by

Lutheran, Reformed, and Roman Catholic theologians, which he believed gave inadequate

explanations of how the divine and human natures of Christ are present in the Eucharist.51

Secondly, the union imposed upon the Lutheran and Reformed Churches in Prussia by

Friedrich Wilhelm III (1770-1840) raised the problem of how to address the doctrinal

differences between the two churches. This was a particular problem with regard to the

Eucharist, where the differences between the two denominations were at their greatest.

The concern of Lutheran theologians that the Reformed doctrine would be forced upon

them led to resistance in some quarters, some Lutheran clergy even emigrating to the

United States and Australia in order to establish free Lutheran churches. Sartorius, however,

accepted the union of the two churches, but was resolved to prevent the union from

compromising Lutheran doctrine. To achieve this, he set about winning acceptance for

Lutheran Eucharistic doctrine in the united church by demonstrating in his article ‘Defence

of the Lutheran Doctrine of the Eucharist against the Reformed and Catholic Doctrines’

(1832) that the Lutheran doctrine occupied the middle ground between the two

unacceptable extremes of Reformed and Roman Catholic doctrine.52 Reformed doctrine was

in error because it held the heavenly and the earthly, divinity and humanity so far apart that

the Eucharist was reduced to a mere memorial and consequently failed to bring about an

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encounter with Christ in his divine and human natures in the consecrated elements of bread

and wine. Roman Catholic doctrine, on the other hand, failed because its theory of

transubstantiation misunderstood Christ’s presence in the Eucharist in crude materialistic

terms.

The doctrine of the Eucharist, however, cannot be treated in isolation from the

doctrine of the incarnation, for the question of the relation between Christ’s divinity and

humanity in the Eucharist raises the problem of their relation in Christ himself, upon whom,

of course, the doctrine of the Eucharist is dependent. This prompts Sartorius to accompany

his defence of Lutheran Eucharistic doctrine with an essay in the same collection on the

communication of attributes, for, as he states in the opening sentence of the second essay,

‘The preceding defence of the Lutheran doctrine of the Eucharist simultaneously requires a

defence of our de communicatione idiomatum.’53

Sartorius, however, is confronted by an additional problem that was unknown to the

seventeenth century Lutherans, namely, the denial to Christ of the fulness of divinity and

the conception of Christ’s divine attributes as merely accidental additions to his human

nature. This view, which Sartorius labels ‘Socinianism’, is prevalent among ‘semi-

rationalists’, who ascribe divine attributes to Christ, but deny that Christ possesses a divine

nature. These ‘Socinians’ hold that the divine attributes are merely loaned to Christ by God,

but are not his own possession.54

The problem of the Eucharist and the contemporary denial of fulness of divine to

Christ thus compelled Sartorius to consider in more detail the relation between the divine

and human natures in the Person of Christ.

The works in which Sartorius addresses the question of the relation between divinity

and humanity in the incarnate Christ are his popular lectures on the Person and Work of

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Christ (1831), the aforementioned essay on the communicatio idiomatum (1832), and his

magnum opus The Doctrine of Divine Love (1840-56). It is in the course of reflecting on the

relationship between Christ’s divine and human natures in these works that Sartorius

develops a Christology that appears to have kenotic features.

Sartorius understands the union of divinity and humanity in Christ to be ‘a unity of

personal self-consciousness, which holds together and yet keeps separate the two natures;

for in the Son of God there was a central point of consciousness of such a kind, that to the

eternal consciousness of his Divine nature was added the temporal consciousness of his

human nature, or rather, eternal Divine consciousness assumed to itself the human

nature.’55 Consequently, in the incarnate Christ the Son of God’s consciousness

simultaneously encompassed the entire human nature, both body and soul, and the entire

divine nature, and indeed encompassed both natures as his own despite the difference

between them. To demonstrate the feasibility of this union of both divinity and humanity,

Sartorius draws an analogy with two concentric circles that despite their different

circumferences nevertheless have one and the same centre.56

It follows from their union in Christ’s consciousness that divinity and humanity are

both united and distinct. Without confusing or commingling the two natures, each nature is

appropriated by the other nature in the most inward way. The result of this mutual

appropriation is that through the common medium of the personal centre each nature has

what is distinctive to it in communion with the other nature and precisely for that reason

possesses the attributes belonging to the other nature. That is, through the personal union

of the two natures in the self-consciousness or ego of Christ, there comes about a

communicatio idiomatum.

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According to Sartorius, the communicatio idiomatum established by the incarnation

can be considered from two different perspectives. Firstly, we can reflect on how and to

what extent the human attributes are conferred upon the divine nature. Secondly, we can

reflect on how and to what extent the divine attributes are conferred upon the human

nature. Sartorius calls these perspectives (1) idiopoiēsis, according to which the human

attributes really belong to the divine nature, and (2) koinōnia tōn theiōn, according to which

divine attributes really belong to the human nature.57

Both idiopoiēsis and koinōnia tōn theiōn raise kenotic questions. The conferral of

divine attributes on Christ’s humanity raises the question of whether his human nature is

able to exercise the divine attributes it has received without restriction, or whether Christ’s

human nature limits these incarnated divine attributes in some way. The conferral of human

attributes on the divine nature raises the question of whether the divine nature is thereby

affected by the restrictions of human nature such as limited knowledge and suffering. Both

questions are mirror images of each other. The crucial question is: Does the divine nature

override the limitations of human nature or does the human nature limit the exercise of the

divine nature?

