Chalcedonian Christology and beyond: Luther's understanding of the Communicatio Idiomatum

Luther, Zwingli and Calvin are in full accord with the Chalcedonian definition of Christ as one person in two natures, which are united unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly and inseparably. The main point of disagreement among them concerns the usage of the so-called communicatio idiomatum . Luther refers to this mainly in his disputes with other theologians such as Nestorius and Zwingli, whereas when he engages in constructive theology or in biblical interpretation, it seems that he does not use it. He could use it because he found it to be in harmony with his own Christological thinking which, he believed, was rooted in the Bible. The doctrine is, for him, an ontological deduction from the cross and the incarnation. The primary purpose of this article is to see how Luther understood the Christological predication, and only in a limited scope bring him in conversation with Zwingli's and Calvin's understanding. Although the traditional interpretation, that the properties of Christ's two natures are communicated to the concretum of his person, predominates in Luther's thought, he went beyond it, affirming a real communication between the two natures. The logic of his usage of the doctrine of the communication of properties enables Luther to move beyond Chalcedonian understanding of Christology, and also sets him apart from the Reformed tradition. Special attention will be given to Luther's usage of the doctrine in relation to the passibility motif, demonstrating that the human idiomatum of suffering and dying belong to God's very being.     

Screen Christologies: An evaluation of the role of Christ‐figures in film

Throughout the course of Christian history, the nature and identity of Jesus Christ has been interpreted in a wide variety of ways. In this article, I will suggest that the root tensions between the divine and human natures of Christ, as epitomized in the Alexandrian and Antiochene controversies of the Patristic Church, find a contemporary expression in the abundance of Christ‐figures that have emerged in contemporary film. Attention will be given to the functions that such figures perform, and their relationship to the Person of Christ as understood by the respective ‘high’ (Alexandrian) and ‘low’ (Antiochene) schools of Christology. I will conclude that, provided sufficient emphasis is placed on the humanity of the Christ‐figure, a process of redemption analogous to that found in traditional Christian accounts of the Person of Christ is operative through such films.     

How Does the Bible Refer to Christ? Interacting with Augustine the Allegorist

Abstract: Traditional Christianity teaches that the Bible's primary referent is Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and Christians have long looked for ways to connect every passage in the Bible to the Christ. One venerable strategy is the allegorical or figurative approach of creatively interpreting any unit of biblical meaning, sometimes down to the individual words, as referencing Christ. Alternatively, we might take the biblical narrative itself as referencing Christ and find the connection of smaller units of meaning to Christ through their place in that narrative. My article clarifies this topic through interaction with an exemplary practitioner of the strategy of figurative reading, the Church Father Augustine. I will first explain Augustine's reasons for his hermeneutics, which stem largely from his focus on smaller units of reference such as the word and the sentence. Then I will argue that his reasons are not persuasive if indeed the Bible does refer to Christ at a broader level, the level of narrative.     

Aquinas and the unity of Christ: a defence of compositionalism

Thomas Aquinas is often thought to present a compositionalist model of the incarnation, according to which Christ is a composite of a divine nature and a human nature, understood as concrete particulars. But he sometimes seems to hedge away from this model when insisting on the unity of Christ. I argue that if we interpret some of his texts on the assumption of straightforward compositionalism, we can construct a defence of Christ’s unity within that context. This defence involves the claim that the divine unity is so great, and the relation between Christ’s two natures so unusual, that the divine unity can be transferred to the composite Christ as a “borrowed property”.     

Historical Memory and the Resurrection of Jesus: Encountering the Risen Christ

Why did the risen Christ only impart the truth of his resurrection to future generations indirectly? Why risk the distortion and eventual loss of contact with the truth and reality of his risen life that could result? Moreover, granted he uses mediation to preserve his presence among humankind, what means does he use? This article argues that Christ employs two principal means to preserve the knowledge and saving presence of his risen life in his church, namely: the historical memory preserved in the Gospels and the church's liturgical remembrance. The first part of this work examines the existence and reliability of eyewitness testimony in the Gospels in dialogue with the work of Richard Bauckham. The second part examines the path of liturgical remembrance through active participation in the life of the crucified and risen Christ.     

EUTHYPHRO AND THE GOODNESS OF GOD INCARNATE

A familiar problem is here viewed from an unfamiliar angle. The familiar problem is the Euthyphro dilemma: if God wills something because it is good, then goodness is independent of God, so God becomes, morally speaking, de trop. On the other hand, if something is good because God wills it, then, given the absence of constraint on what God may will, moral truths are – counterintuitively – contingent. An examination of the kinds of necessity and possibility at work in this conundrum leads us to the most promising solution: there is a metaphysical connection between God and goodness. What he wills is an expression of his nature. But (and this is the unfamiliar angle), that solution now poses an acute problem for an understanding of the Incarnation. For if God is constitutive of goodness, and Christ is God incarnate, then Christ is constitutive of goodness. But Christ, as a human, is subject to external moral evaluation and obligation, which entails that he is not constitutive of goodness. This metaethical difficulty is not easily met by the usual strategies by which Christ is understood to have two natures. Reflection on our moral relations to our past selves, however, suggests a way forward.     

