3. The Personal Union.

3. The Personal Union.

(De unione personali.) In Christ, God and man are united as one person, namely—as has just been explained—in such a way that human nature, which did not previously exist, was taken into the Person of the Son of God at the time determined by God and in the wonderful way brought about by God (actus unitionis). The miraculous and unique union of God and man into one person (status unionis) that has thus arisen is called the personal union, unio personalis, év@olc vmootatixy, The expression is true in every respect. It expresses clearly and unmistakably that in Christ God and man are not connected in any way but form a personal unity. But now it is a matter of clearly understanding the matter designated by the expression on the basis of Scripture and of standing firm against all reversals. All aberrations in the doctrine of Christ's person have their reason in the fact that the unio personalis is abandoned and a different kind of unio is substituted. There is a connection of God with all creatures. Jer. 23:24: "Do not I fill heaven and earth?" Some did not want to refer this statement to God's essence, but only to God's activity. '*) The words refer to God himself, to God's essence (82 738 [HEBREW)). God is by his nature (essentialiter) present in all and with all creatures, that is, also in every human being. And through this presence of God with and in all creatures, the creatures have their being and their activity, Acts 17:28: In him we live, and move (ktvovpE9a), and have our being"; Col. 1:17: ta mé:vta (the universe) ev avto ovvéotnkev. In a special way God is connected with the church, the believers, Joh. 14:23: mpoc avtov éAsvodueda Kat Lovyv zap’ ADT TOIN)-

de natura Dei, § 176 ff. The train of thought in Jer. 23:24 is quite clear. That God sees everything, v. 24a, v. 24d is justified by the fact that God is everywhere, filling heaven and earth. x27 [HEBREW] filling, active, like Isaiah 6:1: "His hem (a°x? [HEBREW)]) filled the temple". oopsv. 7) One also wanted to reduce this special connection of God with the believers to a mere indwelling of divine powers and gifts. But the scriptural words here too refer to the indwelling of God himself. Scripture has the Formula of Concord for itself when it rejects as an error "that not God but only the gifts of God dwell in the believers". '*4) Because of this indwelling of God the believers are called vadc Se00 Cavtoc [the temple of the living God], 2 Cor. 6:16; vadc tov ayiov avebuatosc, Cor. 6:19; 76 od@pa Xpiotov, Eph. 1:23. This special connection of God with the believers, which has been called unio mystica, is so intimate that through it the believers are called $eiacs kowa@voi pbosaes [partakers of the divine nature’], 2 Petr. 1:4 — But quite differently and much more closely God and man are united in Christ, namely as one Person. But this union into one person is what Scripture teaches clearly and unmistakably in all its statements, in which it calls "God" "man" and "man" "God". For while we are not allowed to say with reference to a tree: "This tree is God" and: "God is a tree", even though God is in every tree, nor are we allowed to say of a Christian: "This Christian is God" and: "God is Christian", even though the Triune God dwells in every Christian, we can and must nevertheless say of the Man Christ on the basis of Scripture: "This Man is God" and: "God is Man", because in Christ God and man are united into one Person. The Scripture says Matt. 16:13-17: the Son of Man is the Son of the living God; Luke 1:31-32: the Son of Mary is the Son of the Highest One; Jer. 23:6. 6: the shoot of David is Jehovah; Rom. 9:8: the one who came from the fathers is God, praised forever; Joh. 1:14: the Word is flesh; Rom. 1:3: the Son of God is the Son of David etc. These scriptural statements have been appropriately called "personal propositions", propositiones personales, because they express the unique union of God and man in Christ, namely the union of being one person.!*°)

6 $edc, Ezekiel 37:27. 1 Cor. 3:16: to avebpia tot Sob oiket Ev viltv.

creatures, He is linked to the man Christ as one Person: "The Godhead is immovable in himself, cannot move from one place to another as the creature does. Therefore he is here" (the Son of God in his In the presentation of the doctrine of the person of Christ, it is now all about capturing the unio personalis in its uniqueness. It is not to be thought of in terms of the way God is united with all creatures, nor in terms of the way God is united with the faithful, but must be sharply distinguished from them and from all other associations. The unio personalis can be illustrated to a certain extent by examples of other associations, such as the union of soul and body in man and of fire and iron in red-hot iron. °° The first example is used by Scripture itself Col. 2:9. °’ But these examples also only offer certain similarities, but by no means complete equality, as will be explained in more detail later. The inequality that exists between the unio personalis and the examples given is immediately apparent in the fact that we cannot say "The soul is body and the body is soul, and: The Incarnation) "not ascended from heaven as on a ladder or descended as on a rope, but was before" (scil, before the Incarnation) "since in the virgin body essential and personal, as in all places everywhere, according to divine nature, mode and power... But in Christ there is something different, higher and greater before all creatures. For in him God is not only present and essential, as in all the others (creatures), but dwells in him bodily, that one Person is man and God. And though I can say of all creatures: God is there, or God is in him, I cannot say: this is God himself. But of Christ, faith does not only say that God is in him, but that Christ is God himself. And the one who strangles a person may well be called a murderer of the thing that is God’s and that God is within. But whoever strangles Christ has strangled the Son of God, God and the Lord of glory himself. (StL. XX, 808 f.)

homo unus est Christus. [As the rational soul and the flesh [body] are one man, so God and man are one Christ] F. C.. 545, 9: [Trigl. 819, Epit., VIII, 9] As the ancient teachers of the Church explained this union and communion of natures by the illustration of iron glowing with fire, and also by the union of body and soul in man". (See F. C., 678, 18 [Zrigi. 1021, Sol Decl., VII, 18])

Z@patikac. which only occurs here in the New Testament, means "in a physical way". Correctly Wahl translates corporaliter, ut in corpore; Luther: "in the flesh". The expressed thought is this: The whole fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ O@LaTUKds, so that in Christ—of course in Christ according to human nature—it is clothed with a body (oma). Humanity in Christ relates to the fullness of the Godhead as the body relates to the soul. Meyer, too, is right, although he does interfere with many a strange thing, such as the relationship to Christ in the state of exaltation. fire is iron and iron is fire, whereas we can and must say of the unio personalis of Christ: God is man and man is God. The "Personal propositions": "God is Man" and "Man is God", which express personal union, have therefore been appropriately called propositiones inusitatae [unique propositions], because otherwise there is no example for them in the whole of creation. Otherwise God and man are disparata, mutually exclusive concepts. 8) Otherwise, God is not a man, as Scripture explicitly testifies. '59) Otherwise no man is God either. If a man presumes to do s0, it is blasphemy.!® But in this unique person, in Christ, God is really and truly man and man is really and truly God, because in Christ God and man form one person, one I. Therefore the ancient teachers continue to say correctly: The propositiones personales are indeed inusitatae, but nevertheless reales (contrast: verbales) and (contrast: impropriae et tropicae), because they express a real fact, namely the fact that in Christ God is man and man is God, and because the two expressions "God" and "man" are not used in a non-actual sense (so-called God, so-called man), but in the actual and essential sense. '°! If one refers here again to the "unconceivability",

(Opp. v. a. IV, 458; St. L. X, 1168) that in the statement "Deus est homo" disparata are said of each other. Thesis 3: Nec minus, imo magis disparata est praedicatio: Deus est liomo, quam si dicas: Homo est asinus. The later dogmatists also deal with the question whether the propositiones personales disparata of one another are expressed in the propositiones. So Gerhard, 1. c., § 170. They affirm the question by defining disparatum (after Johannes Damascenus) as: quod d1agépet tp Aoyw (regarding) tg ovoias. But God and man are by their nature opposita sive disparata.

communione naturarum fundantur et eam declarant propositiones, quas vocant personales, quibus concretum unius naturae enuntiatur de concreto alterius naturae, v. g.. Deus est homo, homo est Deus, et similes. Et sunt propositiones illae non verbales tantum, sed maxime reales. Dicuntur alias praedicationes inusitatae, quia in universa natura nullum datur exemplum, in quo duo disparata in casu recto proprie de se invicem praedicentur aut citra manifestam falsitatem de se praedicari possint. [Google] Quenstedt (II, 210 sq.): Praedicationes personales, in quibus concre- that is, to the incomprehensibility of the fact that God is man and man is God, and thus God and man are bound into one IJ, we not only concede the incomprehensibility, but we also demand on the basis of Scripture the recognition of the incomprehensibility and reject every rationalistic attempt at explanation, because Scripture expressly designates the fact that God became man as 6poAoyovpévac Léya LvotHptov. '° Once again we remind you that all the works of God in the kingdom of nature have the recognized characteristic that they are not in the least oriented to human thinking, but that they have their existence only through God's Word and will, unconcerned about all human thinking. Why then should the fact of the incarnation of the Son of God, which is God in his. Word as the miracle xkat' eEoxrv,'© should be dependent on its conceivableness? But Scripture leaves no doubt about the unity of the I of God and man in Christ, as emerges from the propositiones personales and idiomaticae. Not of two subjects, but of one and the same subject, Scripture tells us that just as being human and the whole range of human attributes, so being God and the whole range of divine attributes. It is one and the same subject to whom Scripture attributes the predicate of eternity ' and an age of eight days '®) etc. — And what about the "self-consciousness" of Christ? The question of the self-consciousness of Christ has been much discussed, especially in our time. The Scriptures give us clear information about this as well. Just as it teaches that Christ is God and man, Seav8pearos, it also gives us ample evidence that Christ knew himself as God and man. Christ also has a divine-human tum unius naturae praedicatur de concreto alterius naturae, v. g.: Deus est homo, homo est Deus; germen Davi dis est Jehova, Justitia nostra, Jer. 23:35; cf: Luc. 1:35, sunt I. verae et reales, 2. singularissimae et inusitatae, ac nequaquam communi regulae conformes, 3. propriae, loquendo de proprietate rhetorica, non logica. [Google] [The Catalog of Testimonies (Zrigl., p. 1111; Mueller, 735—736)]

also dwells in him, that God and man may become one person, that is the high work and miracle of God, which makes all reason a fool, and faith alone must keep it, otherwise it is lost... O Lord God, where are they who believe all this? What will it be when reason comes hither with its fancy?" (St. L. XX, 809.)