The Effect of the Divine Attributes on the Human Nature (koinōnia tōn theiōn)

Sartorius holds that Christ’s human nature must be conscious of the divine attributes by

virtue of its union with the divine nature in Christ’s unified person. In support of this

argument Sartorius cites Col. 2.9, which states that in Christ the entire fulness of divinity

dwells sōmatikōs, bodily. The divine nature permeates the human nature or, as Sartorius

puts it, ‘The radiances of divinity irradiate the assumed human nature.’58 Thus Christ’s

human nature is in full possession of the attributes belonging to the divine nature, albeit in a

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modified form. Divine omniscience manifests itself as Christ’s foreknowledge and his ability

to know the inner thoughts of human beings. Similarly, Christ retains his omnipotence

during his earthly ministry, which allows him to extend his human nature beyond its normal

capacity in order to perform miracles.59 Sartorius also insists that the Son did not renounce

his omnipresence on becoming incarnate and cites Matt. 18.20 in support of this claim,

which he interprets to means that, ‘Through the Divine omnipresence it was possible for

[Christ] to be wherever He willed.’60

The Effect of the Human Attributes on the Divine Nature (idiopoiēsis) 61

The incarnation consists, however, not only in the communication of divine attributes to

Christ’s human nature, but also in the communication of human attributes to Christ’s

divinity. This involves an act of kenosis on God’s part by means of which he lowers himself

to the level of human beings. The incarnation is ‘the most perfect divine revelation and

God’s most profound condescension and kenosis [Entäusserung] from glory to the form of a

servant.’62 This kenosis, however, ‘was not merely some kind of Docetic concealment

(κρύψις) of the Divine glory which took place therein, but an actual deprivation

[Entäusserung] (κένωσις, Phil. ii. 7).’63 The incarnation entailed the diminishment of the

Son’s divine glory and the renunciation of the full exercise of his divine powers: ‘the Son

den[ies] Himself [entäussert sich] by renouncing, in voluntary and gracious condescension to

earthly limitation, the brightness of His glory, the unrestricted use of His Divine attributes

…’64 If the incarnate Son had not confined his divine attributes in this way, he could not have

experienced the human lot in his own person, for ‘the uninhibited splendour of divinity

would have completely driven back the darkness of human suffering.’65 The suspension of

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the use of divine attributes was therefore essential if the incarnate Son were to undergo

genuine human experience. As scriptural evidence for this, Sartorius cites Phil. 2.7.66

Thus far, Sartorius would seem to be following the Giessen view of kenōsis chreseōs,

according to which the Son renounced the use of his divine attributes for the duration of the

incarnation, but retained their possession.

There are, however, indications in Sartorius’ works of a different approach to kenosis

that would take him beyond the Giessen position. These are: (1) his interpretation of

kenosis in terms of the relation between actuality and potentiality; and (2) his attribution of

human suffering to Christ’s divinity.

(1) Kenosis as the transition from Actuality to Potentiality

In Doctrine of Divine Love Sartorius states that the kenosis occurs by the Son’s putting aside

the actuality of his divine essence, while continuing to retain its potentiality. The kenosis

involve the renunciation ‘not indeed of its eternal potentiality, which was impossible, but

certainly of its infinite actuality in finiteness.’67 In a footnote Sartorius provides a much too

brief explanation of how it is possible for the Son to retain his eternal and infinite

potentiality despite the limitations imposed upon him by his assumption of human nature:

‘It is only in the operibus ad intra that the infinite potentiality of the Godhead is in equally

infinite actuality; in the operibus ad extra, on the contrary wherein the finite is assumed and

determined, a certain voluntary self-limitation (determination) [of divine actuality]68 is

already assumed with it.’69 That is, the Son renounces the manifestation of glory in his

incarnate state, because the ‘infinite actuality’ of the divine glory is incompatible with the

finite limitations the Son has assumed on taking up human nature. The finite and therefore

limited vessel of human nature is simply incapable of containing the infinite, unlimited glory

25

that belongs to the Son’s divinity. This does not mean, however, that the Son has absolutely

renounced his glory. He continues to exercise his infinite essence within the Godhead,

where there is no distinction between potentiality and actuality. It is only in his outward

works, i.e., in his activities towards human beings and the created order, that he puts aside

the actuality of his divine essence, while continuing to retain his divine glory in ‘its eternal

potentiality’.

Sartorius seems here to be making a distinction between the immanent and

economic Trinity, although he does not himself employ this terminology. With regard to the

inner relations between the Trinitarian Persons within the Godhead the potentiality and

actuality of the Son’s divine glory are identical. In relation to the Father and the Holy Spirit,

there is no alteration in the manifestation of the Son’s glory. In relation to the Son’s

outward relations to the world he has come to save, however, a reduction of divine glory is

necessary in order that the Son can operate in the limited sphere of human existence.