Doctrine of Scripture in Lutheran Theology—Its Missional Thrust: A Response to Lamin Sanneh's Hein‐Fry Lecture 20081

Abstract : In this article, I argue that Lutheran doctrine of Scripture is rooted in a christological centre, a centre that is coherent with Lamin Sanneh's thesis that the missionary experience must encompass both the work of the missionary who comes from ‘outside’ and, more especially, the reflections of the ‘indigenous’ peoples on Scripture in its witness to God's coming in Jesus Christ. This essential mutuality of ‘receiving’ and ‘giving’ in reading Scripture christologically undercuts imperial biblical hermeneutical practices that privilege certain cultures, languages, ethnic, racial, and class groupings as bearers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.     

Diverse identities in Christ according to Paul: the enduring influence of the work of William S. Campbell

Abstract

Unlike previous scholarship that asserted that in places where Jewish and gentile identities conflicted, Jewish traditions and practices had to give way to gentile ones, Campbell’s work sets forth the proposition that Paul envisioned side-by-side, diverse identities expressing themselves in unity. Thus, in Campbell’s reading Paul made room for missional activity to both Jews and gentiles, affirming Peter’s work as well as his own. Furthermore, Campbell shifted the conversation from an opposition between Jews and gentiles in the early church to the challenges of forming early Christ-followers’ identity in the face of the pervasive influence of the Roman empire. Although Campbell’s emphasis on Paul’s Jewish identity seems to place him among the New Perspective on Paul scholars, he recognises that Paul’s own identity was not his primary focus in his letters – the in-Christ gentile identities of the new communities was. This emphasis of Campbell’s work moves him beyond the less nuanced approaches of scholars such as Sanders and Dunn. A significant part of Campbell’s work has been to discuss the relationship between Israel and the emerging Christ movement. He concludes that neither Jewish nor gentile identities are obliterated, nor is gentile Christianity absorbed into or a replacement for Israel. Instead, gentile Christ followers are accepted into God’s people as gentiles, alongside Jews and Jewish Christ followers. William Campbell has been instrumental both within the Paul within Judaism movement, but also in pushing for nuanced and innovative developments stemming from that body of work. His past work commands respect and his future work is highly anticipated.     

The Passion of the Christ: A Modern Mystery Play

In a review article the author reflects upon the recent film by Mel Gibson in the tradition of the medieval mystery play. As the biblical story of human origins begins in a garden, so too does this story of the birth of a new creation brought into being by the suffering of Jesus. With an understanding and acceptance of Jesus' unique vocation as the Christ, Mary is a central figure of spiritual empowerment to her son as he fulfills his mission.     

The Church in the commentaries of St Cyril of Alexandria

Abstract

The Church of Alexandria was a highly centralized institution, reflecting Alexandria's civil status rather than an ecclesiology comparable to that of Rome. Cyril's thinking on the Church was not ideologically driven but the product of his biblical exegesis. Of the many symbolic images of the Church he finds in the Scriptures, the most important are the tabernacle, the temple, the city of Sion, and the body of Christ. In discussing these images, he presents the Church as a community of faith in which humanity is recreated in Christ through the Holy Spirit, a community in which believers reproduce on the moral level the essential unity of the Trinity itself. With a strong sense of the Church as a society in the world, Cyril is anxious to protect this community from competitors who would thwart its purpose through wrong belief.     

The Adventure of Research

In recent years, a number of studies corroborate the importance of an integrated or interdisciplinary curriculum for an effective education. However, contemporary proposals for the function of theology as the integrative center have been limited mainly to sectarian communities and remain a work in progress. Noting the fruitfulness of historical and worldview surveys of the relationship between theology and education in the works of Holmes, Knight, and Blamires, this essay is an attempt to contribute to these approaches by demonstrating how current research in biblical and patristic studies can contribute models for the integration of curricula and provide a more effective Christian education. Included are analyses of the counter-imperial thesis for Paul's theology and how it breaks down walls between Bible, Literature, History, and Government classes, the emergence of a distinctly Christian paideia and its contribution to the formation of Christian character, and the concept of cosmological axioms entailed in sacred discourse which provide a comprehensive interdisciplinary application of the lordship of Christ. Observations on the implications of such models for Christian education are then drawn from the data.     