consciousness. He knows both about His eternal, pre-worldly existence, Joh. 8:38: "Before Abraham became, I am", as well as about His temporal coming into the world, in order to go to the father again through suffering, death and resurrection, Joh. 16:28; 12:23 ff. He does not know himself as a human personality that is only influenced and supported by God, but he, the Son of Man, knows himself at the same time as 0 vtoc tov Seov tov Caovtos, Matt. 16:13-17. Immediately in Christ's first statement about himself, which is reported to us by Scripture, namely in the statement of the twelve year old boy, not only the human but clearly and distinctly the God-human consciousness is revealed, Luke 2:49: "Do you not know that I must be in him who is my Father" and v. 51: "He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject to them".!©° In order to express that in Christ an I includes God and man, the expression persona ovvOstos¢, persona composita, was used after the procedure of the Greek Fathers (cf. Damascenus, De orth. fide Ill, 3). The expression has been negotiated. '° Some of the Lutheran teachers have expressly described it as inaccurate. '°) However, they allow it to be used to express the unstable illud pietatis mysterium that in Christ God and man are united in a personal union, and especially to express the thought "that now, after the Incarnation, to the whole person of Christ belongs not only his divine nature but also his assumed human nature, and that, just as without his divinity, that is, without his humanity, the person of Christ or Filii Dei incarnati is not whole, so Christ is not two distinct persons but a single person".! If we look at history, we meet the strange phenomenon that people— and not just

confronted here with the kind of "unusual", "precocious" child. The sharp emphasis ON TOV TATPdc LLOv in contrast to the accusation: "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing", expresses the fact that he knows himself to be higher than his earthly parents, the Son of God. The following remark on his return: Kat jv vaotaoodpEvos adtott, scil, his earthly parents, reveals that he also knew himself as a human being.

and not only people outside the boundaries of the Christian Church— have taken a great dislike to the personal union of God and man in Christ organized by God for their salvation. At all times substitutes for personal union have been sought. A whole range of connections between God and Christ the man is to be permitted, from a mere agreement of will to the blending of God and man into one being. But what one does not want is the GsionTGt Goalie MH AMIOOHETPEISGH. In our time it isso that even theologians who call themselves positive treat the Personal Union as dismissed, in that they demand from the outset for the alleged salvation of Christ's true humanity the individual personality for the man Christ and treat the two natures in one person ("doctrine of two natures") as a position that has been overcome. And all the substitutes for the unio personalis have been declared by those who put them on the market "just as good", even better, because they express the "proper" and "deeper" meaning of the Incarnation of God. The Christian Church, however, has very firmly rejected all substitutes and recognized them as overturning the reason for salvation. For this purpose it has used a number of negative provisions. Negative are already the well-known provisions of the Council of Chalcedon. With the dovyyvt@s and atpéntwc (against Eutyches) it has rejected any mixing and transformation of God and man (unio per mixtionem et conversionem). With the adiaipsétas and dywpiotws and (against Nestorius) every kind of union is rejected, which does not let it come to a union of God and man to one person, but which grasps the union according to the way of God's union with all creatures or the faithful. The connections which are left behind the Personal Union and therefore rejected have been described in more detail as unio naturalis, nominalis, habitualis, accidentalis, sustentativa, per voluntatem et assensum, per operationem, etc. The fact that not all of these provisions have always been used in the same sense is explained by the fact that they have sometimes been used in different ways. Nor is it unseemly that one and the same substitute which the false teachers sought to replace the unio personalis should be rejected under several headings. We recognize from this the endeavor to replace the unio personalis in its

uniqueness and to reject the substitutes under all disguises. It is worth the effort to go a little further

to Hutter's Comp., 4th ed., p. 188; after rejecting the mixing and transformation he continues: Sunt vero etiam alii unionis modi quam longissime hinc removendi, e. g., unio Katd mapaotaoty, sicut lateri Petri assistebat angelus, Act. 12:7; item unio kata mapaieoly, vel oivi-Eotv, per appositionem aut attingentiam, quae fit, quando duo asseres compinguntur, aut du massae metallicae extremitatibus suis conglutinantur, vel cum alterum attingit alterum, non tamen totum, sed exigua duntaxat sui parte, ut clavus rotam, planeta sphaeram, ut etiam gemma unitur annulo, qualia similia Calvinianis in illustranda doctrina de duarum in Christo naturarum unione personali arrident. Praeterea removenda est 1. unio cata oxéow, quae habitus, gratiae, conditionis, dignitatis, honoris, eruditionis, prudentiae, fortitudinis etc. similitudinem, vel aequalitatem importat. 2. unio xa3' Appoviay n tavtoBovdiay, iuxta consensum ao voluntatem, qualis tum apud credentes, Act. 4:32, tum apud coniuges se offert, Sir. 25:2, imo etiam apud eos, qui illegitimo miscentur toro, I Cor. 6:16. 3. Unio kat’ ovoiay, unio essentialis, quae v. g. est inter materiam et formam: unio essentialis etiam tribus personis in divina essentia a quibusdam tribuitur, sed plane axipac.... [Google] 4. unio kata petoyny n yap, ubi Deus etiam samctis unitur, in quibus tanquam in templo suo habitat, 1 Cor. 3:16; b, 19. 5. [Google] Unio xat' evépyeiay, id est, secundum operationem, quasi carnis assumtae operationes solummodo essent organicae, aut ipsa caro qualecunque instrumentum tob Adyov fuerit, per quod operaretur, sicut sancti cum Deo dicuntur uniri, quando Deus per illos operatur, Rome. 15:8; 1 Cor. 12, 6th Est enim unio personalis (quae etiam ab unione sacramentali nimium, quantum distat) plane wovotponos Kau ECaipEtoc, vmép ywotv, vmép vobv kai vmép maoav Katadnyny, ut loquitur Justinus. [Google] — We also include a compilation of Weinmann's works: Utriusque naturae, divinae tov Aoyov, et humanae e virgine Maria assumtae, unio non est naturalis, quasi modo naturali facta sit, vel inde resultarit unum naturale; nec essentialis, quasi duae in Christo naturae sint unum ovota, ut fit in tribus SS. Trinitatis personis; nec accidentalis, quasi alicuius sit subjecti et inhaerentis accidentis, vel quasi Adyoc¢ carni tantummodo adsistat, aut gratiose inhabitet, citra brootdcews communicationem, qualis unio est inter Deum et sanctos; vel quasi eam tantum sustentet, ne editing in nihilum, qualis sustentatio active sumta omnibus tribus personis competit, et passive accepta ad omnes res creatas pertinet, quae certe abiturae essent in nihilum, nisi a conditore sustentarentur et portarentur, Sap. 11, 26; Act. 17:28; Hebr. 1:3; nec operationum duntaxat est, quasi camis assumtae operationes solum organicae essent, aut ipsa caro qualecunque instrumentum, per quod Aoyos operaretur, sicut Bellarminus Nestorianizans lib. 3. de incarn. c. 10. eam cum instrumento separato et passivo confert: sed est plane wovotponos...., ut Justinus Martyr loquitur, ubi Deus verbum caro factum unam habet divinitatis suae camisque personam, [Google] into the negative provisions, since they not only have dogmatic-historical value, but are also important with respect to the modern opposition. Every mixing and every transformation of divine and human nature in Christ is to be rejected. Indeed, if one assumes a mixing of natures so that a tertium is created, or a transformation of one nature into the other, one no longer has the person who is true God, born of the Father in eternity, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary. So one gives up the personal union of God and man, and one no longer has a Savior who is Sedvparoc. But if the person is no longer a God-man, then one no longer has a God-man work of salvation. If Christ is no longer a true man, then, as Luther reminds us, his work of redemption no longer concerns us human beings,'!’ because according to Scripture the true humanity of Christ is absolutely necessary for the work of redemption; 1 Tim. 2:5: peoitns Osod kai dvOpamov GvOpamoc Xptotdc Incotc. If Christ is no longer true God, then the redeeming value of his work of redemption is withdrawn, because according to Scripture the true Godhead of Christ is absolutely necessary for the work of redemption; Rom. 5:10: kamAAGynLEV To Geo 516 Tov_tov avtov viov avtov. In short, we need for the God-man person of Christ and the God-man work of redemption of Christ both the unaltered Godhead and the unaltered humanity. Every mixing and every transformation and shortening of natures abolishes the God-man person and the God-Man work of redemption. The early Church, therefore, did not show foolishness in rejecting Eutyches' doctrine of mixture and transformation!) in a decisive manner.!73) Likewise, the church of the Reformation did right secundum Augustini verba lib. de fide ad Pet. c. 17 Idcirco usitate unio non personarum, sed personalis dicitur, quia in persona tov Adyov facta est, unamque Christi personam constituit. (Institutiones, p. 213 sq.)

KUPLOV NLOV pO TIS EVOoEMc' LETA SE THY EVMOL [Liav vot OLoOAOY®. He therefore also denied that Christ's human nature celebrates our human nature in the same way (16L00V010c).

