Summarizing Assessment of Reformed Christology.
There has been much debate about whether or not the Reformed Christology, in so far as it contrasts with the Lutheran one, is touching the foundations of the Christian faith. Walch also dealt with this question in detail in his "History of Disputes with the Reformed". © It is to be said: To the extent that Reformed Christology, in order to combat Lutheran Christology, asserts the principle of Finitum non est capax infiniti [the finite is not capable of the infinite], it consequently excludes the Incarnation of the Son of God and Christ's merit and thus the whole foundation of Christianity. However, if it becomes inconsistent, that is, its tp@tov wevdoc, that the human nature of Christ is incapable of the divinity, that it is itself suspended, and that it teaches, in particular, to Socinianism the Incarnation of the Son of God and a merit of Christ of infinite value, it returns to Christian ground. This double side of Reformed Christology has already been pointed out repeatedly in the longer version above. For the sake of clarity, we are here reassembling what was said earlier. It is a superficial,
Dritter Teil, 1734, p. 298 ff. Reference is also made here to the most main older (Lutheran and Reformed) literature that deals with the question of the fundamental dissent between Lutheran and Reformed Christology. Also included here are the writings that Walch cites in his Bibliotheca Theologica I, 486-527, under the title Scripta irenica, with the further explanation: Sunt ista [scripta] eo consilio composita, ut auctores concordiam ecclesiasticam inter Lutheranos et Reformatos restituendam partim suaderent, partim vero dissuaderent. The index includes the writings of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, except for Walch's time. From Nikolaus Hunnius' Diascepsis theologica de fundamentali dissensu etc. Walch judges: Merito magnam comparavit sibi existimationem, quia neque antea, neque postea ullus tam solide atque accurate ac Hunnius monstravit, dissensum inter nos ac Reformatos esse, fundamentalem. This judgement must be limited to the fact that we have the best fundamental debate in principle with the Reformed Church in the writings of the sixteenth century, namely in the writings of Luther and Chemnitz and in the apology of the Book of Concord. unobjective view that has been expressed by a part of the Reformed theologians and also by some later Lutheran theologians ®) that the Christological dispute between Lutherans and Reformed is basically only a dispute of words. A proper discussion of Reformed Christology must include two things. First of all, it is necessary to point out where the Reformed Christology, by using rationalist axioms, is fixing an unbridgeable gulf between itself and Christian doctrine. Secondly, it is necessary to point out the points at which it itself re-establishes the connection with Christian doctrine. This way alone also serves an honest understanding with the Reformed Christology breaks off the connection with Christian doctrine on principle wherever it fights the communion of natures (reales naturarum communionem), the communication of divine attributes to human nature (genus maiestaticum) and the communication of divine actions (actiones) to human nature (genus apotelesmaticum) on the principle that the human nature of Christ is not capable of communion with the infinite divine nature and of communicating divine attributes and actions because of its finiteness. The reason why there is a fundamental break with Christian doctrine here is this: since the divine Person of the Son of God is no less infinite than his divine nature and his divine attributes and actions, the Reformed argument also declares impossible the communion of the Person of the Son of God with human nature, that is, the incarnation of the Son of God, the unio personalis of God and man. This is the consequence of their erroneous argument that the Reformed theologians themselves draw when they assert that the Son of God, even after his incarnation, is no less extra carnem than in carne, thus translating the unique binding of God and man in Christ (unio personalis) into the binding of God with all believers (unio
272-273] mystica) and into the binding of God with all creatures (unio cum omnibus creaturis). From this revelation of the unio personalis Calvin also draws the consequence with regard to the merit of Christ, when he occasionally fails to mention that Christ's merit as the merit of a human being cannot in itself satisfy divine judgment), who wish to keep intact the divinity of Christ by giving the suffering and death of human nature to the Son of God only nominally and by means of an operation of thought (nominetenus, praedicatione dialectica absque ulla reali communicatione © thus nullifying the intrinsic value of the merit of Christ. Boehl also conceals the factual dissent between Lutheran and Reformed Christology when he claims that Reformed theology adopts the genus idiomaticum and apotelesmaticum and rejects only the genus maiestaticum. ©" Rather, when the Reformed theologians use their fundamental theorem that the finite is not capable of infinity (the incapacity of human nature for divinity), they also reject the genus idiomaticum and apotelesmaticum: the genus idiomaticum, in so far as they wish to confer on the Son of God the suffering and death of human nature only nominally and by means of an operation of thought; the genus apotelesmaticum, in so far as they exclude the human nature of Christ from all official works which require omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, on the grounds that the human nature of Christ is not capable of divine attributes and works. No one can deny the genus maiestaticum without consequently also abolishing the genus apotelesmaticum. This is Reformed Christology, provided that it applies its principle that the human nature of Christ is incapable of divine attributes and works. In so far as it does so, it adopts a standpoint outside the Christian religion. But a factual presentation includes the recognition of the fact that the Reformed theologians, especially in the face of Socinianism or Unitarianism, teach both the Incarnation of the Son of God and a merit of Christ of infinite value. This is admittedly inconsistent, but a fact to be acknowledged with joy.
