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Fallenness and anhypostasis: a way forward in the debate over Christ's humanity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2014

Darren O. Sumner
Darren O. Sumner*
Affiliation:
Fuller Seminary Northwest, 9725 Third Avenue NE, Seattle, WA 98115, [email protected]
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Abstract

The doctrine of the incarnation suggests that Christ is necessarily like us in some respects, and also unlike us in others. One long-standing debate in modern christology concerns whether Jesus’ human nature ought to be regarded as ‘fallen’ – as conditioned by the effects of the Fall – despite the fact that he himself remained without sin (Heb 4:15). Is fallenness a condition which is necessary in order for Christ to sympathise with human beings, to represent them, and so to reconcile them to God? Is fallenness logically separable from sinfulness? Recent literature has suggested an increasing intractability on both sides of this debate. This article seeks to bring clarity to the question of the fallenness of Christ's human nature by identifying areas of common ground between advocates and opponents of this position. It engages the work of representatives from both sides – Oliver Crisp in opposition and Karl Barth in support – in order to determine the different ways in which they approach the matter of Jesus’ fallenness and impeccability, and to locate points of potential consensus. Crisp argues that fallenness cannot be detached from sin and guilt – i.e. Augustine's notion of both original sin and original corruption, in which sin is an inevitability. Barth, on the other hand, is critical of the Augustinian view and takes as his point of departure Jesus’ unity and sympathy with fallen creatures. Yet the fallenness of Jesus’ humanity does not mean that sin was a real possibility for him.

In this article the christological doctrine of anhypostasis – a way of speaking exclusively of human nature apart from its hypostatic union with God the Son – is suggested as the primary way forward. Advocates of the fallenness position seem to have this qualifier in mind when describing Jesus’ human nature as ‘fallen’: it is true of the assumed nature only when considered in itself, apart from the hypostatic union. There are logical and historical grounds for opponents to accept fallenness strictly on these terms, as well. Beyond this, I argue that anhypostatic fallenness should be acceptable to both sides because it is never without a corresponding sanctification of Jesus’ human nature by its encounter with God. Though Jesus’ humanity was conditioned by the fall, by virtue of the communicatio gratiarum it was not left in a state of peccability.

Keywords

ChristologyfallennesshumanityimpeccabilityKarl BarthOliver Crispsintwo natures
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 67 , Issue 2 , May 2014 , pp. 195 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2014 

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References

1 For a contextual history of the debate, as well as an objective look at its terms and conduct, see Kapic, Kelly, ‘The Son's Assumption of a Human Nature: A Call for Clarity’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 3/2 (2001), pp. 154–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar. An important engagement of the issue on the side of the fallenness position is in Weinandy's, Thomas G. monograph, In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh: An Essay on the Humanity of Christ(London: T&T Clark, 1993)Google Scholar, which also includes an examination of historical support for and against. Finally, Ian A. McFarland's 2008 article is extraordinarily helpful for working out the theological issues of what ‘fallenness’ does and does not necessarily entail. See McFarland, ‘Fallen or Unfallen? Christ's Human Nature and the Ontology of Human Sinfulness’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 10/4 (2008), pp. 399–415CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Representing the opposition, I will examine in some detail Crisp's, Oliver D. articles ‘Did Christ have a Fallen Human Nature?’, in Divinity and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 90–117Google Scholar, and ‘Was Christ Sinless or Impeccable?’, in God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology (London: T&T Clark, 2009), pp. 122–36. In support of Crisp's line of argument is Demetrios Bathrellos, who claims that the fallenness position relies upon a Socinian denial of the doctrine of original sin – that sin is reducible to acts and excludes the human condition of being alienated from God. See Bathrellos, ‘The Sinlessness of Jesus: A Theological Exploration in the Light of Trinitarian Theology’, in Metzger, Paul Louis (ed.), Trinitarian Soundings in Systematic Theology (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005), pp. 113–26Google Scholar. I am grateful to Kelly Kapic for his comments on an earlier draft of this article.

