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One Love
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| Posted 10/12/2011 5:50 PM (GMT -6) |   | | Greg's latest sermon. Loved it.
But that's where I get so confused. I asked...
How did Christ–the Incarnate Word—sustain “every nanosecond” of Creation’s “moment-by-moment” existence while he was a baby in the womb of Mary? Was the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ, holding all things together as an yet-unborn embryo? If yes, how? If not, then who was and how?
I hope he doesn't cite the Kenotic View from "Across the Spectrum". From the "Kenotic View" section...page 121-122
Who ran the universe during the incarnation? The Bible tells us that Christ holds all things today (Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3). However, if Christ relinquished the exercise of his omnipresence and omniscience while on earth, there is no way he could have continued to perform this role.
In reply, the passages that celebrate Christ's role as Creator and Sustainer of the universe describe Christ's customary role. They do not rule out the possibility that Christ, for a season, set aside this function. The doctrine of the Trinity allows us to assert that God exists in three distinct ways at the same time. According to kenotic theorists, the second way God is God--The Second Person of the Trinity--emptied himself and became a full human. But (thankfully) the universe was not thereby vacated. The Father and Spirit continued to exercise their omnipotent and omniscient capacities.
If it were exegetically necessary, we could argue that Christ still held all things together even while he was incarnate. Consider this example: The owner of a company who goes on vacation may nevertheless be credited with "holding the company together" if he has responsibly arranged for things to carry on a certain way while he is gone. So long as Christ's wisdom and power lie behind the sustaining of the universe, it can be said that he held all things together even after he temporarily surrendered the use of his infinite wisdom and power to become a man.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/12/2011 6:50:42 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/12/2011 5:51 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/12/2011 6:01 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/12/2011 6:03 PM (GMT -6) | | Both of those Scriptures are meaningless if the personal reality of the Son/Word/Logos doesn't transcend his human nature (and Creation itself)!
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/12/2011 6:09:06 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/12/2011 9:48 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom, it may have to do with these...all Johannine...
“I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me."
But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven--the Son of Man.
They said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"
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One Love
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| Posted 10/12/2011 10:35 PM (GMT -6) | | My thoughts:
Jesus was basically asking for a time (post-Resurrection, going back to the Father's "right hand" presence) when he would no longer have to do like Moses and "veil" his glorious relationality with the Father somewhat. He was looking for a time when the Mount Tabor transfiguration would be more of the NORM rather than the EXCEPTION for his (and everyone's) human experience.
"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
"Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Remember how Payton ( Light from the Christian East, page 140) said that this passage just above went with the Transfiguration?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/13/2011 12:23:10 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/13/2011 12:22 AM (GMT -6) | | "And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever."
Revelation 22:5
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One Love
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| Posted 10/13/2011 7:48 AM (GMT -6) | | | Found this.
I think Mr. Musick did a pretty dang good job for the most part. (Dude mentions the Transfiguration, too!) Musick talking about "Implications of Kenotic Theology"...
4. They undermine the monotheistic distinctive of the Christian faith. The only way to limit the use of attributes of one Person without limiting the attributes of all three members of the Godhead is to divide God into three divine Beings for each of the three Persons. Jesus could then suspend His omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, etc., while the Father and Holy Spirit would continue to exercise sovereign dominion over the universe. This view of the Trinity, however, is polytheistic, not Christian. The Christian faith is monotheistic. We believe there is only one God. "Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord" (Mark 12:29). The Creed of Athenasius affirms this truth: "The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but there are not three gods, but one God... The Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent and the Holy Spirit is omnipotent, but there are not three omnipotent Beings, but one omnipotent Being . . . We distinguish among the Persons, but we do not divide the Substance."
Er...um...uh oh...
Who ran the universe during the incarnation? The Bible tells us that Christ holds all things today (Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:3). However, if Christ relinquished the exercise of his omnipresence and omniscience while on earth, there is no way he could have continued to perform this role.
In reply, the passages that celebrate Christ's role as Creator and Sustainer of the universe describe Christ's customary role. They do not rule out the possibility that Christ, for a season, set aside this function. The doctrine of the Trinity allows us to assert that God exists in three distinct ways at the same time. According to kenotic theorists, the second way God is God--The Second Person of the Trinity--emptied himself and became a full human. But (thankfully) the universe was not thereby vacated. The Father and Spirit continued to exercise their omnipotent and omniscient capacities.
Dang. Dead ringer.