The Heidelberg Catechism confesses that the Eternal Son of God, through the action of the Holy Spirit, took a true human nature from the Virgin Mary and in his suffering and dying bore the sin of the whole human race, so that with his suffering, as the 'one expiatory sacrifice, not far from body and soul, he might redeem us from eternal damnation and grant us God's grace, justice and eternal life. ©?) And the same Admonitio Neostadiensis which, on the one hand, claims that there can be no real communion between the divine and human nature in Christ, on the other hand actually admits this communion when it says that the divine nature has given such value to the suffering of human nature "that it is a sufficient ransom for the sins of the whole world". °*) The conferring of value presupposes not merely nominal but real communion of natures. To the extent that Reformed Christology forgets its principle: Finitum non est capax infiniti in happy inconsistency and teaches both the Incarnation of the Son of God and satisfactio vicaria, it is going back to Christian territory. Thus a characteristic feature of Reformed Christology is self- contradiction. In old and new times ° has rightly been reproached to the Reformed theologians: Whoever admits the personal unity of God and man in Christ or, which is the same thing, the communication of the divine personality to the human nature of Christ, has thereby lost the right to speak even a word against the communication of the divine characteristics and works. And all the terrible things which the Reformed theologians say to the Lutherans as necessary following from the communication of divine attributes and works (destruction of human nature, transformation of the whole earthly life of Christ into a mere appearance, etc.)—all these terrible things strike the Reformed likewise when they strike, as long as they still hold on to the unio personalis, that is, to the communication of the divine Person of the Son of God to human nature. ©) From their point of view, the Unitarians have also pointed to the Reformed self-contradiction.
274] The unfortunate Adam Neuser was very much resented for owing his Unitarianism to the Reformed training and for accusing his former co- religionists of cutting off other people's heads because of doctrines they themselves were leading. °° But Neuser is factually absolutely right. If the Reformed axiom: Finitum non est capax infiniti [the finite is not capable of the infinite] is to apply in Christology, then the Incarnation of the Son of God is impossible, and if the communication of the divine omnipotence, omniscience etc. that happened in time is not to refer to Christ according to the human nature but to Christ according to divine nature, then Christ is not the eternal Son of God according to his "divinity" but an "Arian creature.
To blame for this misery of self-contradiction is the unfortunate fact that the Reformed theologians want to make an unholy marriage in their Christology. They want to combine two things that are incessantly in conflict with each other and cancel each other out. For they want to connect the human thought that cancels out this truth with the truth revealed in the Scriptures that the Son of God became man in order to destroy in and through human nature the works of the devil, that a human nature of the Son of God is not capable in his divine nature, his divine attributes and works (actiones). This human thought, which has no right to exist in Christian theology, but is introduced into it as a foreign body, is the cause of all further Reformed Christological misery. It is the cause of the contradiction against Scripture. If we pay attention to the reason why Reformed Christology reinterprets the scriptural statements which ascribe to Christ divine attributes and works communicated to him according to human nature, the last and real reason is always the human idea that human nature is not capable of this communication without being transformed or destroyed into the Godhead. This
aperte et in specie docens hoc, quod ipsi in genere, capite plectitur. [If one uses their arguments (of the Reformed) and actually becomes an Arian, teaching openly and specifically what they themselves in general, are bent on the head.] (Apology of the Book of Concord, p. 45 b.) Indeed, the Unitarian Sylvanus was executed at Heidelberg on December 23, 1572 by Elector Frederick III of the Palatinate, over Neuser RE.2 IV, 692; XVI, 242; RE.1 I, 663; XVI, 758.
