Is the Son of God Still a Human Being?
A Meditation on the Incarnation
Part I
by Roger Olson
editorial comments by R.E. Slater [ ... ]
December 25, 2013
I don’t remember when it first occurred to me that the majority of American Christians seem to think the incarnation was temporary, a mere interim in the eternal existence of the Son of God, the Word, the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity. Early in my career of teaching Christian theology to undergraduates (seventeen years at two Christian institutions of higher learning) I discovered that most of my students assumed that, to put it crassly, Jesus “dropped” his humanity at his ascension (if not before). Now, they believed, he is back in his purely spiritual existence with the Father and the Holy Spirit as he was before he was born in Bethlehem. Now, they believed, he is no longer a man, the man who died on the cross, but a super-spiritual, omnipresent, being who is not limited in any ways. After all, they argued, he lives in all Christians’ hearts, doesn’t he?
[Summary of Several Popular Opinions
[Summary of Several Popular Opinions
- Was Jesus' Incarnation temporary?
- Was Jesus' Incarnation a letting go of His eternality for a short time?
- Conversely, at Jesus' ascension did He let go of His humanity to resume His place in the Godhead?
- Does Jesus exist as He once was with the Trinity? No longer a man but God?
- Is Jesus a super-spiritual, omnipresent being no longer limited by His previous humanity?]
When I probed students about this belief they gave many answers:
- First, was the one mentioned above. How can a human being live in all our hearts? (omnipresence)
- Second, “humanity” is sinful, so how can God be human? (sin)
- Third, after his resurrection he walked through walls, so he couldn’t have been human anymore. (spirit)
- Fourth, if he’s still a man, how can he identify with women and how can women have fellowship with him? (sexism) (This last question was usually raised by women students, of course.)
This is just a sampling of the reasons students gave for believing that the incarnation was temporary and that the Son of God is no longer a particular man, a human being. And these reasons were expressed in many different ways, but most came down to a version of one of these.
At the same time, the same students tended to “eternalize” Jesus into the immanent Trinity. That is, they often referred to the pre-incarnate Son of God, if not God himself in general, as “Jesus.” The word “God” and the name “Jesus” were simply interchangeable in their talk about God. Somehow they managed to separate the name “Jesus” from the humanity of the Son of God and of Mary and apply it to divinity in general.
Well, we expect these confusions to appear among fifth graders in Sunday School. It’s common, garden variety Sunday School theology. But somewhere along the way, during my catechesis as a young evangelical, I shed these ideas and came to believe in the incarnation as an event in time (and in the life of God!) and as permanent.
I suspect, however, that somewhere along the way, during the 1960s through the 1990s and until now, most churches have abdicated their responsibility to teach Christian young people doctrine and theology. Over the years of teaching theology to Christian undergraduates I noticed a decline in their knowledge of basic Christian belief which is one reason I wrote The Mosaic of Christian Belief. I had students who grew up in pastors’ and missionaries’ homes declaring they had never heard of the bodily resurrection before and accusing me of introducing novel ideas when all I was doing was introducing them to basic Christian orthodoxy!
This is what I call the dominance of folk religion or folk theology in American Christianity. Eventually I wrote a whole book about it entitled Questions to All Your Answers: The Journey from Folk Religion to Examined Faith.
One item of folk religion is the belief among Christians that the incarnation was temporary—a mere interim and perhaps even a charade in the life of the Son of God, God’s Word, the Logos. For many evangelicals (and others, I suspect), the incarnation was simply the Son of God “putting on human skin” for thirty-some years in order to teach us how to please God and then to die for our sins. Either at the moment of his death, or at his resurrection, or at his ascension, he shed that human skin and returned to his glorious pre-incarnate existence as God’s purely spiritual Son in heaven who also, somehow, dwells in every Christian’s heart.