Xptotov, vidv, KOpiov, Lovoyevh, ek 600 OvoEwv [Ev 600 OvoEOW] Govyxd Govyyd when, in the midst of its difficult struggle against the papacy, it dismissed the Anabaptists, Schwenkfeld, etc., with the "heavenly humanity of Christ, etc.! The Church of our time should also resolutely reject the modern kenoticists who teach that the Son of God must be changed for the purpose of the Incarnation. Some of them let the Son of God discard his omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence (Thomasius etc.); others let the Son of God transform himself into a human soul or into a Son of Man (Wilhelm] Gah, von Hofmann, etc.). It is obvious that through this doctrine of the kenoticists both the God-man [theanthropic] person and the God-man work of redemption of Christ are abandoned.!°) Likewise, any separation of divine and human nature in Christ must be rejected. After the Son of God has become man, he is man at all times and everywhere he is (incarnatus, evoapKos), and all that man is, does and suffers belongs to him. The man Christ must not be taken out of the Person of the Son of God at any time and TOC, ATPETTMS - yvMpICOLEVOV ' OVEALLOV TIS TOV OVaE@V StAMOPts EvnpNLEevNs did tTyv ('v@owy, oolopevys dé LAAAOV Tis 1SLOTHTOS EKaATEpAs Pvosac. (Mansi VII, 115.)

against Schwenkseld's denial that Christ's human nature was a creature. Luther also opposes Schwenkfeld in theological disputations: Patet Schwenkfeld in vacuum chaos latrare contra sua somnia propria de creatura in Christ. Et homo sui immemor concedit Deum esse carnem factum, cum carnem esse creaturam nondum audeat negare. Sed occultus Eutyches habitat in talibus haereticis, negare paratis aliquando, Verbum esse carnem factum. [Google] (Opp. v. IV, 463.)

the determinations (divine idioms) appropriate to his nature through the incarnation. A change of being in the sphere of the divine would be an almost monstrous thought. The Incarnation would then appear as a transformation of the Son of God into a Son of Man, so that through this and thus - for the time of his earthly existence - he ‘ceased to be God' (v. Hofmann)! But this would also call into question the infinite value and the world-conquering power of his act of salvation and redemption. (Luth. Dogmatik Il, 2, p. 47.) The same specifically against Frank: "Frank speaks of a ‘conversion of the eternal Son-consciousness into the form of finite human consciousness becoming temporal’ and points out that this 'in the image of God was able to be a vessel for the divine content’, that is, 'to be humanly conscious of the eternal Son’. (System d. Wahrheit 112, 104-123.) "So the 'I'—the 'subject of becoming'—should be the same (identical), but the Logos has become, so to speak, a human spiritual soul, which is rather out of the idea of Gass, which reminds of the Apollinaristic and Theopaschitic heresy.(Op. cit.,, p. 131.) under any circumstances—neither at His birth, nor in His life, nor in His suffering and death. If this happens, then eo ipso the personal union and the God-human work of redemption is spent. Nestorianism made this separation. Of course, Nestorius wanted to keep the one person in Christ. He complains bitterly about Cyril's assertion that he (Nestorius) thinks of Christ as a mere human being. '° But it is quite clear that Nestorius actually triggered the unio personalis. When he asserted that Mary did not give birth to the Son of God, and that the Jews did not crucify the Son of God, but taught that only the Son of Man was born of Mary as an instrument of the Godhead and died on the cross, he was thereby clearly indicating that he did not think the human Christ excluded into the Person of the Son of God, neither at birth nor at crucifixion, but separated and separated from the person of the Son of God. ' Nestorius teaches a connection (ovvégsia) between God and man in Christ, but a connection in which the I of the man Christ remains separated from the I of the Son of God, and the Son of God through the man Christ works only as through his instrument and in the man Christ dwells only as in his temple.!7) The same Christology is represented by Zwingli in the 16th century.

verbo templum fabricatus est, quod habitaret, ex virgine. Nestorius wants to use the expression Seot0koc in relation to Maria propter inseparabile templum Dei verbi ex ipsa, non quia ipsa mater sit verbi Dei. [Google] (Mansi IV, 1023.) Schrnid-Hauck: "In Nestorius' case, it became evident that he thought of Christ as a human person, with whom Adyoc has been in contact. He had given up the unity of the person in order to maintain the diversity of natures. (Dogma Gesch., p. 93.)

Si quis... matrem etiam Dei verbi et non potius ejus, qui Emmanuel est, sanctam virginem nuncupaverit - anathema sit. Si quis illud in principio verbum pontificem et apostolum confessionis nostrae factum esse seque ipsum obtulisse pro nobis dicat— anathema sit. From Nestorius' sermons: Non est mortuus incarnatus Deus, sed illum, in quo incarnatus est, suscitavit. — Ego natum et mortuum Deum et sepultum adorare non queo. [Google] He asks indignantly: Has matrem Deus? [The incarnate God did not die, but he raised him in whom he was incarnate. - I do not want to worship a God who was born and died and was buried. He asks indignantly: Does God have a mother?] and adds, foolishly: "Ergo excusabilis gentilitas matres diis subintro- Zwingli also denied that the Son of God had died, and through his GAA oimotc taught Luther and everyone that in the suffering and dying of Christ one must always use the human nature of Christ for Christ and the Son of God. '79) Tn short, Nestorius and Zwingli with their followers in their explanations give up the uniqueness of the union of God and man in Christ, the personal union, and in its place they set up a unio in the manner of God's union with all believers (unio mystica, unio kata ydpiv). It is obvious that the work of redemption in God's humanity is thus spent. It is true that the union in which God stands with all the faithful is an extremely intimate and very high one. Their blood is dearly respected in God's eyes.!8° God asks for it. '*!) Yet, the blood of the saints is not even a thousandth part of the ransom for the sins of the world. This alone is the blood of Christ, because in Christ God and man are not merely mystically united, but form_one person, and thus Christ's blood is the blood of the Son of God himself.!®) It is therefore not only something but everything that comes from the fact that every separation of God and man is rejected in Christ. The early Church, therefore, did not show foolishness in rejecting Nestorius’ doctrine of separation.!*°) Likewise, Luther was right ducens. [Therefore, it is excusable that Gentiles subjugate the mothers of the gods. Excerpts from Nestorius’ speeches, Greek, in Mansi IV, 1197 ff; in Latin translation in Marius Mercator, ed. Stephan Baluze, p. 53 ff. Cf. L. vu. W. 30, 86. Die Anathematismen Kyrills und Nestorius' bei Baumgarten, Theol. Streitigkeiten, Il, 770 ff.; Schmid-Hauck, Dogmengesch., p. 94 ff.

therefore enter into His glory - here Christ is taken for human nature alone, which may suffer and die, but not the divine. - Matt. 26: 'And the Son of Man is betrayed' or given away, 'that He may be crucified’. And Matt. 20: "And the Son of Man will be given to the priests and scribes" etc. Here the Son of Man is actually taken for human nature, for the latter may be given up and killed, but the divine one not at all. (Zwingli's answer from Luther's writing: That these words etc. Reprinted in L.'s works, St. L. XX, 1195).

Xptotov, vidv, KUPLOV, LOVOYEVT] EV SLO OVOEOL... GOLAIPETS, GY@PioT@S yopiCopevov yv@piCopEevov... OvK sic 600 TPdCMTA LEpICGLEVOV TH AOYOV StAIpOvLEVOV, GAA' Eva KaL TOV aVTOV vidv Kai Lovoyevn, b-Edv AOyovV, KUpLoV Tnoov Xptotov. [that there is one and the same Christ, Son, Lord,, Only-Begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures... indivisibly, inseparably... not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ’] (Mansi VII, 116.) when he immediately opposed Zwingli's alloeosis because it abolished the unio personalis and took away the redemptive value of Christ's life and suffering. '®°) The Church of our time should vigorously disavow all theologians who reject the unio personalis from the_outset on the grounds of "unthinkability". Nestorius and Zwingli still wanted to adhere to the unio personalis. But in our time it is so that theologians who still want to be taken for Christian teachers reject in principle the union of God and man into one person and demand Christ's own personality for the Man Christ. They try to cover the deficit by paying a whole series of compliments to the man Christ. One speaks of "absolute immanence of God" in Christ, "absolute realization of the will of God" through Christ etc. In all these sayings, however, as Luthardt correctly remarks,'®® "the person of Christ is anthropocentric instead of theocentric". Luthardt also correctly adds: "In contrast to this, the church theology

what unio personalis is and how it is annulled. He writes: "Because Jesus Christ is truly God and man in one person, in no place in Scripture is one nature taken for another; for that is what he is called (Zwingli) alloeosis when something is said about the divinity of Christ, which after all is due to humanity, or again, as Luke 24:26: "Was not Christ supposed to suffer and thus enter for his glory? Here, he makes us believe that Christ is taken for human nature.... Where the alloeosis is to exist, as it leads compulsion, Christ will have to be two persons, a divine and a human one, because he pours the sayings of suffering alone on human nature and turns everything from the Godhead; For where works are divided and separated, the person must also be divided, because all works or sufferings are not assigned to natures but to persons; for it is the person who does and suffers all things, one according to that nature, the other according to that nature, as scholars well know. Therefore, not far from Mr. Christ, we consider God and man in one person, non confundendo naturas nec dividendo personam, that we do not mix the natures, nor separate the person. (Sz. L. XX, 942 ff.)

for it is the last one to inflict such a Christianity, according to which I did not want to be a Christian, namely, that Christ should no longer be, nor do with fine suffering and life any more than another bad saint. For if I believe this, that human nature alone has suffered for me, then Christ is a bad Savior to me, he himself probably needs a Savior. Summa, it is unspeakable what the Devil seeks with alloeosis." (St. L. XX

teaches that it was the eternal Son of God who took human nature and excepted it into his personal unity. In other words, the Church of our time must also insist on the unio personalis and must not allow any surrogate to be substituted. It is therefore worthwhile to briefly present here some negative provisions of the old doctrines. The connection between God and man in Christ is: a. not a unio nominalis, as someone is called something that he is either not at all or only in a non-actual (limited) sense. Thus, a person can use the honorary title "counsel" without really being a counselor. Thus, in Scripture creatures are called "God" because of divine functions, without being essentially God.!8 Thus the Unitarians deny that Christ is essentially God. But he could be called God, because he, as the most excellent man, and before his taking up of office in heaven, had completely anointed and done the will of God.!8®) So also Ritschl, when he wants to understand the predicate of divinity attached to Christ not as a "judgment of being" but only as a judgment of "esteem". According to Harnack, the man Christ is called the "Son of God" because he has brought the message of the universal fatherhood of God to mankind. '®°) — Against this is to be held: The man Christ is not called God (Deus nuncupativus) because of certain functions, but he is essentially (in the metaphysical sense of the word) God, Joh. 10:30: ‘Ey® Kal 2aTHp Ev EOLLEV; b. not a unio habitualis, relativa, oxetixn, which only establishes a certain relationship, but where the connected persons actually remain separated. Thus friends are united by a friendly disposition, although they remain separate persons and may be widely separated from one another in places. In this category belongs the connection, in which children stand with their parents, the citizens of a state, the members of the church etc. stand with each other. In all these connections the persons remain separate. Thus, all the Anti-Trinitarians have tried to degrade the purification of God and man in Christ to a mere unio relativa by saying that Christ is to be called the Son of God because God's special good

pleasure rested on this unique man. Similarly also the forerunner of the Nestorians, Theodor of Mopsvestia (+ around 428). But all kinds of unio relativa are to be rejected. Not only God's good pleasure rested on Christ, but the whole fullness of the divine being dwelt and continues to dwell in him bodily, as in her own body, ompatikac, Col. 2:9. The Son of God has made human nature his o®ua, so that everything that happens to human nature happens to the Son of God, and all actions and works of the Son of God are carried out through human nature; c. not a unio accidentalis, an external, accidental connection, such as two planks being joined together! or a dress enveloping the human body In these and similar connections, there is no connection to an inner, organic unity. In Christ, however, human nature belongs to the unity of the Person of the Son of God. Therefore, while a garment that envelops the body can be wounded without striking the body, in Christ no one could touch and strike the human nature of Christ without at the same time touching and striking the Son of God, 1 John 1:1; 1 Cor. 2:8;!°) d. not a unio sustentativa that consists in a mere presence and support (nuda napovota sive mapaotacic). In this way God is united with all creatures, which thereby have their existence and activity, Col. 1:18; Acts 17:28: This union is included in the personal union between God and man that took place in Christ, inasmuch as within the personal union the human nature of Christ was supported and sustained by the divine one. A mere man could not have borne the weight of the wrath of God, which rested on Christ as the representative of the whole world of sinners, as Luther and the old teachers often reminded us. '°) But in this support and

adequately describe personal union: Non enim vestis et corpus constituunt unam personam, sicut Deus et homo constituunt unam personam. (Opp. v. IV, 464.)