(2) The Attribution of Human Suffering to Christ’s Divinity

Does the Son’s assumption of the form of a servant mean that he undergoes suffering in his

divinity during his incarnate ministry? Sartorius can indeed sometimes write as if this were

the case. Thus he states that as a result of the communicatio idiomatum, ‘divinity enters just

as deeply into the suffering of humanity as humanity is raised to the glory of divinity.’70

Sartorius also states, as we saw earlier, that the Son’s restriction of the use of his divine

attributes was necessary, for otherwise the Son’s divine nature would have ‘driven back the

darkness of human suffering’, thereby making the incarnation an impossibility.71 Because

the Son has restricted the use of his divine attributes, however, ‘the deadly shadows of

suffering darkly enfold the concealed majesty; or rather, it is not merely the shadows of

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suffering that darken his majesty, but the true feeling of suffering that permeates the unity

of the divine and human consciousness into the heart of divinity.’72 In Person and Work of

Christ Sartorius seems to hold that God himself genuinely suffers in Christ: ‘We cannot,

therefore, conceal the fact, but must allow it to stand before us in all its awfulness, that God

has suffered in Jesus, that he was dishonoured and treated ignominiously by his creatures,

that he bore the cross, that he felt the pains and torture of crucifixion, and experienced the

dread of death common to humanity.’73

As a result of Christ genuinely experiencing the human lot, all human experience

from birth to death is sanctified and divinised, and everything sinful in human life is

reconciled.74 Sartorius exclaims: ‘What sacredness is now impressed on all earthly sufferings,

by the holy sufferings of the Son of God!’75 If Christ does not experience in his divine nature

the reality of human suffering, then such solidarity cannot be achieved and Christ would be

unable to support human beings in their suffering: ‘In order that our corporeal and spiritual

ills might no longer separate us from Him, and thus lead to irretrievable ruin, God has

himself endured them.’76 Consequently, ‘God suffering in Christ … is not a nominal but a real

truth, is a comfort that stills all sorrow’.77 On these grounds, Sartorius concludes that, ‘The

communication of the human suffering to the divine nature is just as real and true as the

communication of divine glory to the human nature through the same medium.’78

Despite such statements, however, Sartorius also insists that the suffering Christ

endures during his earthly ministry should not be attributed to his divine nature. The

communicatio idiomatum does not entail the mixing of the two natures so that the

attributes of one nature become the possession of the essence of the other nature. Since

suffering belongs to the human nature, it cannot be an attribute of the divine nature. As

Sartorius puts it: ‘In both cases what belongs to the essence of one nature does not pass

27

over into the essence of the other nature; the divine nature is and remains in and for itself

incapable of suffering and exalted about human pain.’79

How, then, are we to reconcile this denial of suffering to Christ’s divine nature with

Sartorius’ insistence on Christ genuinely experiencing the human lot? The answer is that

Christ experiences suffering by virtue of his divine consciousness being the centre of both

the divine and human natures. That is, Christ suffers in his divine consciousness, but not in

his divine nature. According to Sartorius, ‘through the condescending appropriation or

assumption of the human nature into the personal unity of the two natures, the divine

nature recognises and feels what belongs to humanity as its own, and becomes personally

conscious of all the hardship, suffering and pain of the human nature, even unto death on

the cross.80 That is, although Sartorius speaks of predicating what is true of one nature to

the other nature, what he appears to mean is that the attributes of both natures can be

attributed to the divine consciousness. Because Christ’s divine consciousness is the central

point uniting divinity and humanity, the attributes belonging to these two natures can be

predicated of Christ’s ego. Christ in his divine self-consciousness thus genuinely experiences

suffering and death. Indeed, his divinity intensifies these experiences beyond what a human

being would experience. These experiences of suffering and death, however, do not affect

the divine nature which remains immutable and impassible.81

For such a distinction to be persuasive, however, it is necessary for Sartorius to

explain the relation between the divine consciousness and the divine nature, and how the

former can be detached from the latter. The divine consciousness of Christ is surely divine

because it is divine by nature? It is therefore difficult to see how the divine nature could not

also be affected by the human experiences the divine consciousness has taken upon itself in

assuming human nature.

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Sartorius’ Contribution to Kenotic Christology

By introducing the notion of a transition of divinity from actuality to potentiality and in

ascribing suffering to Christ’s divinity, despite his failure to develop the former and his

partial retraction of the latter, Sartorius has gone beyond his seventeenth century

predecessors. He is also significant in making the consciousness the focus of kenosis

doctrine. In introducing these innovations, Sartorius provides tantalising hints of a new way

of doing kenotic Christology by mitigating the doctrines of divine immutability and

impassibility in order to affirm that Christ underwent not only in his humanity but also in his

divinity the suffering that belongs to the human condition. Such a move would indeed be a

new departure in Christological thinking. It is, however, a step too far for Sartorius and thus

we find him drawing back from its implications and modifying his statements about kenosis.

