From: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: A technical question on Christology
Date: 3 Oct 92 08:51:13 GMT

I've got a sort of technical question on Christology, which is really
directed at our more conservative readers.  I find myself defending
the orthodox position on both Christology and the Trinity fairly
often, particularly in talk.religion.misc.  After the last set of
discussions, I reread some of the 4th and 5th Cent. documents.  It's
clear that I'm out of sync with many of the interpretations that are
common in the Western church, though I think my position still falls
within the ground defined by the formula of Chalcedon.  I'm curious to
know how far (if at all) it differs from the current evangelical
views.  I'd like to make sure that I don't claim to represent a
typical Protestant view if in fact my position is only held within the
liberal churches.

The issue is what I've heard called "anhypostasia".  The orthodox view
is that Christ has two natures in one person.  There are a couple of
different models of how that could be.  The one that was most common
in the West clearly takes the person as being that of the eternal
Logos.  It's called anhypostasia because it leaves the impression that
the situation is not symmetical -- the hypostatis that you'd normally
expect to be associated with the human nature is missing.  As one of
our posters put it, in Christ we have human nature, but not a human
being.

The most extreme version of the Western view is Apollinarius, who
believed that Jesus was a human body, with the Logos taking the place
that would normally be taken by a human soul.  While that exact view
is no longer held by anyone, I think his underlying idea is still
accepted by many.  In effect, the idea seems to be that the Logos took
on all the parts of a human being, but there was no real human being.
So the Logos had a body, a human soul, and even a human will.  But
these were attributes of the eternal Logos, not of a separate human
being.  As Athanasius and Cyril say, we see Jesus in the Gospels
alternately acting as a human and as God.  At one minute he is weeping
at the death of Lazarus.  At the next he raises him from the dead.
They see this as indicating that a single entity has call on two
different sets of attributes and powers.  When he weeps or suffers,
we're seeing his human aspects.  When he does miracles, we're seeing
his divine powers.  I don't think the metaphysics they were using had
quite the modern concept of consciousness, but one gets the impression
that they were thinking in terms of one conscious entity, who could
exercise either set of powers, as appropriate to the situation.  That
entity was simply the Logos.

I find this model quite unsettling, because it seems to me to violate
the portrait of Jesus that we see in the NT.  I have two problems.
(1) Jesus is clearly seen as a human being.  It seems to me that his
human limitations become simply a game in this model, because he also
has direct access to the powers of God.  (2) I think it does not take
seriously enough the mystery of the Incarnation.  It sets up the
humanity and the divinity as competing things.  But the whole point of
the Gospel of John is that God's power was shown precisely through
human weakness.  I accept the two-nature concept, but I think I see
the two natures as coming in slightly differently.  In the Western
model, the two natures seem to sort of alternate.  A given action is
primarily either human or divine (though of course the whole person is
presumably involved in all actions).  Thus the two natures are in some
sense related horizontally.  The basic model I get from Athanasius is

             Logos
            /      \
	  human    divine
          nature   nature

My view has always been that the human being and God were involved
more closely: every action of Jesus must be seen both as a human
action and as God's action.  On the human level, his actions have
human motivations and consequences.  On God's level, his actions are
seen as God's, and reveal God's nature and are part of God's plan to
redeem us.  This is true of every action.  Actions that reveal Jesus'
human weaknesses must still be seen as God's actions.  And the
miracles must also be seen as human actions.  (That doesn't mean that
they use only human powers, but Jesus tells us that all of us can do
the same things, because we all have access to God's power through
prayer.)  My basic model is taken from Heb 1:3 and Col 1:15, where
Jesus is said to be bear the stamp of God's nature.  I take the image
as referring to the imprint of a seal in wax.  The result is that we
end up with the same thing, but in a different medium.  The original
seal is (I assume) in metal.  The imprint is the same seal, but in
wax.  Similarly, Jesus is in some sense the same thing as God, but in
flesh rather than in God's original material.  Thus my model is in
effect

		Logos - divine nature
		====================		
		Jesus - human nature

where the ==== is supposed to indicate the imprinting of the divine
nature on the human nature.

In some sense it could be said that I believe there are two persons,
and thus that this view is heretical.  I certainly believe that Jesus
was a human being, with a real human existence.  However I would argue
that this doesn't imply two separate persons, but rather the same
person in two forms.  That is, I believe that Jesus' character, life,
etc. -- while having their own integrity on the human level -- are
simply the reflection in human form of the character and actions of
the Logos.

This is clearly a much more difficult model to explain than
Athanasius', but I think is more true to what the NT says about Jesus.

I think my model is typical of people in the the "liberal" churches
who are trying to work within orthodox Christology.  Until recently, I
had thought it was what most people meant when they quoted Chalcedon.
However I'm no longer quite so sure.  I'd be curious for reaction from
others.