Luther and Shankara: Two Ways of Salvation in the Indian Context

Abstract : This article compares and contrasts the soteriology of Reformer Martin Luther with Advaita philosopher Shankara. Luther's emphasis on the communication of attributes (communicatio idiomatum) in the two natures of Christ gets doubled in faith, where the indwelling Christ takes on our human nature while giving the believer the fruits of his divine nature, such as eternal life. Conversely, our human finite history replete with suffering is taken up into the divine life, dignifying what is mundanely human. In the Indian tradition of the Upanishads and nonduality in philosophy, Shankara seeks the union of the Self (atman) with the highest reality, the Absolute (Brahman). The realization of the oneness of Self with Brahman requires the shedding of all historical or personal attributes. The result is that the suffering of oppressed untouchables and other lower castes is dubbed unreal. A healthy soteriology in the context of Indian spirituality—a Dalit soteriology—could benefit from Luther's exchange of attributes, because the mundane sufferings of humble people are dignitifed by receiving a place in God's reality.     

"Person" versus "Individual", and Other Modern Misreadings of Gregory of Nyssa

This article argues that, despite claiming that his own ontology of personhood is patristic–based, John Zizioulas has not convincingly exegeted the Cappadocian theology of person, especially that of Gregory of Nyssa and Basil of Caesarea. This is unfortunate, given the fact that there are dozens of patristic quotations from, or references to, various Greek Fathers (especially the Cappadocians) throughout Zizioulas's works. Instead, he uses nineteenth– and twentieth–century insights which he then foists on the Cappadocians. This methodology leads him to misleading conclusions. Zizioulas is therefore in error when he contends that the Cappadocians did not understand a person as an individual or when he credits them with having had the same concerns we moderns have when combating individualism today.     

Thomas More on the Sadness of Christ: From Mystagogy to Martyrdom

Thomas More presents us with a wonderful example of martyrological exegesis where his exegetical work was intended to inspire his readers to live the virtues, to follow Christ, and to provide consolation amidst tribulation. Such exegesis aimed to aid the reader to live the martyrdom required in ordinary life and beyond that, if necessary, with mental anguish, physical torture, and even death on behalf of Christ. Before examining More's work, I first situate this discussion within the broader conversation concerning modern biblical interpretation‐ in particular the notion of senses of Scripture ‐ therein explaining how I shall be using terms like mystagogy and martyrdom in this article. I shall then examine More's spiritual exegesis of Jesus' passion narratives, paying particular attention to the agony in the garden. I shall conclude with a look at the saint's life, which provides a background for his interpretation of Scripture.     

Justification as Declaration and Deification

Theological accounts of the way God justifies sinners often struggle to combine forensic or declarative ideas about justification with transformationist ones. Luther seems to have especially steep problems here, not because he fails to think of justification as transformation – indeed deification – but because his forensic claims seem to take back what he says about transformation. Yet in the end Luther shows how forensic and transformationist ideas of even the boldest sort can cohere. At one level the concept of justifying faith as union with Christ extra nos combines the two, but their deeper unity is trinitarian: it lies in the Father's eternal verdict on the work of his incarnate Son, whose death and resurrection win for us the coming of the Spirit.     

Contemplating the Monad Who Saves Us: Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus on Divine Simplicity

Daley explores divine simplicity according to Maximus the Confessor and John of Damascus, grounding his account in their classical philosophical antecedents. He notes that often we think of the sixth and seventh centuries as devoted to questions about Jesus Christ, not about God per se. Admittedly, the aftermath of the Council of Chalcedon produced ongoing controversy in the East regarding the unity of the two natures of Christ, for example, whether Christ had one operation or two. Maximus, a follower of Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem, became embroiled in controversy through his firm rejection of the effort by Emperor Heraclius and Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople to unite the churches in the East by holding solely to a single activity and a single will in Christ. Maximus’s position won out at the Third Council of Constantinople (680‐1). Daley draws attention here, however, to the relationship of these Christological debates to the understanding of God, and especially what it means to speak of the “divine nature” and the “divine will.” This topic required of Christian thinkers not merely philosophical reflection but also Trinitarian reflection. Daley’s point is that it well behooves us to look closely into what Maximus and John of Damascus have to say about divine simplicity, in light of the more central controversies in which these Church Fathers were engaged.     

'The Christian as Christ to the Neighbour': On Luther's Theology of Love

Abstract: This article explores the theology of love advanced by Martin Luther, relating it to his account of the presence of Christ by faith in other people, and to his biblical expositions. In outlining Luther's contrast between the love of God and the human loves, it is argued that Luther nonetheless is still able to value human love. Finally, the relationship between love and faith in Luther is described: love is chief among the many gifts of God that we receive by faith.