GOTTFRIED THOMASIUS: KENOSIS AS THE LOGOS’ RENUNCIATION OF RELATIVE DIVINE

ATTRIBUTES

Unlike the seventeenth century Lutherans and his contemporary Sartorius, Thomasius’

concern with kenotic Christology was not motivated by the threat of Reformed theology. In

contrast to other German protestant churches, the Lutheran Church in Bavaria had not

undergone a union with the Reformed Church, and thus the threat posed by Reformed

Eucharistic doctrine was not a central issue for Thomasius.

Thomasius’ kenotic Christology arose out of his response to the threat he believed to

be posed to Lutheran orthodoxy by contemporary theological and philosophical

developments.82 This threat took two forms. Firstly, the Chalcedonian Definition that Christ

is truly divine and truly human had been rejected by rationalists as absurd and incoherent.

29

Secondly, classical Lutheran Christology was regarded as outmoded by many theologians,

notably David Strauss and Isaak Dorner.83 These two attacks on Chalcedonian Christology

and Lutheran Christology are for Thomasius in reality a single attack. This is because he

holds that Lutheran Christology is a development, deepening, and refinement of the

Chalcedonian Definition. To attack Chalcedon, then, is to attack the roots of Lutheranism

itself.

Thomasius acknowledges the validity of some of the criticisms levelled at Lutheran

Christology, however. Thus he agrees with Strauss that the doctrine of reconciliation

requires in principle a communicatio idiomatum between both natures.84 Thomasius also

concurs with the observation made by Strauss and Dorner that Lutheran Christology is

inconsistent, for while it acknowledges the genus majestaticum, it rejects the genus

tapeinoticum. That is, Lutheran Christology acknowledges that divine attributes are

communicated in the incarnation to Christ’s human nature, but does not make the reverse

and complementary move of attributing human attributes to the incarnate Christ’s divine

nature. There are indications of such a development in the Formula of Concord, since it

states that the Logos participates in the suffering of the human nature in the genus

apotelesmaticum. The Formula of Concord, however, does not follow through with this

insight, the result of which is that, in Thomasius’ opinion, its Christology remains

underdeveloped.85

For Thomasius, the criticisms of Strauss, Dorner, and others apply only to the forms

in which Lutheran doctrines has been expressed, not to the doctrines themselves. For

Thomasius the Chalcedonian two-natures doctrine, the hypostatic union, and the

communicatio idiomatum all remain valid. The problem is merely that they are

underdeveloped and in their current forms lend themselves to criticism. Thomasius also

30

believes, however, that Lutheran theology possesses within itself the resources to address

the challenges it faces. Indeed, he holds that Lutheran theology is susceptible to criticism

precisely because it has not developed the insights embedded in its confessions. The task,

then, is not to abandon Lutheran doctrines, but rather to unfold more fully the resources

and deep insights contained in those doctrines.

The criterion Thomasius employs to judge the adequacy of the form in which a

doctrine has been articulated is Tendenz.86 Form and content can be distinguished by

identifying the tendency or intention of a doctrine and considering to what degree the form

of the doctrine is true to this tendency or intention. This requires a study of the history of

dogma, for in order to establish the tendency of a doctrine it is necessary to take into

consideration the historical context in which the contents of a doctrine received their

form.87

Once the tendency of the doctrine has been identified, Thomasius claims, we have

the seeds of the further development of that doctrine.88 It is the task of dogmatics to take

up these seeds and develop them in a way which is true to their inner tendency and yet also

meets the challenges of contemporary thought.

The Necessity of Kenotic Christology

To meet the challenges faced by Lutheran Christology, Thomasius sets himself the task of

reformulating the doctrine of the Person of Christ. That such a reformulation is necessary is

evident from the underdeveloped aspects of the Christology of the Formula of Concord.,

which was so focused on the status exaltationis that it neglected the development of the

status exinanitionis. Consequently, there is room for developing the Lutheran understanding

of the status exinanitionis beyond what was achieved by the Formula of Concord.

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Furthermore, the Formula of Concord itself contains the seeds of a fuller understanding of

the status exinanitionis, for in stating that it is only in the status exaltationis that the Logos

recovers full possession of his divine majesty, the Formula of Concord implicitly recognises

the limitation of the divine nature in the state of humiliation.

The difficulties of Lutheran Christology can be solved, Thomasius argues, by

developing Lutheran doctrine further and giving it ‘a somewhat different form’.89 In the case

of Christology this means ‘that we resolve upon grasping the concept of kenosis

[Entäusserung] still more sharply and profoundly’ by applying it not only to the human but

also to Christ’s divine nature.90

Thomasius’ first attempt to construct a kenotic Christology took the form of a

lengthy article published in three parts in 1845 in Die Zeitschrift für Protestantismus und

Kirche. It was, however, in his magnum opus Christi Person und Werk that Thomasius

advanced his fullest theory of kenosis.91

Relative and Essential Attributes

Thomasius’ kenotic Christology is based on the distinction he makes between relative

attributes and essential, absolute or immanent divine attributes. The relative attributes are

omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. The essential attributes are absolute power,

truth, holiness, and love. In the incarnation Christ renounces his relative attributes, but

retains his essential attributes.