idea of man is also the cause of all the unjust polemics against the Lutheran church. If we pay attention to the reason why the Reformed theologians, from Zwingli and Calvin up to the present day, accuse the Lutheran Church of Eutychianism, that is, of the transformation of humanity into the Godhead, because of the doctrine of communicating divine attributes and works to human nature, the human thought of the inability of Christ's human nature for divine attributes and actions always appears on the scene as the final and real reason: Communicatio idiomatum Deitatis cum humanitate cum natura humana pugnat, corporis humani non alia quam visibilis, localis, circumscriptiva praesentia est [Google]; human nature cannot be made the organ of divine attributes, etc. The attempt to record this idea of man and to let it appear as church doctrine becomes for the Reformed theologians also the cause for the historically untrue assertion that the Reformed Christology has the consensus of the old church, particularly of Chalcedon, for itself. ©® If the Reformed Church wants to get rid of the misery of self- contradiction and the rest of the Christological misery, it can only do so by eliminating the rationalist principle: Finitum non est capax infiniti as an invaded foreign body from her body. It must come to the biblical point of view regarding the capacity of Christ's human nature, which the Formula of Concord confesses with the classical words which we are reiterating: "The best, surest and surest way in this dispute is this, that is, what Christ has received by personal union, glorification or exaltation, according to his assumed human nature, and what his assumed human nature is capable of, by way of (praeter et supra) the natural attributes, without the same eradication, so that no one can know this better and more thoroughly than the Lord Christ himself, but he has revealed it in his Word, as much as we need to know of it in this life. What we now have clear and certain testimonies of in this case in the Scriptures, we are to believe and in no way dispute, as if human nature in Christ could not be capable of it."®
53]. 275-276] There may be room here for a few remarks about more recent Reformed theologians whose writings are widespread in our midst. Shedd points out very forcefully that in Christian theology only the scriptural principle can be valid. He rightly says that Christian dogmatics and so-called "biblical" theology must have the same content. °° But he makes the remark that among all theologians Calvin in particular succeeded in keeping his dogmatics free of human thoughts. He says: "The systematic theology of Calvin's Institutes is exclusively Biblical in its constituent elements and substance. Calvin borrows hardly anything from human philosophy, Science, or literature. His appeal is made continually to the Scriptures alone. No theologian was ever less influenced by a school of philosophy, or by human Science and literature, than the Genevan reformer.". His doctrine of the grace of God (De gratia Dei), especially the determination of how many people the grace extends to,%™ is completely dominated by the human idea that the extension of the divine will of grace is not to be judged according to the statements of Scripture, but according to the experience or result (experientia, effectus). It is from this human thought that Calvin reinterprets all Scriptural statements that are based on the general will of grace (gratia universalis), and he fights as fools all those who teach a general will of grace., it, like that of his comrades, is under the dominion of the human decree of the inability of human nature for divinity. He calls it an ignorance (inscitia) if one allows the humanity of Christ to be united everywhere with his divinity. In particular, he urges the special decree that only a visible and local presence can be given to the human nature of Christ.
Haec est propria corporis veritas, ut spatio contineatur, ut suis dimensionibus constet. [They [the Lutherans] talk about the invisible presence. — This is the proper truth of the body, that it may be contained in space, that it may be consistent with its dimensions. (Joh. 20) into open ones, and he relocates the miracle of Christ's disappearance (Luk 24) only into the eyes of the disciples. From here he also fights the Lutherans as Eutychians and as people who are worse than the Papists. ° It is a pity that also important newer Reformed dogmatists such as Hodge, Shedd and Boehl, who in many respects excellently oppose modern liberalism, reproduce in Christology the old Reformed doctrine in its self- contradiction and in its contradiction to Scripture, and in doing so also succumb to the temptation to misrepresent Lutheran doctrine in terms of content and history in the polemic against the Lutherans. Hodge’s Christology has already been referred to many times in the above statement, because his dogmatics and his commentaries are also spread in distant circles. Hodge—as we have seen—strongly supports the Old Reformed viewpoint and also strongly opposes the Lutheran doctrine on the principle that the human nature of Christ is incapable of the attributes and works of his deity. We draw attention only to the fact that Hodge's historical accounts of Lutheran Christology are highly unreliable. Dr. Krauth already had the same to blame on Dr. Shedd. Krauth used these apparently harsh but factually justified words to Shedd: "We cannot refrain from expressing our amazement that the writer of a History of Christian Doctrine © should give such a definition of so familiar a term" (the expression communicatio idiomatum, which Shedd had defined as "the presence of the divine nature of Christ in the sacramental elements"). "We are forced almost to the conclusion—and it is the mildest one we can make for Dr. Shedd—that he has ventured to give a statement of the doctrine of our Formula" (the Formula of Concord is meant) "without having read it with sufficient care to form a correct judgment as to the meaning of its most