afraid, I am so anxious that I want to die of fear. With such thoughts we must let it stay here. For we know of no higher and greater fear, for such fear is fear of death. But such fear of death is not really to be compared here; for it was much more violent and greater and maintenance does not consist the essence of the personal union.. The essence of personal union is that in Christ God and man are united into one I;

e. not a unio naturalis. We rightly speak of natural binding in the case of things between which there is a natural relationship, so that it is natural for them to be bound. Thus the body and soul of man belong together because they are made for each other, form a natural whole in their union, and neither is complete without the other. But between divine and human nature, which are united in Christ, there is no natural relationship, but the greatest conceivable contrast. It is the contrast between Creator and creature, ens increatum, et creatum. '°» The idea that the binding of God and man in Christ is based on natural kinship or on a necessity founded in the nature of God is to be rejected in the Lord Christ than it is possible for a human heart to endure. For just as such fear and terror is an indication that Christ is true man, for otherwise such fear would not be able to stick, so again it is an indication that he is true God, since he has endured and overcome such fear. For such things are not possible for our flesh and blood; our hearts think that they are far too weak to endure in such distress.... There were sins upon his neck all over the world, that such death as he should suffer was a death of sin and a death of the wrath of God... Because such terror and fear was greater in the Lord Christ Jesus, because it is possible that it could otherwise be in the heart of a man, the cause, that all men's sins lie upon him and he should suffer the death which all men deserve with all their sins: out of such a thing he proves himself mightily, because he did not sink under the burden, but carried it without disadvantage, that he was also God and more than man. (St. L. XIII, 348 f.)

sine qua unio personalis non potest esse hypostatica aut unum dari hyphistamenon, sine qua etiam sanguis Filii hominis non potest esse sanguis Filii Dei, 1 Joh. 1:7, et sanguis Dei proprius, Act. 20, 28 Sicut enim sanguis Pauli a Filio Dei sustentati non potest dici sanguis Filii Dei, quia sustentatio ejus est tantum accidentalis, aliena, a principio extraessentiali profecta, ita in unione personali datur actio carnis assumtae propria, a principio intrinseco ad hujus personae theanthropicae essentiam speotante, cami assumtae hypostatico. Confer Lutherum, T. 2 Witt., f. 228, ubi ait: Haec est haereticissima philosophia, qui negat Filium Dei esse hominem actu primo, sed fingit eum sustentare humanam naturam (velut actu secundo. [Google (Theologia universalis, 1678, p. 503.)

as a pantheistic speculation contrary to Scripture, which both abolishes the concepts of God and man and destroys the Christian concepts of sin and grace..!°) According to Scripture, the Incarnation of the Son of God is not founded in some kind of natural process or in a necessary evolution of the divine or human being, but in the free mercy of God upon the human world that has fallen into sin and is thus lost. The Dayspring from on high has visited us d14 omAGyyva EAgovc SEov nLeV to appear as Savior tots Ev OKOTEL Kat oKid Gavatov KaéAnpévorc. 1° The unio personalis of God and man was also sought to be seen as a kind of natural link and to be brought closer to human understanding by conceiving the Son of God as the "archetype of humanity", for whom it was in a sense natural that he should be united with his human image.!° But the Son of God as the "archetype of humanity" is also a human thought. According to Scripture, man is created in the image of the Triune God.!%*) Furthermore, the view that the Son of God united human nature with himself through the medium of the soul (mediante anima) must be rejected. This view has been expressed (scholastics according to the process of older teachers '°’) in order to explain the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God

II, p. 96): "Even positively oriented dogmatists like Dorner and Martensen have not been able to completely escape the ensnaring influence of that speculation. We see this, for example, in Dorner and Martensen's idea of the 'necessity of the Incarnation, even apart from sin', as well as in the constant emphasis on the 'unity' between the divine and the human, as it should be realized and carried out in all Christians".

incarnation of the Son of God requires the fall of man and the resulting loss of mankind as causa TpOKATAPKTIKN).

become man if he had not been the Logos, the archetype of mankind." (Dogmatik, 2nd ed., I, 73)

possibile erat Dei naturam corpori sine mediatore misceri) nascitur... Deus homo. (De princ. I, 6th with Schmid, Dogmengesch., p. 79. more detailed with Gerhard, De pers., § 136.) Also some Reformed to make it more comprehensible. But first, you don't achieve your purpose. For though the human soul is immaterial, it is still a creature, and between it and the infinite Creator there remains the same distance as between the human body and the infinite God. Then this view also turns into a false doctrine when we think of the death of Christ. Christ's death was not just a seeming death, but a real death. In the death of Christ his human soul separated from his human body, as Scripture explicitly reports Matt. 27:50: agrkev to tvebpa; Mark. 15:37: é€énvevoev Joh. 19:30: mapgédKev TO mvedpa [gave up the ghost’]. In other words, the natural connection (unio naturalis) between the soul and the body ceased to exist, as in the death of other people, so in the death of Christ. If Christ's human soul was now the mediating link for the personal union of God and man in Christ, the unio personalis would have been disrupted at the death of Christ, and the death of Christ would no longer be the death of the Son of God, as Scripture teaches so emphatically, 0 Oavatov tod Yiod adtod, scil. $eod. 7° Lutheran teachers therefore rightly reject the view that the Son of God mediante anima is linked to his human nature; 2°) f. not a unio essentialis or commixtiva in the sense that divine and human nature, after their union in the person of Christ, formed only one nature or only one being. This kind of union has already been characterized and rejected above (p. 100 f.). Here it should be remembered that have the mediante anima (Zanchi, De incarn. Filii Dei I, 6). Also Klee (Kathol. Dogmatik II, 1, 441). Gerhard is right to speak out against the rationalism underlying this fiction of a "medium congruentiae": Venerari hoc mysterium et mirari, non autem extra Scripturae limites rimari debemus, jam vero de tali medio in Scriptura nihil revelatum. (L. c.)

cum Filio Dei unitum fuisse volunt, nostram non facere. Si enim res ita se haberet, in morte, soluto sc. hoc vinculo, corpus cum Filio Dei non fuisset unitum, quod nec Pontificii nec Calviniani. concedent. (Theol. pos.-pol. I, 96 sq.) Baier: Etiam in triduo mortis, cessante licet unione naturali corporis et animae, personal tamen unionem illibatam mansisse credimus, ita ut corpus in sepulcro jacens Filii Dei corpus et anima a corpore separata Filii Dei anima revera fuerit. (IIL, 32.) recent American Reformed theology now and then speaks as if the term "blending" were one of the expressions received in the Lutheran Church to denote the union of natures in Christ. Thus Hodge says: "They [the Lutherans] insist upon a 'communicatio naturarum.' And by nature, in this connection, they mean essence. In their symbols and writings the formula ‘natura seu substantia seu essentia' is of frequent occurrence. 7°?) The divine essence is communicated to the human. The one interpenetrates the other. They ‘are mixed' (commiscentur). They do not become one essence, but remain two; yet where the one is the other is; what the one does the other does. 7°» It should be said: Of course, it is Lutheran teaching that natures have real communion with one another, in such a way that the divine permeates the human, and both are always together and always act in community. This will be explained in more detail later. But neither Lutheran symbols nor Lutheran dogmatists recognize the expression "They ‘are mixed,’ commiscentur" as an adequate term for the communion of natures and ministries they teach. The Formula of Concord makes the absolutely correct dogmatic-historical remark "the ancient teachers of the Church frequently, [before and after the Chalcedonian Council,] employed the word mixtio, mixture, but in a good sense and with [true] discrimination, namely to designate the unio personalis and the communion of natures which it implies, not merely nominal but real. But the Formula of Concord immediately adds: And, nevertheless, no confusio or exaequatio naturarum, that is, a mixing or equalizing of the natures, is thereby introduced, as when hydromel is made from honey and water, which is no longer pure water or pure honey, but a mixed drink (mixtus quidam ex utroque potus). Now, in the union of the divine and the human nature in the Person of Christ it is far different. For it is a far different, more sublime and [alto- gether] ineffable communion and union between the divine and human nature

because they still want to hold on to the doctrine of two natures. This is elucidated by Hodge’s own quote from the Confession of Faith (VIII, 2), where the terms substance and nature are used in relation to both natures in Christ promiscue.

in the person of Christ, on account of which union and communion God is man and man is God, yet neither the natures nor their properties are thereby intermingled, but each nature retains its esence and properties. 0 Furthermore, the Formula of Concord says: We have never understood the words ‘realis communicatio’ of an essential, natural communion or effusion, by which the natures would be commingled in their essence... as some have craftily... perverted these words and phrases in order to make the pure doctrine suspected. 7°°) Among the antitheses, the Formula of Concord rejects, in the first place, the doctrine: "the human nature is mingled with the divine or is changed into it".?°° Of course, these explanations do not satisfy the Reformed theologians. Although they must admit that the Lutheran symbols and the Lutheran theologians expressly reject the mixing of natures, they maintain with great agreement the accusation of mixing of natures or Eutychianism. The reason for this is that they apply the "Finitum non est capax infiniti" to Christology. According to Reformed doctrine, the finite human nature of Christ is not capable of his infinite divine nature, and under this assumption the natures must always remain separate both in their being and in their efficacy. If the Lutheran Church now teaches with great determination the opposite, namely that after the appearance of the Son of God in the flesh to destroy the works of the devil, the divine and human natures are never separate and act separately, but are always together and act jointly, the Reformed theologians therefore reproach the mixing of natures. Thus also Hodge justifies the reproach: "They are mixed" with the words: "Where the one [nature] is the other is; what the one does the