One item of folk religion is the belief among Christians that the incarnation was temporary—a mere interim and perhaps even a charade in the life of the Son of God, God’s Word, the Logos. For many evangelicals (and others, I suspect), the incarnation was simply the Son of God “putting on human skin” for thirty-some years in order to teach us how to please God and then to die for our sins. Either at the moment of his death, or at his resurrection, or at his ascension, he shed that human skin and returned to his glorious pre-incarnate existence as God’s purely spiritual Son in heaven who also, somehow, dwells in every Christian’s heart.
This is, of course, an informal form of the ancient heresy of Gnosticism. It is a docetic Christology. Most of the time I find that people who believe the incarnation was temporary don’t really believe in the incarnation at all! That is, they tend to think of Jesus’ humanity as an act, an outward performance, not a real human nature and existence like ours. To many Christians “Jesus” was Clark Kent to the Son of God’s super-human glory.
Why is this wrong? That is, why is it wrong to think the incarnation of the Son of God was temporary and that Jesus is no longer human (if he ever really was)?
First, it flies in the face of Scripture. 1 Timothy 2:5—”one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” The tense is present. The Gospels clearly present the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ as human. He ate food. He had scars. And yet the angel told the disciples at his ascension that this same Jesus Christ would come back just as they saw him go. A glorified human, yes, but still human. And according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 we will be like him in that glorious state of resurrected humanity.
I fear that much American Christianity is very weak on the incarnation. We celebrate Jesus’ birth, but do we really understand what this event was? I doubt it. It was, according to Scripture, and the Great Tradition of Christian orthodoxy, God taking on our humanity forever. It was God adopting our lowly existence as his own in order to bridge the gap between himself and us [(as creature and created)]. It was the beginning of the dying of death, the conquering of sin and death, the union of God with creation. It was the “great exchange” in which, as the ancient church fathers put it, God became what we are so that we might become what he is (theosis)—that we might share in his divine nature (2 Peter 1:4) [and that he share our human nature].
This is classical Christianity. Sure, it includes mystery. The incarnation is, in some ways, the ultimate mystery. It raises many unanswerable questions—at least unanswerable for us now (e.g., What does Jesus eat now?). One is sometimes tempted to go Augustine’s route when skeptics raise these questions and insist on answers. To the Manicheans who asked what God was doing before he created the world the North African bishop said “He was creating hell for those who peer into his mysteries.”
Somehow American Christianity (and I suspect Christianity in many places) needs to rediscover the Bible and basic Christian orthodoxy. The great irony is that we fight a “war” over Christmas with secularists while neglecting our own Christian belief about the incarnation, allowing it to slowly fade away into a bland, overly spiritualized, modern Gnosticism.
Somehow American Christianity (and I suspect Christianity in many places) needs to rediscover the Bible and basic Christian orthodoxy. The great irony is that we fight a “war” over Christmas with secularists while neglecting our own Christian belief about the incarnation, allowing it to slowly fade away into a bland, overly spiritualized, modern Gnosticism.
- Roger
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Follow up Comments
Commentor 1 - The flesh and blood body of the Lord Jesus was resurrected from the grave. Now the Lord has a glorified body, the same as we will have one day after our physical body has been resurrected from the grave or simply transformed if the Lord returns prior to our passing away. I do believe that Jesus is the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The trinitarian doctrine is correct (as opposed to the oneness explanation of the Trinity), but the name above all names is Jesus, thus the name of the Father is also Lord Jesus. The name of the Son is not above the name of the Father. Jesus the Son is the image of the invisible God, therefore His name is the image of the name of the Father, or simply the same name. The oneness and the trinitarians would disagree with me for different reasons. Everyone should simply pray for revelation of truth.
Reply by Dr. Olson - When did "Jesus" become the name of God the Father and of the Holy Spirit? Why did Jesus not teach his disciples (and us) to pray "Our Jesus who art in heaven?"
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Commentor 2 - Jesus exists now as "glorified" "spiritual" body (that which Paul refers to), in "heavenly" space and time (localized in some fashion, but according to different or "finer" laws than we experience on earth), but as such "interpenetrates" with the grosser existence we (his church) are conditioned by in our present state, and in whose life as such we can all participate somehow through the agency of the Holy Spirit. Do I have things right?