The Renunciation of Relative Attributes

On assuming human nature the Logos divested himself of his omnipotence, omniscience,

and omnipresence, in order to live a genuine life as a human being. The Logos’ renunciation

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of omnipotence meant that he was incapable of exercising unrestricted divine power during

his earthly ministry. This is not refuted by Christ’s ability to perform miracles, for Christ

performed miracles not by means of his own power, but by virtue of the power granted to

him by the Father. As a consequence of his renunciation of omnipotence, Christ ‘did not

actively rule the world at the same time that he walked on earth as man, suffered and died’.

Nor was it ‘as if he were at the same time actually ruling over and governing the universe in

a hidden way.’92 Christ, Thomasius asserts, ‘was not an omnipotent human being.’93

The Logos also divested himself of his omniscience in order to become incarnate.

‘The mediator’, Thomasius emphasises, ‘was not an omniscient human being.’94 On the

contrary, the incarnate Christ’s knowledge grew and developed like that of any other human

being and ‘extends only as far as his vocation as Redeemer warrants it or, which amounts to

the same thing, as far as the Father gives it to him.’95 Those episodes in the Gospels where

Christ demonstrates unusual insight ‘are comparable to prophetic perception, not to that

intuitive divine perception before which past and future lie like an open present.’96

Finally, since omnipresence is incompatible with the spatio-temporal limitations that

characterise human existence, it, too, is divested by the incarnate Logos, the result of which

is that, ‘the corporeal existence of the Redeemer was restricted to the arena of his

redemptive activity: his wandering from place to place, his coming and going, was a truly

local behaviour.’97

The Revelation of the Essential Attributes

Kenosis, however, does not involve renouncing anything essential to being God. Thomasius

stresses that, ‘Even if the Son as human being has forgone these [relative] attributes, he

lacks nothing which is essential for God to be God.’98 This is because the Logos continues to

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possess the immanent or essential attributes that belong to the divine essence. The

essential attributes are not laid aside, but are retained by the Logos in his incarnate state.

Indeed, the purpose of the incarnation is to reveal these divine attributes to humankind. For

Thomasius, Christ’s earthly life is ‘revelation of the immanent divine attributes, namely,

absolute power, truth, holiness, and love’,99 which ‘shine through his entire self-witness and

shed over his life in the flesh that heavenly radiance which beams forth bright and clear

from the midst of his poverty and lowliness.’100 Thus absolute power reveals itself in Christ

‘as the freedom of self-determination, as the mighty will completely his own,’101 while

absolute truth expresses itself ‘as the clear knowledge of the divine concerning itself, more

precisely as the knowledge of the incarnate one concerning his own essence and the will of

the Father.’102 Thomasius emphasises that Christ acquired this divine knowledge not by

human means but ‘inwardly, by virtue of his unity with the Father.’103 This unity enables him

to ‘behold the Father’s eternal thoughts, and thus he then also speaks of them not as one

who has heard them through outward revelation, but from his own immediate intuition.’104

Kenosis, then, consists in the Son’s laying aside of the relative divine attributes, while

retaining the essential divine attributes. It is precisely the relative attributes that are

incompatible with a genuinely human existence, for no human being can be omnipotent,

omnipresent, and omniscient and still be genuinely human. Because relative attributes are

not essential to the Godhead, since they pertain not to the internal relations within the

Godhead, but to the Godhead’s external relations to the universe, they can be surrendered

by the Logos without loss of divinity. Consequently, even in the reduced and limited form

the Logos assumes on becoming incarnate, he still retains the immanent, essential attributes

of divinity and consequently remains fully divine.

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Thomasius’ Contribution to Kenotic Christology

There are significant problems with the distinction between immanent and essential

attributes upon which Thomasius constructs his kenotic Christology. Dawe observes that,

‘the traditional Christian doctrine of God had always held that there was nothing unessential

in the divine nature. God’s being is full actuality. This means there is nothing unessential in

God that can be sloughed off. God is a unity, not a compound of parts – some essential,

some unessential.’105 There is also the problem of articulating the relationship between the

relative and essential attributes. If the relative attributes are indeed divine attributes, then

they must in some way be embedded in the same divine essence that gives rise to the

essential divine attributes.

