Tom Pearson wrote:
> At 11:00 PM 09/04/2001 -0400, george murphy wrote:
>
> > Paul's statement about Christ's kenosis in Phil.2:5-11 clearly
> point to
> >some sort of self-limitation on the part of God. We are to start from
> there &
> >adapt our understanding of God's being & will to that rather than the
> other way
> >around.
>
> I think this is problematic, for two reasons. First, it is not at all
> clear what Phil. 2:5-11 is actually pointing toward. When God empties
> himself to dwell among us, is he divesting himself of his divine nature?
> If so, then that being is no longer God. God cannot choose to reduce his
> own being without ceasing to be that being -- unless, of course, we hold
> that God's will can trump God's nature, or that God's will just is God's
> nature. I'd certainly prefer to read *eauton ekenosen* in Phil. 2:7 as "he
> poured himself out" (as in, "he gave himself completely") rather than, "he
> emptied himself." Both are possible readings, but the second does not
> produce such theological frisson.
The original question had to do with whether God limits himself. In
one sense it's obvious that he does: God doesn't do everything God _could_
do. In the old cryptist-kenoticist controversy of Lutheran Orthodoxy, even the
"cryptists" agreed that God did limit himself in the Incarnation: That is just
what "hiding" some of the divine attributes means, even if not in such a strong
sense as the "kenoticists" claimed.
The passion of Christ is the clearest example of such limitation, call
it "emptying" or whatever:
"Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me
more than twelve legions of angels?" But he didn't.
> Second, I don't understand why we are to start from *there* (the kenotic
> doctrine in Phil. 2:5-11), rather than with, say, the passage in Hebrews
> 13:8 -- "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever." The
> Hebrews passage suggests perhaps that God's being is fixed and unchanging,
> not subject to willful revision, so that the incarnation did not alter
> God's nature but captured it completely under the conditions of humanity
> (Christ is fully God, and fully human). Why not "start from there [i.e.,
> Hebrews 13:8] & adapt our understanding of God's being & will to that
> rather than the other way around"? What is it that privileges the kenotic
> doctrine in Phil. 2:5-11 over other texts as a hermeneutical template?
It's my fault that my statement carelessly implied that we should start
only from the Phil. passage & not from God's whole revelation in Christ. That
is the "there" from which we are to start. & the biblical witness to
revelation needs to be approached without _a priori_ assumptions about divine
immutability &c.
There are, of course, passages like Heb.13:8 that can be read as
implying immutability. But there are others that speak about God being sorry,
repenting &c, & especially those about the Son of God suffering & dying. It is
the claim of the theology of the cross that we need to begin with the latter
statements about the cross & resurrection of Christ, and interpret other texts
in their light. "True theology and the recognition of God are in the crucified
Christ" (Luther). Of course it is possible to take fundamentally different
theological approaches.
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." Can this
be true in the sense that there never has been & never will be any change in
Christ? How could there then be any genuine Incarnation? In 10 B.C. Jesus
hadn't been born & in 10 A.D. he had. At noon on Good Friday he was alive, at
8 p.m. he was dead, and on Easter morning he was risen.
Texts such as this to the effect that God or Christ doesn't change can
be understood as statements about the divine character - love, faithfulness, &c
- without implication that God is absolutely immutable. OTOH, the latter idea
makes it very hard to avoid a docetic christology
because it's then impossible for God really to be a participant in the history
of the world.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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