2 Such is the definition of sinfulness with which Bathrellos is operating. See Bathrellos, ‘Sinlessness of Jesus’, pp. 114–15.

3 McFarland is probably right that Gregory of Nazianzen's maxim – that the unassumed is the unhealed – is wrongly applied to fallen humanity in this discussion, ‘for if the effects of the Fall are a matter of damage to human nature, they are by definition not constitutive of that nature and thus do not need to be assumed in order to redeem it’. McFarland, ‘Fallen or Unfallen?’, p. 406. Instead McFarland raises the question of whether the Son's assumption of a fallen human nature may be defended on the grounds of fittingness rather than necessity – like God's choice of the Passion as the means of reconciling the world to himself. See ibid., p. 407.

4 On the importance of an element of discontinuity, see Kapic, ‘The Son's Assumption’, p. 166; McFarland, ‘Fallen or Unfallen?’, p. 400.

5 Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, p. 114. Kapic, too, warns: ‘To speak of fallen man is to speak of man the sinner’ – or at least, I would add, within the context of theological anthropology. ‘To try and separate these two can be perceived as artificial, leading only to further debate’. Kapic, ‘The Son's Assumption’, p. 163.

6 Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, p. 97.

7 Ibid., p. 106.

8 See ibid., pp. 95–6, 109–10.

9 Ibid., p. 111. It is worth noting here that Crisp's view of human nature is ‘concrete’: it is the particular body, soul and spirit assumed by the Word of God. My suspicion is that advocates of the fallenness view will invariably opt for an abstract definition of a nature, as a conceptual list of attributes (or, in Barth's case, as the reality of a lived event) – though, for the purposes of this article, we must set aside that question. For Crisp's discussion of these two nature types, see Divinity and Humanity, pp. 34–71.

10 See Crisp, God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology (London: T&T Clark, 2009), pp. 122–36; cf. Divinity and Humanity, p. 96.

11 Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, p. 112. For the full discussion see pp. 109–16.

12 See God Incarnate, pp. 124–32 (especially p. 129).

13 Ibid., p. 133.

14 Ibid., p. 127; cf. Bathrellos, ‘Sinlessness of Jesus’, p. 115.

15 Crisp, God Incarnate, pp. 132–3. To say that Christ cannot sin is not the same as to say that Christ does not have the capacity to sin, because of reduplication: he cannot sin qua divine, but he has the capacity to sin qua human. (Note that Crisp himself does not invoke anhypostasis language here.)

16 Irving, Edward, The Orthodox and Catholic Doctrine of Our Lord's Human Nature (London: Printed by Ellerton & Henderson for Baldwin & Cradock, 1830), p. viiGoogle Scholar. Also see Gunton, Colin, ‘Two Dogmas Revisited: Edward Irving's Christology’, Scottish Journal of Theology 41/3 (1988), pp. 359–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Irving had his membership revoked by the Church of Scotland for his views.

17 McFarland, ‘Fallen or Unfallen?’, p. 413; cf. pp. 411–13. See also n. 41, below.

18 Ibid., pp. 412–13.

19 McFarland, Ian A., In Adam's Fall: A Meditation on the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin (Malden, MA, and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), p. 128Google Scholar.

20 Crisp does not see this as a solution between the two, but rather insists that, because the impeccability view can say this, as well, the sinlessness view must do more to distinguish itself. See Crisp, God Incarnate, p. 133. This is an unnecessarily contentious claim, since the goal of the sinlessness view, of course, is not to distinguish itself from its theological competitors.

21 Crisp grants as a logical possibility that Christ qua human (and not only his abstracted nature) has the capacity to sin, even if Christ qua divine does not. If we affirm such a capacity for Christ qua divine, or even as the God-human, ‘then it is a very short step from here to the view that the Triune God can sin’. See Crisp, God Incarnate, pp. 133–5 (citation on pp. 134–5). Barth is unwilling to make use of such distinctions (i.e. Christ existing or acting according to one nature), preferring to speak of the acts and the capacity of Jesus simpliciter.

22 Crisp, God Incarnate, p. 125.

23 Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, p. 115.