magis verecunda est doctrina. Sed quosdam [the Lutherans are meant] ita abripit contentio, ut dicant propter unitas in Christo naturas, ubicunque est divinitas Christi, illic quoque esse carnem, quae ab illa separari nequit. [Google
Edinburgh, 1865 (two volumes). 277-278] important terms." "Dr. Shedd... in general seems to stumble from the moment he gets on German ground. °° Dr. Hodge is no happier in his historical remarks about Lutheran Christology. We have already recalled, that Hodge places Martin Chemnitz among the theologians who teach that human nature is not capable of divinity. Hodge believes that there is a hopeless disagreement among Lutheran theologians. He says, "It would require a volume to give the details of the controversies between the different schools of the Lutheran divines." °° In order to state this assumed disagreement, he writes among other things: "No less diversity appears in the answer to the question, What is meant by the communication of natures? Sometimes it is said to be a communication of the essence of God to the human nature of Christ; sometimes, a communication of divine attributes; and sometimes it is said to mean nothing more than that the human is made the organ of the divine. °°) The fact is that all Lutheran theologians teach and confess all three points. All teach that God's nature is communicated to Christ's human nature, because Scripture teaches that in Christ's human nature the fullness of the Godhead dwells as in his body, and the Son of God became man not exclusively but inclusive of his divine nature. ° The assertion of Reformed theologians,® that the Son of God became man minus his divine nature, the Lutherans call what it is, namely a denial of the statements of Scripture. Likewise, all Lutheran theologians teach the communication of the divine attributes to human nature, because according to the Scriptures Christ in time, that is, according to human nature, not only great natural gifts (dona finita) are given, but also supernatural, truly divine gifts (dona vere divina et infinita). If the Reformed theologians, for example, want the expression Matt. 28:18: ma0a e€ovoia ev ovpave Kai ém1 yr\c¢ to denote only a limited power, the Lutheran theologians call it a reversal of the words of the Scriptures. And if other Reformed theologians want to refer the words to Christ according to His divine nature, the Lutheran theologians prove that this denies Christ's eternal
deity, and that the Son of God is transformed into an Arian creature, because the scriptural passage speaks of an omnipotence that was only given to Christ in time. Finally, all Lutheran theologians, including Luther, teach that the communication of the divine attributes to human nature has only the meaning that human nature has been made the organ of divine nature. The Lutheran theologians only presuppose that Christ's human nature is an organ of divinity in a different and higher way than, for example, Peter's human nature, if God performed works of omnipotence through this. They grasp the human nature of Christ as an organ belonging to the Person of the Son of God (instrumentum personaliter coniunctum, evypnotov, cooperans), and they call it a doctrine abolishing the Incarnation of the Son of God, when Reformed theologians assert that Christ, according to his human nature, does not work divine works differently from human miracle-workers. Thus it is clear that the disagreement which Hodge attributes to Lutheran theologians in the three points mentioned above belongs only to the realm of fiction. We recall our longer explanation (pp. 216 f.) that neither the Lutherans among themselves nor the Reformed among themselves can be in substantial disagreement as long as on the one hand the Lutherans teach: Finitum in Christo capax est infiniti, the human nature of Christ is capable of divinity, neque caro extra A0yov, neque Adyoc extra carnem etc., and as long as, on the other hand, the Reformed hold to their Christology: Finitum non est capax infiniti, the human nature of Christ is not capable of divinity, cannot be made the organ of divinity and of divine attributes, corporis Christi non alia quam visibilis et localis praesentia est. The objections with which Hodge fights Lutheran doctrine under the title "Remarks on the Lutheran Doctrine"®™ are also all outside the realm of truth. Only the first objection should be mentioned. Hodge has no hesitation in saying: "The first objection is that the Lutheran doctrine is an attempt to explain the mystery" and he puts this more precisely: "Not content with admitting the fact that two natures are united in the one person of Christ, the Lutheran theologians insist on explaining the fact. The exact opposite is historically true. The Lutheran teaching that the human
nature, through its personal union with the Son of God, has not merely nominal but real communion with the divine nature and its attributes and works is not a doctrinal statement that Lutheran theologians add to the unio personalis from within themselves or deduce from the unio personalis by reason, but it is a doctrine that is expressed in Scripture. On the other hand, the Reformed denial of the communio naturarum and of the communication of divine attributes and works to human nature is a direct negation of the statements of Scripture and a rationalistic explanation of the unio personalis, as Scripture itself describes the unio personalis. D. Hodges' objections to Lutheran Christology can only be inaccurate because they are based on the human idea of the incapacity of human nature for divinity. But also with regard to Hodge, the pleasing fact that he himself withdraws all his objections to Lutheran Christology when he turns to the expressions Dei mors. in the section "The Intrinsic Worth of Christ's Satisfaction" °): Dei sanguis, Dei passio, and sees in what these expressions say the infinite value of Christ's merit, just as Admonitio Neostadiensis allows the suffering of human nature to be imparted infinite value by divine nature. Thus the communion of natures and their works is recognized.. If it becomes inconsistent and teaches, against the adopted principle, the hypostatic unity and the intrinsic infinite value of the Passion of Christ, it is Christian.