Quenstedt IT. 124.

other does. The human is as truly divine as the eternal essence of the Godhead" (!), "except that it is not divine ex se, but by communication." The Reformed theologians will not withdraw their accusation of the intermingling of natures, which they raise against the Lutheran Church, until they have given up their zp@tov wevooc claim that the human nature of Christ is incapable of his divine nature. This should not be difficult for them, since they want to admit a real communion of the human nature of Christ with the Person of the Son of God, which is no less infinite than his divine nature. But this must be explained in more detail under the sections Communio naturarum and Communicatio idiomatum. Only here, in rejecting human substitutes for the unio personalis, it should be noted that Reformed and Lutheran theology have quite different concepts of the unio personalis. Frank has also drawn attention to this fact. 7° According to Reformed theology, the unio personalis is such a combination, which keeps natures and their effects apart. According to Lutheran doctrine, however, the unio personalis of God and man is such a connection, whereby the natures are always connected both in their being and in their working. In other words, Reformed theology dissolves the unio personalis as soon as it begins to argue against the real communion of natures and their works in order to avoid the alleged "mixing" of natures. When the Heidelberg Catechism asserts that Christ is now on earth only according to the Deity, but not according to his human nature, it defends itself against the accusation of dissolution of the unio personalis by saying that the Deity is indeed present in all creatures, that is, by transposing the unio personalis into the presence of God in all creatures. 7°®) Therefore, in relation to the doctrine of Christ's person between the Reformed theologians and the Lutheran Church, it is still as Luther wrote: "They cry out about us that we are mixing the two natures into one being; this is not true. We do not say that divinity is humanity or divine nature is human nature, which would be the two natures mixed into one being, but we

mix the two different natures into one person and say: God is man and man is God. But we cry out against them, that they separate the person of Christ, as if it were two persons. For where... the works are divided and separated, the person must also be divided. 7° g. Not a unio per adoptionem. The Spanish bishops Felix of Urgel and Elipandus of Toledo in the 8th century held the doctrine that Christ was, according to human nature, the adoptive Son of God (Filius Dei adoptivus). This doctrine has been rightly rejected as a Nestorian error, expressed under the name Adoptianism. It leads to the thought that there are two persons in Christ because the adoptee is and remains a different person from the adopter, and that therefore God dwells in Christ only in the same way as in all believers who are not children of God by their physical birth, but are only accepted or adopted by faith as children of God. *!° The man Christ, on the other hand, is the Son of God not only by faith, but from the moment of conception by being received into the person of the Son of God. Lutheran teachers therefore rightly reject the saying that Christ is Filius Dei adoptivus by human nature. Furthermore, in contrast to Adoptianism, Lutheran teachers have said that Christ according to human nature is Filius Dei naturalis in the sense of Filius Dei natus vel ab ipsa nativitate. [Son of God born or from birth itself] 7!!) The matter is correct. But other Lutheran teachers have called this expression unsuitable because, in order to be understood correctly, it first requires an explanation. 7!) The objection is justified. — Adoptianism was already rejected at the end of the 8th century at several synods (Regensburg 792, Frankfurt 794, Aachen 799). The main opponent of Adoptianism was Alcuin (+ 804). In the 17th century Georg Calixt defended Adoptianism. 7!»

well-meant, but badly chosen.

222 ff.; Quenstedt II, 214 ff.; Calov, Syst. VII, 282 ff. See also Baier III, 41. 42. The wnio personalis and the christological theories of the modern age. Already in the above description of the unio personalis, and especially in the rejection of the substitutes that were sought to take the place of the unio personalis, it was necessary to point out the Christological theories of modern times. We shall follow this up with a summary and clarification of the driving motives of modern Christological deformations. If we want to understand the Christology of the modern age, in so far as it has developed in contrast to the "orthodox" Christology, we must again remind of the fact that the theology of the modern age has lost the knowledge of the epistemological principle of theolo. Schleiermacher is regarded by her as the savior of the church from rationalism. Schleiermacher has been called "the reformer of the Church of the 19th century". But Schleiermacher has led theology from the barren stubble fields of rationalism not to the green meadows of the but into the mire of. He wants to develop the Christian doctrine from the "pious mind" or the "Christian consciousness". 7!4) The newer theology has followed this rejection in great agreement. The words have been changed. Besides the pious feeling, one speaks of the born-again ego, the consciousness of faith, the experience of faith, the Christian experience, etc. But it is always meant that the Christian doctrine in its "cognitive presentation" is not to be taken from the Holy Scriptures but from the interior of the theologian. 7!» The sad result of this method is taken by Horst

of the rationalist Bretschneider "Characteristics of the Schleiermacher system" (Bretschneider, Handbuch der Dogmatik I, 93-115). Bretschneider proves that Schleiermacher's system is in contradiction with reason in general and with itself in particular and also does violence to "evangelical history". Kirn too reminded (RE. sub Schleiermacher XVII, 614) again of Hegel's polemic against Schleiermacher (in the preface to Hinrichs' philosophy of religion). Stephan when he states: the extensive commonality of dogmatic principles is bound "with an almost endless abundance of differences in the application of these principles, as they are caused sometimes more by the religious individuality of the dogmatist, sometimes more by the degree of his scientific consistency". *!® This is especially true with regard to the teaching of the Person of Christ. In order to gain a kind of overview of this "sheer endless abundance of differences", we divide the theologians of the 19th century into two classes: those who explicitly deny the essential divinity of Christ, and those who still want to hold on to the essential divinity of Christ, although here too the line of demarcation cannot always be drawn with certainty. It is obvious that for all deniers of the essential divinity of Christ, a unio personalis of God and man in Christ can no longer be spoken of, whether the denial is from a pantheistic or deistic (unitarian) point of view. Whether one conceives of Christ as a moral genius or as a genius of feeling or as a genius of thought or as a genius of revelation (as a revelator of the.) or as a combination of several geniuses Christ is always conceived as a mere man with only one nature, human. The compliments that are paid to Christ the human being through "the flight into the absolute, the bad, the ideal, the unique", etc., are of no consequence. De Wette, for example, on the one hand, wants to have eliminated the essential divinity of Christ as a disturbing factor that "confuses" the doctrine of Christ's person; on the other hand, he urgently admonishes: "One should not be too meager in Christ's glorification and should not market things or use expressions". De Wette also wants to retain the expressions "Son of God", "God-man", "reflection and image of God"; but they should not express the essence and nature, but belong to "pious feeling". 7'®) This is also what Ritschl's "value judgement" is meant in contrast to the "being judgement". With this class of

S. 216 f.

theologians there is an open break with the Christian doctrine of Christ's person and consequently of Christ's work. Christ is not the Savior of men by performance of satisfactio vicaria, but Christ is only the " agent " of moral, pious, intellectual, etc. Accordingly, Christianity does not consist in faith in the forgiveness of sins acquired by Christ, but in an ethical and intellectual transformation of man. If we turn our attention to the theologians of the nineteenth century who still want to capture the essential deity of Christ, they share the view that Christology, as presented, for example, by Luther, the Formula of Concord and the old Lutheran teachers, is not sufficient for our time. Men like; Guericke, C. F. W. Walther, who also in the 19th century held on to the "church orthodoxy", were called by the collective name "repristination theologians".!°) In contrast to these repristination theologians, one strives for a Christology which is to represent a "supplementation", "deeper comprehension" etc. of the church doctrine. If we ask why further training or a deeper understanding of the "Christological problem" is necessary, we are confronted with the—historically incorrect 7?°_—assertion that in the early Church's presentation of Christology the human nature of Christ was neglected, that human nature was not given enough room for a "truly human development". One is not satisfied with the way in which Scripture and, according to Scripture, "orthodox" Christology makes room for the authentic humanity of Christ, namely by allowing Christ to renounce the use of divine glory in the state of humiliation. This biblical way of ensuring the authentic human development and the authentic human life of Christ is, of course, beyond the "possibility of thought" or "cognitive grasp" of modern positive theologians. It is beyond human understanding and is only grasped and recognized by faith in the fact attested to in God's Word. But because also the "conservative", "positive" etc. Theologians of the 19th century are caught in the strange self-deception that they can and, must elevate faith

Unio personalis and christological theories of modern times. to "knowledge", so they strive for such an account of the "genuinely human life" of Christ that corresponds to the "conceivability". Above this effort they diverge in two directions, into kenoticists and advocates of the autohypostatic theory. The kenoticists seek to gain the "conceivability" by letting the Son of God enter into the Son of God for the purpose of the Incarnation and in the same a reduction according to his divine nature. They allow the Son of God to discard that part of the divine attributes that, in their opinion, would hopelessly disturb a genuinely human life, namely the attributes that denote an activity directed outwards, towards the world, that is, above all, the divine omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. The kenoticists seek to introduce the Son of God minus omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence into the world. 77!’ Potentiated kenoticists increase this reduction to the extent that they let the Son of God discard the divine self- consciousness and the divine ego. 7? Through this, however, the kenoticists seem to have secured for human nature more space for a genuinely human development, but at the price that, in their concern for humanity, they have lost the true divinity of Christ and thus the God-man and the God-manlike work of Christ. This has been very emphatically reproached to Thomasius, who is considered the father of modern kenosis. Nevertheless, Thomasius insists on his kenosis in the interest of "conceivability". He says: "I am able to hold both together, namely on the one hand the full reality of the divine and human nature of Christ, especially the full truth of his natural-human development of life, and on the other hand the full unity of his God-man person, not to hold without the assumption of a self-limitation of the divine Logos coinciding with the Incarnation; for without the assumption the presupposed unity of the subject does not want to reproach me." 7) But Thomasius' "self-limitation of the divine Logos" found lively opposition for reasons of God's immutability—one spoke of a "halving of the Son of God"—and because of the obvious