24 Ibid., pp. 113–14.

25 See ibid., pp. 107–8.

26 See ibid., pp. 93–106.

27 Ibid., p. 93.

28 Barth, Karl, Karl Barth–Rudolf Bultmann: Letters 1922–1966, ed. Jaspert, Bernd (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1981), 24 Dec. 1952, p. 105Google Scholar. Barth's comparison is between himself and Bultmann, though elsewhere he applied the analogy to other seemingly ‘impossible’ dialogue partners – such as evangelical and Roman Catholic theology. See Barth, Karl, The Humanity of God (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1960), p. 32Google Scholar.

29 ‘If His human essence were sinless as such, how could it be our essence? How could He really be our Brother at this decisive point? How could there be any solidarity with us in our lostness?’ Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics (CD), 4 vols. in 13 parts, ed. Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–75)Google Scholar, IV/2, p. 92; cf. CD I/2, pp. 151–5.

30 See CD IV/1, §59: ‘The Obedience of the Son of God’.

31 CD IV/2, pp. 90–2.

32 Ibid., p. 92 (emphasis mine).

33 Ibid., p. 88.

34 Cf. CD IV/1, pp. 197, 247.

35 CD IV/2, p. 93.

36 Ibid.

37 Ian McFarland reminds us that, according to Maximus the Confessor and Constantinople III, Christ's will is not gnomic (or deliberative) in character. Jesus knows the full implications and consequences of all possible actions. Sin is therefore not properly described as an impossibility for him, nor is his temptation a fiction, but rather he lives and chooses from the certitude of his divine life. See McFarland, ‘Fallen or Unfallen?’, p. 410; cf. McFarland, , ‘Willing is Not Choosing: Some Anthropological Implications of Dyothelite Christology’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 9/1 (2007), pp. 3–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 CD IV/2, p. 93.

39 Ibid.

40 CD I/2, p. 155.

41 Barth, Karl, Karl Barth's Table Talk (Scottish Journal of Theology, Occasional Papers, 10), ed. Godsey, John D. (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1963), p. 68Google Scholar.

42 Barth, Table Talk, p. 69. G. C. Berkouwer captures what Barth intends here in his comments on the ‘necessity’ of Jesus’ victory over temptation: ‘By “necessity” we mean only that which God has disclosed to us about him and his work: we mean the redemptive intent of the personal union in Christ. . . . He could not fall, not from a lack of freedom, but precisely because of his freedom before God, the freedom consisting in obedience, which could therefore bring liberation and salvation to man’. Berkouwer, The Person of Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1954), p. 263.

43 See CD IV/2, pp. 93–4.

44 The Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, ch. 8, paragraph 59.

45 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q15 a2, ad; cf. q7 (especially a1, a5, a7), where Thomas addresses Christ's habitual grace and gifts. Barth critiques the predication of this habitus properly to Jesus’ human essence, arguing instead that ‘grace is a divine giving and human receiving’ and can therefore be ‘had’ only in the course of his history. See CD IV/2, p. 90.

46 See Solid Declaration, ch. 8, paragraph 12; Chemnitz, Martin, The Two Natures in Christ, trans. J. A. O. Preus (St Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1971), p. 251Google Scholar.

47 Chemnitz, Two Natures, p. 252.

48 Heppe, Heinrich, Reformed Dogmatics, trans. Thomson, G. T., ed. Bizer, Ernst (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1950), p. 434Google Scholar.

49 Ibid.

50 CD IV/2, p. 88.

51 Leiden Synopsis, 25.4 (quoted in Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, p. 412).

52 See Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 424–7.

53 See Dorries, David W., Edward Irving's Incarnational Christology (Fairfax, VA: Xulon Press, 2002), pp. 360–1Google Scholar.

54 Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, p. 426.

55 Kapic is right to ask whether the matter of posse peccare or non posse peccare with respect to Jesus is ‘even a legitimate question’. Kapic, ‘The Son's Assumption’, pp. 164–5.

56 CD IV/2, pp. 92–3 (emphasis mine).