Nevertheless, Thomasius has arguably provided the most rigorous form of kenotic

Christology to be advanced thus far. Loofs describes part two of Thomasius’ Christi Person

und Werk as ‘the masterpiece of the modern theory of kenosis’106 and comments that

Thomasius ‘gave the doctrine its scientific formulation.’107 Mackintosh describes Thomasius’

Christology ‘as the classic form of the Kenotic theory,’108 while Welch regards Thomasius as

kenoticism’s ‘most important defender, and in his articulation one sees not only the thrust

of the movement but also, more clearly than anywhere else, the theory’s presuppositions

and possibilities.’109

CONCLUSION: KENOTIC CHRISTOLOGY AS LUTHER’S LEGACY

Luther’s doctrine of the Eucharist raised a series of Christological problems. Luther himself

addressed some of these problems, but many questions still remained and Luther’s own

solutions needed to be thought through more fully. Luther’s successors addressed these

questions by turning to the communicatio idiomatum, a movement which in turn led them

35

to conceive of the incarnation in terms of kenosis. The necessity of thinking through and

developing the theological impulses provided by Luther led to the dispute about the mode

of Christ’s humiliation between Brenz and Chemnitz in the sixteenth century, the kenosis-

krypsis controversy between the theologians of Giessen and Tübingen in the seventeenth

century, and Sartorius’ defence of ubiquitarianism in the nineteenth century. In each of

these cases the theologians concerned resorted to kenosis as a means of defending the

hypostatic union of divine and human natures in Christ that underlies the doctrine of

Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist.

After Sartorius, however, the driving force of kenotic theology was no longer

Eucharistic doctrine, but the need to meet the increasing scepticism concerning the

coherence of Lutheran Christology and the Chalcedonian two-natures doctrine upon which

it is based. Sartorius can been seen as the transitional figure in this development. His

reflections on kenosis were prompted by the threat to the Lutheran doctrine of the

Eucharist posed by the enforced union of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches in early

nineteenth century Prussia. At the same time, however, Sartorius was aware of the

challenge to classical Christology of the rationalist critique of the core doctrines of the

Christian faith. The notion of kenosis provided him with a useful tool for addressing this

challenge. Sartorius, however, was fearful of the direction in which his thinking was taking

him, for its logical consequences appeared to compromise the doctrines of divine

immutability and impassibility. It was Thomasius who took the step from which Sartorius

shrank, by arguing for the genuine renunciation of divine attributes on the part of the

incarnate Son, albeit attributes that are non-essential to the Son’s divinity. From Thomasius

onwards, the notion of kenosis would increasingly liberate itself from the problem of

36

Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and become a means of defending the coherence of the

two-natures doctrine against contemporary critique.

The ancestor and ultimate initiator of modern kenotic Christology, however, is

Martin Luther, whose theology created the problems, but also provided the foundations for

thinking through in a new and fuller way the fundamental Christian truth that ‘the Word

became flesh and dwelt among us’ (John 1.14).

37

1 For discussions of this controversy see Francis Clark, Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967); Euan Cameron, The European Reformation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 161-6.2 Martin Luther, ‘Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper’, in Luther’s Works: American Edition, 55 vols (St. Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia and Fortress, 1955-1986), 37:193.3 Zwingli, 'On the Alloiosis of the two Natures in Christ’, in his Friendly Exegesis, that is Exposition of the Matter of the Eucharist to Martin Luther, February 1527, in Huldrych Zwingli Writings, vol. 2, trans. by H. Wayne Pipkin (Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick, 1984), pp. 233-386; 319-36. See also Richard Cross, ‘Alloiosis in the Christology of Zwingli’, Journal of Theological Studies, NS, 46:2 (1995), 105-22.4 Martin Luther, ‘The Freedom of a Christian’, in Philip D. Krey and Peter D. S. Krey (eds), Luther’s Spirituality (New York, Mahwah: Paulist Press, pp. 69-90; p. 76.5 The following discussion is based on Hans Christian Brandy, Die späte Christologie des Johannes Brenz (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1991), pp. 208-11.6 Brenz, Von der mayestet unsers lieben Herrn und einigen heilands Jesu Christi zu der gerechten Gottes, (Tübingen, 1562); quoted in Brandy, Die späte Christologie des Johannes Brenz, p. 207.7 Cited in Brandy, Die späte Christologie des Johannes Brenz, p. 208.8 Ibid.9 Brenz, Predigt über Mt. 21.1-9; quoted in Brandy, Die späte Christologie des Johannes Brenz, p. 208.10 Brenz, De maiestate Domini nostri Iesu Christi; quoted in Brandy, Die späte Christologie des Johannes Brenz, p. 208.11 Brandy, Die späte Christologie des Johannes Brenz, pp. 206-208.12 Martin Chemnitz, The Two Natures in Christ, trans. by J. A. O. Preus (Saint Louis and London: Concordia Publishing House, 1971).13 Ibid., p. 488.14 Ibid.15 Ibid.16 Ibid.17 Ibid., p. 489. In support of this claim Chemnitz cites 1 Cor. 15.10; 1 Thess. 2.1; 2 Cor. 6.1; 1 Cor. 1.17; and 2 Cor. 9.3.18 Ibid., p. 488.19 Ibid., pp. 488-9.20 Ibid., p. 491.21 Ibid., p. 489.22 Ibid., p. 490.23 Ibid.24 Ibid., p. 491-2.25 ET: Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions, ed. Paul T. McCain et al. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House; 2nd revised ed. edition, 2007).26 Ibid., Solid Declaration, 8.27-28.27 Ibid., Solid Declaration, 8.2828 Ibid., Solid Declaration, 8.73-75.29 Ibid., Solid Declaration, 8.66.30 Ibid., Solid Declaration, 8.13.31 Ibid., Solid Declaration, 8.26.32 Ibid., Solid Declaration, 8.25.33 Ibid., Solid Declaration, 8.65.34 Ibid. Solid Declaration, 8.26, cf. 51.35 Ibid., Epitome 8.16.36 There is little literature on this dispute in English. Brief studies can be found in Robert L. Ottley, The Doctrine of the Incarnation (London: Methuen, 1929), pp. 549-53, and Donald G. Dawe, The Form of a Servant. A Historical Analysis of the Kenotic Motif (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963), pp. 73-8. The major studies in German are Gottfried Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk. Darstellung der evangelisch-lutherischen Dogmatik vom Mittelpunkte der Christologie, 3 vols. (Erlangen: Theodor Bläsing, 11853-61; 21856-63); II:429-93 (all references to Thomasius are to the second edition unless stated otherwise); Ulrich Wiedenroth, Krypsis und Kenosis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011). English translations of German accounts can be found in I. A. Dorner, The History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, 5 vols. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1876), II/2:281-302; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus – God and Man (London: SCM, 2002), pp. 349-52. The following summary draws on the aforementioned works, but also makes use of Martin Breidert, ‘Die alte Kenotik der Giessener im Gegensatz zur modernen Kenotik’, in Martin Breidert, Die kenotische Christologie des 19. Jahrhunderts (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1977), pp. 19-23, as well as the relevant sections of Emanuel Hirsch, Hilfsbuch zum Studium der Dogmatik (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1964). Other resources used are the articles on Mentzer and the kenosis-krypsis controversy in the Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, 24 vols. (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 31896-1913).