endangerment of the divine person and the divine work of redemption. As far as the "scientific" side of the situation is concerned, Kirn was also right in his last judgement that modern kenotic theory reveals rather than resolves the "thinking difficulties". °4) For however—quite apart from the Scriptures, which teach the immutability of God and show Christ even in the days of the flesh in possession of the divine attributes which according to the kenotic theory he is supposed to have discarded 7*>’—neither reasonable pagans nor thinking Christians succeed in imagining the essential God without omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence or even without a divine personality. The autohypostatics therefore try to lift the present "conceivableness" from another way. They want to completely spend the "Enhypostasia" of the human nature of Christ, that is, its reception into the person of the Son of God, and let the human being Christ form his own person. We would therefore like to call this class of theologians, following the terminology of the early Church (abtotzd0tatoc and avOvadotatoc, Idtocbotatoc) autohypostatists. Dorner wanted to keep the person of the Son of God and the person of the man Christ apart, at least for the beginning, by teaching a gradual growing together of the Son of God and the Man Christ.. Others, such as Seeberg and Kirn, carry out autohypostasy consistently; they reject from the outset the "two natures doctrine", that is, the doctrine that divine and human nature are united in one Person. They let the human being Christ form a separate person, not only for the beginning but forever, but in whom God is active in a unique way. This, however, seems to remove the difficulty of the truly human development of Christ. But we also ask again about the price we pay for the removal of the " conceivableness ". It is that the unio personalis of God and man, the incarnation of the Son of God, the 6 A6yoc opé éyéveto, is completely abandoned. For it is clear: If the divine Person of the Son of God remains extra to his human nature, then

The details in the Doctrine of the States of Christ. Unio personalis and christological theories of modern times. there can no longer be any talk of the Son of God becoming man. As Dorner has refuted Thomasius' kenosis, so Thomasius has refuted Dorner's initial personality of the Man Christ. If Dorner had asserted: As long as humanity is still under age, the Person of the Logos is not yet the Ego of this man, and: "For the beginning, the Logos does not yet communicate itself qua [by] Person or self-consciousness, it remains as long as the humanity still lacks the ability for receiving the Logos," Thomasius rightly remarks: " At first this man, according to Domer, is not yet God-Man, but the Logos merely works only in him and on him; only gradually does the unio personalis grow and complete itself... until at last the unio is completed and with it the full man of God. Until then— the time for this will probably be the Resurrection—the two sides will not yet coincide... Certainly, this theory is recommended by its manageability—but it remains incompatible with Scripture. For it knows.... only of a (theanthropic) Subject... if otherwise the word of the apostle 0 Adyoc o&pé éyéveto [John 1:14: the Word was made flesh’’] is true; if what the angel of the Lord testifies of him already at his birth: Xptot6c 6 Kdptog [Luke 2:11: Christ the Lord] and what the name Immanuel means is true. The view of Dorner is incompatible with all this. But the solution of Dorner of the problem is bought "with nothing less than the sacrifice of the genuine concept of God's Incarnation". 77° Thomasius' polemic increasingly affects the consistent autohypostatists who extend the state of affairs that Dorner only initially asserted to the Person of Christ in general. So Seeberg, whose Christology has become known in the United States by name through the "fundamental truths". It is very mildly expressed when Ihmels remarked with regard to Seeberg's teaching that it "leads past" the church's doctrine of two natures. 72 Seeberg fights the "doctrine of two persons", that is, the binding of God and man in one Person, as an outdated "formula" with the Socinian reasoning that the autohypostatic existence belongs to the perfection of the

Dorners theory refers to Joh. 1:14: "The Word became flesh", and adds: "Where would there be room for the assumption of a gradual process? (Central questions, p. 99.)

man Jesus.??8) He means: "Hardly anyone who today professes the old formula wants to say with it that... the Godhead in Christ was a 'substance' or ‘essential'."?) Not the person of the Son of God with a divine ‘nature’, but "God's will, which leads the history of mankind to salvation, connected with Jesus from the first moment of his existence; it worked on him and penetrated his feeling and will. Thus the man of Jesus became the 'Son of God". The "eternal energy of love" of God "filled the human soul of Jesus, so that it became its content. This is the divinity of Christ"™°° Seeberg wants to replace the "old-church hypothesis of the two natures" with this teaching, and he expects us to believe "that the divinity of Christ in the sense of the New Testament is expressed here". In fact, in Seeberg's teaching there is essentially no more than the deistic doctrine of the "absolutely perfect man". Seeberg himself says: "It is the measure of the idea of mankind or of what man is to be in eternity, which is the measure of the man of Jesus. This man was what we hope to be in that world: God's instrument and God's organ, unrestricted, wonderful and limitless." Thus the second class of positive theologians sinks back completely to the standpoint of the Unitarian Christology by the acceptance of the autohypostasia of the Man Christ and its rejection of the "two natures doctrine". In order to make up for the lack, here too one flees into the wondrous, limitless, absolute, absolutely utter, unique, etc. One speaks of a completely unique, absolute, etc. activity and revelation of God in the man Jesus. One also refuses to accept "as if one wanted to put Christ on a par with Christians". One also asserts very earnestly that one holds on to the very core of biblical and ecclesiastical Christology. But in spite of all rhetoric only this doctrine of Christ's person ever comes out: Christ is not God and man, but a mere man in whom God dwells and works in a unique way. The unio personalis is translated into a unio per operationem, revelationem, etc. Between the union of God with the faithful and the union of God with

applied to the Person of Christ, p. 86 f. and footnote 138.

Unio personalis and christological theories of modern times. to the man Christ is no longer a specific difference, but only a gradual one. While the "orthodox" Christology oriented to the Scriptures ever and ever demanded that one thinks unio personalis and unio mystica as specifically different,? this branch of modern positive theology expressly demands that the connection of God and man in Christ is to be thought "according to the analogy" of God's connection with all believers. 7° In recent times, however, there have been noticeable attempts to return from the unio personalis and the "two-nature doctrine". Ihmels is neither satisfied with the kenoticists (also not with Frank) nor with the deniers of the "two-natures doctrine" (also not with Seeberg). With respect to Seeberg he says: "Objectively, Seeberg's explanations in his basic truths of quite different orientation also pass by that teaching method" (of the two- natures doctrine) "even if he basically wants to hold on to the connection with it."77) But up to now Thmels himself still takes a vacillating position with regard to the "two-natures doctrine" when he says: "Now the whole way of teaching is undoubtedly not subject to minor difficulties, and our interest in faith depends on the divinity of Christ himself, not on a certain form of teaching. But the attempts we have received seem to me to confirm that the interest of the early Church, which one also wants to hold on to there, is consistently pursued, again and again forces us to take up that way of teaching, no matter how much it needs further training and even the expression of a two- natures doctrine is subject to serious doubts. There's no question about it: If Christ is not merely so-called God and not merely so-called man, but in the essential sense of the word both God and man, Lovoyevijs mapa matpdc and yEevopEvos ék yvvaikoc, then it is obvious that the expression "doctrine of two natures" is not "subject to serious misgivings" but is quite adequate. So the "two- natures doctrine" is not only to be "taken up", but the "two- natures doctrine" is to be taught completely and truly. This doctrine neither needs nor is capable of "further development", because no thought operations of the present or of the future can change the essential

Movotponos, prae ceteris unionum formis eximia et ab omnibus aliis exempta. (II, 121.)

Godhead and the essential humanity and their being connected in the one person of Christ, as both are so powerfully testified by "reality" (the Scriptures). Seeberg also objects to the expression "nature" only because he does not want the thing designated by it, the homousia of the Son. Seeberg also criticizes the term "nature" only because he does not want the thing it denotes, the homousia of the Son. He says: Also the divine being of Christ seems somehow to have to be thought of as another, distinct, one besides the Father",?> while Christ quite explicitly rejects this thought when he says: Ey kai 6 matip ev eopev. >) More energetically than Ihmels, von Oettingen advocates the term "nature". After von Oettingen has first of all also addressed concerns about the expression, he continues: "But let us not argue about words! It is obvious that 'nature' here should mean nothing else but the ‘peculiarity’ as it is characterized by the respective 'properties' (idiomata == determinants of nature). What is said in the old Christmas hymn of Luther with the expression 'God of essence’ in a way that can be understood by every Christian man about the 'Son of the Father' who came into the world, corresponds exactly to that dogmatic term. Under this condition, if the basic theanthropological idea is to be recorded and made fully serious with the act of the Incarnation, it is possible, indeed, it must be possible to express oneself in such a way that in the unified person, that is, in the concrete I of the God-Man, the 'two natures’, that is, the totality of the ‘characteristics’ (idioms), which characterize the Godhead of one and humanity on the other hand, must be united in a living way." 7°® And just as the expression "nature", if one does not want to argue about words, is not subject to any reservations, so is the expression "person", if one uses this term in the sense of the ancient Church, Augustana and the dogmatists. In modern times, especially in the treatment of Christology, a veritable storm has been raised against the expressions "nature", "person", etc. We are therefore prompted to recall here, in the Doctrine of Christ's Person [p. 57 ff.], what was presented in more detail in the Doctrine of the Trinity. Just as Seeberg is against the expression "nature", so also against the expression "person". He means: "Science has changed, a