Reply by Dr. Olson - Yes, "through the agency of the Holy Spirit" is the key. I don't know if you're aware of the debate between Lutherans and Reformed Protestants about the post-resurrection body of Jesus. I side with Calvin and the Reformed party here. Luther and Lutherans thought/think the glorified body of Jesus is ubiquitous. That seems to me to create problems for his ongoing humanity and for the Holy Spirit as playing a crucial role in bringing Jesus to us, in us and among us. The Holy Spirit can then be forgotten--which many Protestants have done. The one point distinctive theme of Calvin I strongly agree with is his doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
Commenter 3 - Though this has always seemed clear to me, more probably its time to revisit all the gnosticisms of Christology by revisiting each of the church councils one-by-one to show the movement in theology from the early church into today's Lutheran-Reformed debate.
This topic would touch all the issues: the nature of the Trinity; the nature of sin in relation to Jesus; the nature of Jesus' divinity and humanity; the nature of His death, resurrection, and ascension; the nature of His ongoing ministry through the church; the nature of Jesus' Kingdom/NHNE rule; etc.
Once the classic arguments are laid out it would be interesting to compare it to the ongoing debates in Open Theism and Process Thought.
Good stuff. Thanks.
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Commenter 3 - Though this has always seemed clear to me, more probably its time to revisit all the gnosticisms of Christology by revisiting each of the church councils one-by-one to show the movement in theology from the early church into today's Lutheran-Reformed debate.
This topic would touch all the issues: the nature of the Trinity; the nature of sin in relation to Jesus; the nature of Jesus' divinity and humanity; the nature of His death, resurrection, and ascension; the nature of His ongoing ministry through the church; the nature of Jesus' Kingdom/NHNE rule; etc.
Once the classic arguments are laid out it would be interesting to compare it to the ongoing debates in Open Theism and Process Thought.
Good stuff. Thanks.
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Gnostic Flowchart
(Orthodox Christianity follows the straight, vertical line)
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Christological Flowchart
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Christian Schisms and their Related Church Councils
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docetism
In Christian terminology, docetism (from the Greek δοκεῖν/δόκησις dokein (to seem) /dókēsis (apparition, phantom),[1][2] according to Norbert Brox, is defined narrowly as "the doctrine according to which the phenomenon of Christ, his historical and bodily existence, and thus above all the human form of Jesus, was altogether mere semblance without any true reality." [3][4] Broadly it is taken as the belief that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his human form was an illusion. The word docetai (illusionists) referring to early groups who denied Jesus' humanity, first occurred in a letter by Bishop Serapion of Antioch (197-203),[5] who discovered the doctrine in the Gospel of Peter, during a pastoral visit to a Christian community using it in Rhosus, and later condemned it as a forgery.[6][7] It appears to have arisen over theological contentions concerning the meaning, figurative or literal, of a sentence from the Gospel of John: "the Word was made Flesh".[8]
Docetism was unequivocally rejected at the First Council of Nicaea in 325[9] and is regarded as heretical by the Catholic Church, Orthodox Church, and many others.[10]
Definitions
Docetism is broadly defined as any teaching that claims that Jesus' body was either absent or illusory.[11] The term ‘docetic’ should be used with caution, since its use is rather nebulous.[12][13] For Robert Price "docetism", together with "encratism", "Gnosticism", and "adoptionism" has been employed "far beyond what historically descriptive usage would allow".[14] Two varieties were widely known. In one version as in Marcionism - "Christ was so divine he could not have been human, since God lacked a material body, which therefore could not physically suffer. Jesus only appeared to be a flesh-and-blood man, his body was a phantasm." Other groups who were accused of Docetism held that - "Jesus was a man in the flesh, but Christ was a separate entity, who entered Jesus’s body in the form of a dove at his baptism, empowered him to perform miracles, and abandoned him on his death on the cross."[15]