37 Justus Feurborn, Kenosigraphia Christologikē , section 3, p. 71; cited in Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, pp. 335-36.38 Feurborn, Kenosigraphia christologike, section 7, p. 240; quoted in Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, p. 335.39 Ibid.40 Quoted in Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, p. 335.41 Feurborn, Kenosigraphia christologike, section 7, pp. 241-2; cited in Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, p. 335.42 Theodor Thummius, Maiestas Jesu Christi (Tübingen, 1621), p. 53; quoted in Hirsch, Hilfsbuch,p. 334.43 Thummius, Maiestas Jesu Christi, 188; quoted in Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, pp. 334-35.44 Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, II:467-71.45 Wagenmann, ‘Kenotiker und Kryptiker’, Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, 7:640-6; p. 645.46 Hollaz, Examen theologicum acroamaticum, II:140-1; quoted in Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, p. 328.47 Ibid., p. 32948 Hollaz, Examen theologicum acroamaticum, II:193; quoted in Hirsch, Hilfsbuch, pp. 330-31.49 Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, II:526. See also Thomasius’ qualified praise of Sartorius and his critical assessment of the latter’s distinction between koinōnia tōn theiōn and idiopoiēsis in ‘Ein Beitrag zur kirchlichen Christologie’ in Zeitschrift für Protestantismus und Kirche, new series, vol. 9 (1845), 1-30, 65-110, 218-58; 100n. Other scholars who consider Sartorius to have advanced an early form of kenotic theology or detect kenotic elements in Sartorius’ thought are Joh. Ludwig König, Die Menschwerdung Gottes als eine in Christus geschehene und in der Christlichen Kirche noch geschehende (Mainz: Viktor von Zabern, 1844), pp. 314-15n.; Isaak August Dorner, Divine Immutability: A Critical Reconstruction (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), pp. 56-7; History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, II/3:330; A. Mücke, Die Dogmatik des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts in ihrem inneren Flusse und im Zusammenhang mit der allgemeinen theologischen, philosophischen und literarischen Entwickelung desselben (Gotha, Friedrich Andreas Perthes, 1867), p. 270. Other theologians, however, have challenged the claim that Sartorius can be read as a type of kenotic theologian. For example, Martin Breidert holds that if Thomasius had not appealed to Sartorius as a forerunner of his own kenoticism, it would never have occurred to anyone that kenotic ideas are present in his theology (Breidert, Kenotische Christologie, p. 39).50 It is striking, however, that Sartorius does not seem to have responded to Thomasius’ expression of gratitude, which first appeared in the first edition of the second volume of Christi Person and Work (pp. 483-4), published in 1855, four years before Sartorius’ death. Sartorius’ silence as well as his lack of involvement in the kenosis debate provoked by Thomasius’ first publication on the topic in 1845 could be taken to indicate that Sartorius did not appreciate his being identified as a forerunner of Thomasius’ kenotic Christology.51 These are the Lutheran theologian J. G. Scheibel’s The Lord’s Supper (1823), the Reformed theologian David Schulz’s The Christian Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist according to the Foundational Texts of the New Testament (1824), and the Roman Catholic theologian Jakob Sengler’s response to Schulz. J. G. Scheibel, Das Abendmahl des Herrn: Historische Einleitung, Bibel-Lehre und Geschichte derselben (Breslau: Joseph Max und Comp., 1823); David Schulz, Die christliche Lehre vom heiligen Abendmahl nach dem Grundtexte des Neuen Testaments: ein Versuch (Leipzig: Joh. Ambrosius Barth, 1824); Jakob Sengler, Würdigung der Schrift von Dr. David Schulz über die Lehre vom heiligen Abendmahl, nebst aphoristischen Grundzügen zu einer speculativen Darstellung der katholischen Abendmahlslehre im Verhältniss zu den protestantischen Abendmahlstheorien (Mainz: S. Müller, 1830).52 Sartorius, ‘Verteidigung der lutherischen Abendmahlslehre gegen die reformierte und katholische,’ in Beiträge zu den theologischen Wissenschaften von den Professoren der Theologie zu Dorpat (Hamburg: F. Perthes, 1832-33), 2 vols, I:305-47. Translations of the two essays in the Dorpater Beiträge are the author’s of this article. Quotations from Sartorius’ other works are taken from the following: The Doctrine of the Person and Work of Christ (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1838) and The Doctrine of Divine Love, trans. by Sophia Taylor (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1884). Taylor’s translation often makes it difficult to identify the kenotic elements owing to her inconsistent translation of Entäusserung and sich entäussern. For that reason we have included the German terms in square brackets after the various terms Taylor has used to translate them.53 Sartorius, , ‘Die lutherische Lehre von der gegenseitigen Mittheilung der Eigenschaften der beiden Naturen in Christo‘, in Dorpater Beiträge, I:348-84.54 Sartorius, ‘Mittheilung der Eigenschaften’, 357-8.55 Sartorius, Person and Work of Christ, p. 29.56 Sartorius, ‘Mittheilung der Eigenschaften’, pp. 359-60.57 Ibid., pp. 362-3.58 Ibid., p. 366.59 Sartorius, Person and Work of Christ, p. 43.60 Ibid., cf. Sartorius, ‘Mittheilung der Eigenschaften’, p. 369.61 Ibid., p. 373.62 Sartorius, ‘Mittheilung der Eigenschaften’, p. 349.63 Sartorius, Doctrine of Divine Love, p. 140.64 Ibid., p. 141, modified translation.