Unio personalis and christological theories of modern times. new, deeper understanding of personality emerged. The person once—in the Fathers of the Church—denotes the individual being, now the word means the spiritual being of the individual being."?>) rhetoric. No one has ever thought of the "individual" without "the spiritual essence of the individual," because this is a logical impossibility.. Just as Ihmels still has reservations about the term "two-nature doctrine", so he still takes a wavering position with regard to the term "person". He says that the Christian faith, on the basis of God's revelation in the Son, must "take this Son in the closest union with the Father". By this he means that the Christian faith ascribes the same essential divinity to the Father and the Son. But from that Ihmels concludes: "Then it follows of course that the concept of person, if it is to be applied to the inner- trinitarian life of God, must not be understood in the sense of an individual personality. 778) According to this, it seems to Ihmels that the "individual personality" is not compatible with the unity of the divine being. But this is in principle the standpoint of all opponents of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. They have ever claimed that the tres realiter distinctae personae and the unus Deus cannot be held. Ihmels does not want to mock with the rejection of the "individual personality", as Seeberg obviously does when he talks about the establishment of a heavenly family. °°) But everyone who rejects the "individual personality" eo ipso rejects the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. And this point of view will be taken as long as one does not simply want to take the doctrine of the Trinity from Scripture, but seeks to construct it "cognitively". Modern positive theology will only get back on a sound footing if it returns to the principle of Scripture, as it did in the presentation of Christian doctrine in general, and especially in the presentation of the doctrines of the Trinity and the Person of Christ. We believe that every theologian must agree with what Luther repeatedly reminds us: What God is "inside the Deity," he must tell us in His Word, since God dwells in a light beyond the reach of man,

ws otkdv arpdortov. Anyone who in his statements about "the inner- trinitarian life of God" does not completely "wrap himself in God's Word", as Luther puts it, does not present the doctrine of the Trinity and of the person of Christ "cognitively", but imaginatively. Luther says: "Faith must adhere to the Word; reason can do nothing here but speak, saying that it is impossible and against itself that three persons, one each perfect God, and yet no longer than one God, and that the Son alone is man. ** And again: "It is certain that God wants to be known by us here in faith, there eternally in seeing how He is one God and yet three persons; that is our eternal life, Joh. 17. For this purpose He has given us His Word and the Holy Scriptures, confirmed with great miraculous signs and works, that we should learn in them. For if we should know Him, He must indeed teach us, and reveal Himself against us, and appear; of ourselves we would not ascend into heaven and find what God is, or how His divine nature is done. 74) Walther used to remind the students in his lectures: "If in the teaching of God you do not take all thoughts from the Scriptures, but also give room to your own thoughts, then you do not know whether you are not blaspheming God in the most terrible way. Scripture now teaches clearly and unambiguously both the one God and the Father, Son and Spirit as GAAoc Kat Ka Ka GAAOG or as three I. 74°) But because teachers came out who denied the three selves and instead used three modes of action or revelation of just one self (dynamistic and modalistic monarchianism), the church teachers, in order to rule out error and to stick to biblical truth, have used the expressions vadotaotc, mpoowmnov, persona to designate the three selves after some fluctuations in terminology. It is still useful to the dogmatic-historical. 44) The expressions were also never and are also now still not "empty" or "without content", as Seeberg would like to indicate, but in former times as now everybody knows

Unio personalis and christological theories of modern times. what is to be understood by "person", even if no man can grasp the actual nature of a person with his understanding [epistemologically]. Even the old Monarchians understood very well what was meant by the term person.. But they did not want the expression because they did not want the three biblical ego, the GAAoc Kat GAAOc Kai GAAoG We have the same situation today. People talk against the three "persons" of church doctrine because they want to translate the three biblical "I" into three wills, modes of action, aspects, potencies, forms of existence, etc. For this reason, even in our time, the definition of the Augustana is still sufficient in the face of error: And the term person they use as the Fathers have used it, to signify, not a part or quality in another, but that which subsists of itself (quod proprie subsistit). They condemn all heresies which have sprung up against this article... also the Samosatenes, old and new, who, contending that there is but one Person, sophistically and impiously agree that the Word and the Holy Ghost are not distinct Persons. [Trigl. 43, Art. I.] The same is said by the expressions of the dogmatists when they describe "person" as suppositum intelligens, substantia individua intelligens, etc. Ihmels, too, must state his objections to the "person" as "individual personality". The person is always "individual" if one does not want to understand him as "part" or "quality in another", that is, if one wants to give up the meaning of person._The "orthodox" teachers have worked through this article of Christian doctrine very carefully. On the basis of Scripture, they also present very precisely how the persons in God are different from human persons. Three human persons are always apart, but the three persons in God are in one another, as Christ testifies: Eyo ev to natpt kat 6 matnp év Enoi éoTtv, Jn 14:10; 10:38. Hence the dogmatic term evvaapéic, circumincessio. But in the intimacy of persons, the Son of God is at the same time so much an "individual personality that not the Father and the Holy Spirit, but only the Son became man. **>) The inadequacy of the expressions "person", "nature", "being", etc., applied of God, was by no means hidden from the Church Fathers and the later teachers. Thus Luther says: "We have to use the word

"Person" as the fathers used it. For we have no other, and means nothing else but a vadotaotc, a Being or Substance that is for itself and is God. That there may well be three distinct persons, but only one God or a single Godhead. The Lutheran dogmatists say the same thing. On the one hand, they point out that, while the expressions nature and person are not entirely adequate, on the other hand, they argue that what Scripture says about the Father, Son and Spirit cannot be expressed better in human language than in the manner of speech: one God and three distinct Persons. 74 If modern theology were to return to the principle of Scripture, this would also silence the contradiction between the expressions nature and person. With the return to the principle of Scripture the truly hopeless confusion in the assessment of Christological deformities would also cease. It has become customary to speak of significant "moments of truth" even in the Christological "trials" which exalt the unchanging divinity of Christ and lead past the "two natures" and the unio personalis. So recently in the United States we have read the following judgment in relation to modern kenosis: ao and in relation to all Christological theories, including those that openly deny the essential divinity of Christ: "In reviewing these various theories, we can readily accept the elements of truth which they variously express. 748) But all these theories, in contrast to the clear scriptural doctrine of the incarnation of the pre-existent, eternal Son of God, are put into the world and fall under the scriptural judgment: " Every

esse satis propria ad designandum arcanum illud mysterium unitatis et trinitatis, is sibi hoc responsum habeat, quod Augustinus dicit lib. 5. de trinit: "Magna prorsus inopia humanum laborat eloquium. Dictum est tamen tres personae, non ut illud diceretur, sed ne taceretur omnino. Non enim rei ineffabilis eminentia hoc vocabulo explicari valet." [Google] (Loci; De tribus pers., p. 39.) — Quenstedt I, 493: Necessariae sunt ejusmodi loquendi formulae non absolute, sed ex hypothesi tum declarandae opi-odo0éiag tum dignoscendae stepodoéiac. [Such forms of expression are necessary, not absolutely, but for the purpose of declaring the orthodox faith and to discern heterodoxy’]

Unio personalis and christological theories of modern times. spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God.

piece and teach the rest rightly, but the doctrine forms an indivisible unity.. And the one who indeed speaks of true humanity and true Godhead in Christ: of a true Being of God in the man of Jesus and of a true Being of the man of Jesus in God, but at the same time denies that the eternal Son of God and the Man Jesus are connected to one I’—he teaches only error, even if he flees into the absolute and speaks of an "absolute", "quite unique" Being of God in the Man Jesus.. All substitutes, however, no matter under what name they are presented (unio naturalis, nominalis, per operationem, revelationem etc.), are to be placed under the heading of error according to the instructions of the apostle: Hav mvevpa o un opodoysi tov Inooiv Xptiotoév ev capkt ednAvbdta ek Tov Jeov obK OK soTtv. >)

classifications, can be seen, for example, in Kim's division into four parts. Kirn writes, Grundrif, p. 104 f.: "If we review the Christological work in the past and present, its main directions can be grouped in the following scheme: 1. Trinitarian Christology: Jesus, notwithstanding the true humanity in which he appeared and lived on earth, is at the same time, according to his most actual nature, unchangeably the eternal Son, who is of the same nature as the Father, the second person of the triune Godhead. 2 Kenotic Christology: During his earthly appearance, Jesus remains in a self-limitation of his divine power and his eternal self-consciousness, freely chosen for the purpose of his work of salvation, without, however, his essential divinity and his identity with himself being annulled by this change of his responsibility. 3 Messianic Christology: Jesus belongs to humanity according to his self- consciousness as well as his other characteristics; however, he is God's absolute organ for the direction of his salvation counsel and equipped for this purpose by an unlimited communication of the Holy Spirit, which enables him to unconditional unity with God and Finally, with the return to the principle of Scripture, Christology also become genuinely "scientific" again, if by science we understand—as it should be after all after all concession—a certain knowledge or the knowledge of the truth. Christ quite explicitly binds the Christian knowledge of truth to the adherence to his Word: 'Edv vusic pweivinte ev TO AOYO THO ELL... Woeo8e thy Gdijb-eiav. >) And Paul says of anyone who follows a different theological method, that is, does not abide by the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: Tetbq@tat, undév EMtoTAWEVOG, GAAG VoOwV EPL CHTNOELCG KAL Aoyouayiac. 2?) With these words the apostle denies every theologian, who in his doctrinal statements does not merely adhere to Christ's Word, makes him the head of God's church. 4. Prophetic Christology: Jesus, by virtue of the religious genius which he originally carries within himself, develops to the highest perfection and acts in his environment, is the unrivalled model of piety and as such the leader of humanity in all matters of God knowledge and religious life." Kirn judges these four "main directions": "The position described under 1. is basically limited to a statement of faith and is, as far as it does so, unassailable; but it leaves the need for a thoughtful explanation and mediation unsatisfied" (Kirn thinks that it is not constructed according to the "possibility of thinking"). "The 2nd tries to give such a possibility, but by doing so it reveals the conflicting difficulties of thinking more than it could trigger them" (this is very correct, as was explained above in the discussion of modern kenosis). "The 3rd undoubtedly has the broadest biblical basis; it also remains within the limits of religious experience by thinking of Christ as Son of God according to the analogy of the childhood in God of the believers" (this view lacks any biblical basis, since Christ according to his "self-consciousness" is not only the Son of Man, but also 6 vidc tov Sov tov Cavtoc, Matt. 16:16-17. It also contradicts the "religious experience", as the Christian does not think the Chastity of the Son of God of Christ "according to the analogy of the Chastity of the believers", as it is clearly stated in Matt. 16:16-17.) "It can only be questionable whether it also safeguards the uniqueness of Christ, which makes Him the Redeemer and head of the church, against all misjudgment" (this is not at all questionable, why Christ rejects the Christology of AvOpwot Matt. 16:13 ff.) "The 4" view contains more a general historical than a religious valuation of the person Jesus which corresponds to the salvation experience of the congregation". (To be said: 3. and 4. do not allow a personal unity of God and man to come about and are completely outside the Christian faith).