Christology and theological implications
Docetism's origin within Christianity is obscure. Ernst Käsemann controversially defined the Christology of St John’s Gospel as “naïve docetism” in 1968.[16] The ensuing debate reached an impasse as awareness grew that the very term ‘docetism’ like ‘gnosticism’ was difficult to define within the religio-historical framework of the debate.[17] It has occasionally been argued that its origins were in heterodox Judaism or Oriental and Grecian philosophies.[18] The alleged connection with Jewish Christianity would have reflected Jewish Christian concerns with the inviolability of (Jewish) monotheism.[19][20] Docetic opinions seem to have circulated from very early times, 1 John 4:2 appearing explicitly to reject them.[21] Some 1st century Christian groups developed docetic interpretations partly as a way to make Christian teachings more acceptable to pagan ways of thinking of divinity.[18]
In his critique of the theology of Clement of Alexandria, Photius in his Myriobiblon held that Clement’s views reflected a quasi-docetic view of the nature of Christ, writing that Clement "He hallucinates that the Word was not incarnate but only seems to be." (ὀνειροπολεῖ καὶ μὴ σαρκωθῆναι τὸν λόγον ἀλλὰ δόξαι.) In Clement’s time some disputes contended over whether Christ assumed the ‘psychic’ flesh of mankind as heirs to Adam, or the ‘spiritual’ flesh of the resurrection.[22] Docetism largely died out during the first millennium AD.
The opponents against whom Ignatius of Antioch inveighs are often taken to be Monophysite docetists.[23] In his letter to the Smyrnaeans, 7:1, written around 110 C.E., he writes:
They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes".
While these characteristics fit a Monophysite framework, a slight majority of scholars consider that Ignatius was waging a polemic on two distinct fronts, one Jewish, the other docetic, while a distinct minority holds that he is concerned with a group that commingled Judaism and docetism. Other possibilities are that he was merely opposed to Christians who lived Jewishly, or deny that docetism threatened the church, or that his critical remarks were directed at an Ebionite or Cerinthianpossessionist Christology, where God descended and took possession of Jesus' body. [24]
Islam and docetism
The Qur'an has a docetic or gnostic Christology, viewing Jesus as a divine illuminator rather than the redeemer (as he is viewed in Christianity).[9] Sura 4:157–158 reads:
And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah's messenger — they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain. But Allah took him up unto Himself. Allah was ever Mighty, Wise.[25]
The Qur'an was compiled in the mid-seventh century AD (around 650 CE), corresponding to the period when docetism was still commonly accepted and taught among some Christian sects.
Docetism and the Christ as Myth theory
Since Arthur Drews published his The Christ Myth (Die Christusmythe) in 1909, occasional connections have been drawn between the modern idea that Christ was a myth and docetist theories. Shailer Mathews called Drews' theory a "modern docetism".[26] Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare thought any connection to be based on a misunderstanding of docetism.[27] The idea recurred in Classicist Michael Grant's 1977 review of the evidence for Jesus, who compared modern scepticism about an historical Jesus to the ancient docetic idea that Jesus only seemed to come into the world "in the flesh". Modern theories did away with "seeming".[28]
Texts believed to include docetism
Non-canonical Christian texts:
- Gospel of Phillip
- Second Treatise of the Great Seth
- Gnostic Apocalypse of Peter
- Gospel of Judas
- In the Contra epistulam fundamenti (Against the Fundamental Epistle), Augustine of Hippo makes reference to the Manichaeans believing that Jesus was Docetic.
- Gospel of Peter
- Acts of John
Related Topics
- ^ González 2005, pp. 46–47:"A term derived from the Greek dokein, to seem, or to appear."
- ^ Strecker 2000, p. 438.
- ^ Brox 1984, p. 306.
- ^ Schneemelcher Maurer, p. 220.
- ^ Breidenbaugh 2008, pp. 179–181
- ^ Ehrman 2005, p. 16.