65 Sartorius, ‘Mittheilung der Eigenschaften’, pp. 374-5.66 Ibid., p. 367.67 Ibid., p. 140.68 Omitted in Taylor’s translation.69 Ibid., pp. 140-1n.70 Sartorius, ‘Mittheilung der Eigenschaften’, p. 349.71 Ibid., pp. 374-5.72 Ibid., p. 375.73 Sartorius, Person and Work of Christ, p. 39.74 In support of this comment, Sartorius cites Acts 20.28, which he interprets to mean per idiopoiesin. Sartorius, ‘Mittheilung der Eigenschaften’, p. 378. Cf. Sartorius, Doctrine of Divine Love, p. 142.75 Sartorius, Person and Work of Christ,p. 40.76 Ibid.77 Sartorius, ‘Mittheilung der Eigenschaften’, p. 377.78 Ibid., p. 375.79 Sartorius, ‘Mittheilung der Eigenschaften’, p. 375.80 Ibid., p. 375.81 Sartorius, Doctrine of Divine Love, p. 142.82 For further discussion of Thomasius see David R. Law, ‘Gottfried Thomasius (1802-75)’, in Ian Markham (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Theologians, 2 vols. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), vol. 2, pp. 148-168.

83 For Thomasius’ treatment of the objections of these and other theologians see ‘Beitrag’, pp. 65-110.84 Ibid., p. 99.85 Ibid., pp. 100-101.86 Ibid., pp. 13, 19, 67, 109; cf. Thomasius, Das Bekenntnis der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche in der Konsequenz seines Prinzips (Nuremberg: August Recknagel, 1848), p. 224.87 Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, I:vi, cf. 9; II:71, 191.88 Ibid., II:125; ‘Beitrag’, p. 2; cf. pp. 20, 24, 107, 110.89 Thomasius, ‘Beitrag’, p. 110.90 Ibid., 107.91 All translations from Thomasius’ work are the author’s. A translation of the main parts of the second volume of Christi Person und Werk can be found in Claude Welch, God and Incarnation in Mid-Nineteenth Century German Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965).92 Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, II:238 93 Ibid.94 Ibid., II:239.95 Ibid.96 Ibid., pp. 238-9.97 Ibid., p. 239.98 Ibid., p. 242.99 Ibid., p. 236.100 Ibid., p. 237.101 Ibid.102 Ibid.103 Ibid.104 Ibid.105 Dawe, Form of a Servant, 99-100.106Friedrich Loofs, ‘Kenosis’, in Realencyclopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, 10:246-63; 248.107 Friedrich Loofs, ‘Kenosis’, in James Hastings (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 13 vols. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1908-26), 7:680-7; 686.108 H. R. Mackintosh, The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1927), 267.109 Welch, God and Incarnation in Mid-Nineteenth Century German Theology, 9, n. 11.