Sinaiticus;, mpooépyetat, accedere ad, to accede to, Beck: to hold oneself to would make the same sense. Cf. for the place Huther, v. Soden, Beck, especially Wolf in the "Curae Philologicae". What Wolf says against Bentley is partly invalidated by the Sinaiticus. Unio personalis and christological theories of modern times. the scientific character. Such a theologian is not filled with science, but with, TetUMa@TAL; he does not speak from the treasure of his knowledge, but as an ignoramus, as a pn émtotdhpEvoc; he is not in a healthy condition, but vooov mepi CytosIc Kai Aoyouayiac, sick of disputes and word bickering. The "disputes" of those who do not merely adhere to Christ's words are more closely characterized by the Apostle as "word bickering", logomachies, because all doctrinal statements except and beside the Word of Christ are mera verba, praeterea nihil. TIhmels says against Ritschl that "the absoluteness of the revelation of God in Christ" is only ensured by accepting the essential divinity of Christ. >) This is very true. If Christ is not God himself, but only a unique man, one must admit the possibility of a man appearing who is even more unique than Christ and who surpasses "the revelation of God in Christ". But also He, for His part, must go one step further. The revelation of God in Christ is only then unsurpassably guaranteed if he and all theologians who follow the same method give out their "experiential standpoint" and again present themselves only from Christ's Word which He gave to His Church. The matter lies quite differently ais ie the kingdom of nature only the facts are given, and it is left to natural science to comment on the facts. In some parts of the world, the plant Arica montana grows without God putting a label next to it, telling us what this plant is and what it is used for. It is only through observation, or "experience" that "science" determines where Arnica montana botanically belongs and that it medically relieves inflammation in wounds. It is different in theology. In theology we have not only facts, the "salvific facts" of the Incarnation of the Son of God, his historical life and work on earth, etc., but also God's commentary, God's label as it were, along with how these facts are to be understood and what they are good for. The Christian Church has this infallible divine commentary in Christ's Word, which Christ gave her through his apostles and prophets. Christ and his apostles therefore refer to this commentary as the only source and norm of the knowledge of faith and doctrinal statements within the Christian

Church. We must always remember Christ's word: "If you keep my word, you will know the truth" and Paul's word: "If anyone does not keep the saving words of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is conceited and knows nothing. Just as for the scientist the facts of nature form the "world of perception", so for Christians in general and the theologians in particular the world of perception is not the facts of salvation per se, but Christ's word about the facts of salvation. Here nothing is left to human interpretation,’ but everything is interpreted by God himself in his Word, and therefore the general rule for all teaching in the Christian Church is: Et tic AaAst, a> A0yt0. §eov. 2° As long as Christian doctrine, and in particular the doctrine of Christ's person, is not taken from the Word of Christ, but is to be "worked out" from the human experience, methodically everything is and remains turned upside down, the faith associated with Christ is dismissed, because according to Scripture this faith always has God's Word as its correlate,>> and the whole Christian

by "experiencing" "events" instead of the word of the prophets and apostles in his writing "The Christian's Act of Faith" (1891). Only K6nig should have taken the further step and proved that "the new way of establishing the faith" is a necessary consequence of giving out the inspiration of Scripture. If we do not have a firm scriptural word on which the faith is based, which is above all human criticism, then only a subjective-human foundation of faith remains, no matter whether it is called, "experience", "spirit", "reason", "science" or otherwise. That's why with the abandonment of the inspiration of the Scriptures this "new way of establishing faith" has generally come to dominate among the modern positive theologians. He, too, argues very vigorously against faith being founded solely on Christ's Word. He says: "The faith of the first disciples was not so" (by Christ's "self-testimony" or by the Word of Christ) "born. Rather, it grew out of the impression of reality under which the disciples were daily living. Even today, only the real faith in Jesus is Christ, which by its very appearance is imposed on man himself". (Zentralfragen, p. 89.) It is not quite clear what he understands by "reality" at the time of the first disciples and by the "appearance" of Christ at our time, through which the faith in Christ was "imposed", or is "imposed". But it is a fact that the faith that is connected with Christ is always born and maintained only through the Word of Christ. This was the case with the first disciples. John the Baptist came to testify that he witnessed of Christ, so that all might believe through him, Joh. 1:7. Through the word of Christ the faith of Joseph, Matt. 1:20 ff., of Mary Unio personalis and christological theories of modern times. doctrine and especially Christology is not "theocentric but "anthropocentric", that is, completely non-theologically oriented. But also with the scientific nature of theology herself, Luke 1:38. 45; 2:19, the shepherds, Luke 2:10-20. In the name of all the disciples Peter Joh. 6:68 confesses: "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life", and Christ Himself testifies to His disciples Joh. 15:3: " Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. So completely was the faith of the first disciples based on the Word. The faith of all Christians has the same origin until the Last Day. Christ testifies that those who abide by His "Word" will know the truth, and that all the members of the Church will believe in Him "through her" (the Apostles’) "Word" until the end of time, John 17:20. Even Paul knows of no other reason for the origin of faith when he says: "How can they believe if they have not heard? But how shall they hear without a preacher? So faith comes from preaching, but preaching comes through the word of God", Rom. 10:14, 17. Of course, after "reality" has had its effect on the production of faith, he wants to make the testimony of the Word come into action. But he deprives even the subsequent testimony of its practical applicability by not wanting to have paid attention both to the individual statements about Christ's person and to "the overall attitude of the apostolic testimony". He says: "It is not at all only about the fact that individual divine predicates are attached to Jesus up to the extent that he is sometimes even called God. It is not only or even primarily details that are taken into consideration, but the overall attitude of the apostolic testimony with the confession of faith in Jesus Christ as the Lord.... Some conventional representations of Christ's divinity give the impression that the confession of faith in it is based on a more or less skilful juxtaposition of individual statements. That... is above all fundamentally wrong." (Zentralfragen, pp. 88 f.) We know this way of using the alleged "whole of Scripture’ as the guardian of all the individual statements of Scripture and thereby actually muzzling Scripture itself. This is the evil Schleiermacher heritage. Schleiermacher says: "The citing of individual passages in dogmatics is something highly misleading, indeed in and of itself insufficient. (Der christliche Glaube I, § 30.) Likewise, von Hofmann brought "the whole of Scripture" in contrast to the individual statements of Scripture. (Schriftbeweis 2 I, 671 f.) In his criticism of Hofmann's scriptural evidence, Kliefoth rightly called this juxtaposition of the whole of Scripture and the individual scriptural statements an "unworkable phrase". (Der Schriftbeweis des D. J. Chr. K. von Hofmann. Schwerin 1859, p. 32.) The "whole of Scripture" in relation to all parts of Christian doctrine and especially in relation to the Person of Christ can only be obtained by carefully compiling the individual statements of Scripture, naturally seen in their context. In so far as someone reaches the "whole" by other means than through the individual parts, he offers his own fabrication and amounts to no more than a disciple, but rather a critic of the Word of God. It has become the custom of the experiential theologians to speak as if the meaning of the individual scriptural statements is also over. Firstly, because there is no recognition and knowledge of Christian doctrine apart from and in addition to the Word of Christ, but only imagination, as has been amply demonstrated. © Secondly also because theology, which has taken a stand on the point of experience, methodologically moves continuously in a circle. The circle consists in the fact that this method lets 'experience' be determined by ‘historical reality' and ‘historical reality' again by ‘experience’. The "experience" is at once product and critic of the "historical reality". To give a rough but accurate example: the scientificity of this method is exactly on the same level as the method of the famous baron who pulled his horse and himself out of the swamp by his own bootstraps. Insofar as Schleiermacher introduced this method into theology, he is not to be called the "reformer" but the greatest madman of 19th century theology. If we want to do our duty to the young students, could actually only be worked out of "historical reality" by specialists. In reality, the situation is such that all "historical reality" necessary for the understanding of Scripture is presented in Scripture itself through the context and is recognizable to every moderately intelligent reader or listener. (Cf. Luther, St. L. V, 335.) The historical background of the Scriptural statements is difficult to discern only by modern professional theologians, which is evident from the fact that they diverge in all directions in their determination of the same. This is because they are not concerned with the historical background or the beginning of Scripture, but rather with communicating their "experience" under the name of Scripture. With the abandonment of the inspiration of Scripture and the "new way of establishing the faith" that this brought about, we find ourselves back where Luther had to begin. The Pope says that Scripture is dark without the interpretation of the "Church". But modern Protestant theology, which has fallen away from the principle of Scripture, talks as if the meaning of the individual statements of Scripture could only be recognized from the "overall picture of historical reality", which can be determined by specialists. Both come to the same conclusion. Luther indicates the result with the words They say such things only because "they may lead us out of the Scriptures, darken our faith, lay and hatch their own eggs, and become our idol". (op. cit., p. 336.)

whatsoever is extolled as spirit without the Word and Sacrament. (322, 10 [Trigl. 497, 10]) What the theologians standing on the experiential standpoint still "experience" right doctrine, they have actually not taken from the "experience", but in contrast to the wrong method they have forced themselves out of the Word of Christ. (Cf. Eduard KGnig op. cit., p. 70.) we must, as much as is in us, destroy the delusion that the theological method is scientific, which wants to draw the Christian doctrine, and especially Christology, from Christian consciousness, Christian experience, etc., instead of from Christ's Word. We have rather to reject this method in the most decisive way than a kevt) azatm Katd THY Tapddoow TwV av8pomov, Katé Ta OToLsia TOV KOoLOD Kai Kai ov KATH Xpiotov [vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ] 7° And finally: Why all the effort to "think" by abandoning the principle of Scripture and by substituting the method of experience, since one must finally confess: Non liquet. Schaff, who walks in Dorner's paths, is quite right when he says: "Even the imperfect, finite personality of man has a mysterious background that escapes the speculative comprehension; how much more, then, the perfect personality of Christ, in which the tremendous antithesis of Creator and creature, infinite and finite, immutable eternal Being and changing temporal being are harmoniously conjoined. *>®) Ritschl also confesses that the origin of a person like Christ is beyond all theological and scientific research. Even Seeberg, who deprives Christ of the divine ego and the divine nature in order to make true humanity see Jesus properly, finally takes up arms when he explains: "Regarding the special psychological and physical way of existence of humanity of Jesus, we must point out the limits of our knowledge. >) So why not from the outset follow the theological method prescribed by Christ and his apostles 7 and recognize and teach the mystery of the unio personalis of God and man in faith in Christ's Word, which of course transcends all human thought, thus escaping a position that is just as contrary to Scripture as it is unscientific?