- ^ Foster 2009, p. 79.Serapion first approved its use, and only reversed his opinion on returning to his bishopric in Antioch, after being informed of its contents. He wrote a "Concerning the So-Called Gospel of St Peter" which is alluded to in Eusebius of Caesarea's Historia Ecclesiastica 6.12-3-6.
- ^ Smith & Wace 1877, pp. 867–870.
- ^ a b Ridgeon 2001, p. xv.
- ^ Arendzen 2012.
- ^ Gonzalez, Justo (2005). Essential Theologial Terms. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 46–47. ISBN 0-664-22810-0. "Docetism is the claim that Jesus did no thave a physical human body, but only the appearance of such."
- ^ Brox 1984, pp. 301–314.
- ^ Schneemelcher Maurer, p. 220:"N Brox has expressed himself emphatically against a widespread nebulous use of the term, and has sought an exact definition which links up with the original usage (e.g. in Clement of Alexandria). Docetism is ‘the doctrine according to which the phenomenon of Christ, his historical and bodily existence, and thus above all the human form of Jesus, was altogether mere semblance without any true reality.'
- ^ Price 2009.
- ^ Ehrman 2005, p. 16
- ^ Ehrman 1996, p. 197.
- ^ Larsen 2008, p. 347
- ^ a b Gavrilyuk 2004, p. 80.
- ^ Schneemelcher Maurer, p. 220
- ^ Brox 1984, p. 314.
- ^ González 2005, pp. 46–7
- ^ Ashwin-Siejkowski 2010, p. 95, n.2 citing Edwards 2002, p. 25.
- ^ Street 2011, p. 40.
- ^ Streett 2011, pp. 42–43.
- ^ Pickthall 2001, p. 86
- ^ Shailer 1917, p. 37.
- ^ Conybeare 1914, p. 104.
- ^ Grant 2004, pp. 199–200:"This skeptical way of thinking reached its culmination in the argument that Jesus as a human being never existed at all and is a myth. In ancient times, this extreme view was named the heresy of docetism (seeming) because it maintained that Jesus never came into the world "in the flesh", but only seemed to; (I John 4:2) and it was given some encouragement by Paul's lack of interest in his fleshly existence. Subsequently, from the eighteenth century onwards, there have been attempts to insist that Jesus did not even "seem" to exist, and that all tales of his appearance upon the earth were pure fiction. In particular, his story was compared to the pagan mythologies inventing fictitious dying and rising gods."
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Following Up My Last Post Regarding the Incarnation:
The Line between Orthodoxy and Speculation
Part II
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/12/following-up-my-last-post-regarding-the-incarnation-the-line-between-orthodoxy-and-speculation/
by Roger Olson
editorial comments by R.E. Slater [ ... ]
December 27, 2013
My latest post regarding the ongoing reality of the incarnation provoked many good questions about underlying assumptions, which, in turn, have led me to respond about the Reformation debates about Christology (which led to debates about the Lord’s Supper).
I want to make clear that I hope to draw a line, however indistinct it may seem at times, between “basic Christian orthodoxy” and “theological speculation.” This is one reason I wrote The Mosaic of Christian Belief - to pare Christian doctrine down to what ought to be considered “basic Christian belief” (orthodoxy) while excluding from defending matters of orthodoxy that [seem orthodox but remain] speculative - however reverent they may [appear to] be.
I think this is one of the main tasks of Christian theologians–to identify what doctrines are basic to Christian faith and what interpretations of the Bible and doctrines are speculation without clear warrant in Scripture itself and the church’s historic belief about revelation.
Example 1
Here’s my illustration, that:
- "the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ is permanent" and,
- "the Son of God is still the human person Jesus Christ" (he did not “drop his humanity”),
is basic Christian belief." To deny it is to deny a basic tenet of Christian belief rooted firmly in Scripture and to open the door to Gnosticism.
HOW the continuing humanity of Jesus exists presently, whether and to what extent it is dependent on the Holy Spirit for power, etc., invites speculation.
Both the ancient Christians and the Reformers confused speculation with orthodoxy–leading to unnecessary divisions among Christians.
Both Luther and Zwingli (and later Calvin) were, in my opinion, faithful to basic Christian orthodoxy–including their Christologies. Both also, to some extent, went beyond what Scripture really warrants us to believe and confused their own interpretations of the finite and the infinite (e.g., whether the finite can “contain” the infinite) with orthodoxy. Luther especially was wrong to accuse Zwingli of being a heretic for denying the “real presence” of Christ “in, with, and under” the break and wine. The Reformed branch of Protestantism contributed to the division by returning the favor (at times).
The Church of England was right to permit different interpretations of this issue. (Here I’m speaking about Christology, not the Lord’s Supper.) What Christians ALL ought to believe is that the Son of God is still the human being Jesus Christ. Beyond that, whether one adopts the “finitus non capax infiniti” or the “finitus capax infiniti” is secondary and largely speculative.
Reverent speculation, labeled as such, is inevitable and there is nothing wrong with it. It becomes wrong when it is allowed to divide Christians over against each other so that they cannot even have fellowship because of it.
Example 2
Another example of speculation in Christian theology is the “order” of being within the immanent Trinity which leads into the “filoque” controversy between East and West. It’s all well and good for Christians to argue over whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father AND THE SON or whether the Holy Spirit only proceeds from the Father (and NOT “from the Son”), but it is impossible to prove either point of view from what has been revealed (unless you extend “revelation” into the later stages of Christian thought). This should not divide Christians.
What a disaster it was that in the Reformation Lutherans and Reformed could not get together. Martin Bucer was right; both sides should have listened more intently to him. (I’ll leave aside the name of Philipp of Hesse for now!) But, in the end, it was the Anabaptists who got it mostly right. (I speak here of Balthasar Hubmaier especially!)
- Roger
Wikipedia Summary to the Question:
According to Bishop Kallistos Ware, many Orthodox (whatever may be the doctrine and practice of the Eastern Orthodox Church itself) hold that, in broad outline, to say the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son amounts to the same thing as to say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, a view accepted also by the Greeks who signed the act of union at the Council of Florence.[274]
For others, such as Vasily Bolotov and his disciples, the Filioque can be considered a Western theologoumenon, a theological opinion (or speculation) of Church Fathers that falls short of being a dogma.[210][275] Sergei Bulgakov also stated: "There is no dogma of the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Son and therefore particular opinions on this subject are not heresies but merely dogmatic hypotheses, which have been transformed into heresies by the schismatic spirit that has established itself in the Church and that eagerly exploits all sorts of liturgical and even cultural differences."[212]
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Follow up Comments
Follow up Comments
Commentor 1 - Would it be fair to say that committing actual theological error will inevitably manifest in one's behavior such that it becomes un-Christlike, while engaging in the theological speculation you describe doesn't have to end badly? So many people seem to think that one has to think about things 'a certain way', and yet reality shows us that oftentimes, different people can come to the same end result through shockingly different paths. This isn't to say that there is no 'structure' or 'lawfulness' in the realm of thoughts, but that it has much greater variety than some would like to think.
It's almost as if people are afraid of losing control—even though we're supposed to be ok with this (e.g. John 3:8)—and thus want to exert control over not just actions, but thoughts as well. This insistence of control over thoughts seems like a direct rejection of Romans 14 and a refusal to judge a tree by its fruit and let the wheat grow up with the tares. It really seems like an insistence on the evil desire to control and dominate, hidden under the façade of 'right doctrine'.
Reply by Dr. Olson - Agreed.
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Commentor 1 - Dear Dr. Olson, I appreciate your two posts on the Incarnation and it has caused me to begin rereading the chapter on the Incarnation in your book entitled the Mosaic of Christian Belief. Thank you so much for keeping this retired business professor and Lutheran active mentally and spiritually. Your blog has been a real blessing to me. May God bless you and your family.
Reply by Dr. Olson - Thank you! Affirmations like yours (even from people who don't always agree with me) keep me going.
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