It's METANOIA time for someone I know...
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/13/2011 7:55:34 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/13/2011 8:10 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/13/2011 9:23 PM (GMT -6) | | "There is at least one very important difference between the kenoticists writing in this book and nineteenth-century kenotic writers like bishops H. L. Martensen, Charles Gore, or Frank Weston. The latter are all concerned to spell out how the divine Word in his kenosis still exercises his divine functions as upholding the universe, while the former have given up on this. Martensen argues that the divine Word lives 'a twofold existence; that He lives a double life in His world-creating and in his world-completing activity.' (H.L. Martensen, Christian Dogmatics: A Compendium of the Doctrines of Christianity (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1898), 267.
...
Clearly, R[ichard] Swinburne (The Christian God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 230, n. 32) and Sarah Coakley (Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy and Gender (Oxford/Malden Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), 21) are correct when they suggest that Gore--and one might add, Martensen--make use of what now is called the two-minds model. In that sense, these nineteenth-century kenoticists migh have more in common with the twentieth-century defenders of classical Christology than with the contemporary kenoticists."
Edwin Chr. van Driel
Chapter 11: "The Logic of Assumption"
Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God
C. Stephen Evans
Page 267, Note 4.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/13/2011 9:39:40 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/14/2011 12:53 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Similitude
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| Posted 10/14/2011 6:42 AM (GMT -6) | | | Thanks, D. I've got "Across the Spectrum." I'll check out that chapter. But just for clarification, what do you think Phillipians is saying he emptied himself OF?
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One Love
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| Posted 10/14/2011 7:52 AM (GMT -6) | | Personally, looking at the "OF" misses the point. It's the "emptying himself"--the humility involved in the process of the condescension that is the point. The text already says that he came in the "likeness of men", which tells us WHAT the condescension is. Paul obviously believe that Jesus was God become man (a lower station that God)...and displayed self-giving humility doing so It's much LESS obvious that Paul believed he actually GAVE UP something essential to Himself to do so.
Looks like someone else backs me up...
The New International Commentary on the New Testament
"Paul's Letter to the Philppians"
Frederick Fyvie Bruce, Gordon D. Fee
Pages 210-212, Talking about verse 7...all emphasis theirs.
"The debate has raged over the concept of "emptying himself" ie what kenosis means, and emerged either because of a faulty understanding of harpagmon or because it has been assumed that the verb requires a genitive qualifies--that he must have "emptied himself" of something. But that is precisely not in keeping with Pauline usage. Just as harpagmon requires no object for him to "seize," but rather point to what is the opposite of God's character, so Christ did not empty himself of anything; he simply "emptied himself," poured himself out. This is metaphor, pure and simple."
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/14/2011 7:55:28 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/14/2011 8:04 AM (GMT -6) | | Now...here's the problem with ANY "Kenotic View" (ala Across the Spectrum)...
Any position that cashes out where the divine mind of God the Son was completely localized in the human embryo in Mary's womb, immediately post-Incarnation such that God the Son neither experienced or exercised omnipresence (and transcendence of Creation) with God the Father during that time...effectively IS anti-Chalcedonian. Why? Chalcedonian Christianity holds to the IMMUTABLE HYPOSTATIC (PERSONAL) BEING of God the Son. The union of natures takes place in one PERSON, the Son. By completely limiting God the Son to ONLY the human nature (whether by supposedly God's free choice or metaphysical necessity), His PERSONHOOD (capacity for intra- and interpersonal relationship) is annihilated at the Immaculate Conception. No one in their right mind is gonna say that a human embryo has the ACTIVELY USED capacity for intra- or inter-personal loving relationship with anyone, let alone God the Father! No way. And if God the Son is SOLELY LIMITED to the activity of the human nature--which the implications of the "kenotic view" state--then at the point of the Immaculate Conception, God the Son is NO LONGER A "PERSON". At that point, you only have TWO fully hypostatic divine "conversation holders" in the Trinity, God the Father and the Spirit. Only the Father and the Spirit actually RETAIN fully hypostatic abilities. God the Son as embryo within Mary's womb does not. I recently had this interchange with a kenotic theorist I was in conversation with...
Me: "So while the Son is in Mary as a zygote, the Father and the Spirit just 'kick it' with each other in the meantime?"
Them: "Something like that, yeah."
Reposting Tom's statement from elsewhere...
I’m fine with saying all God’s essential/necessary properties can be boiled down to love. No problem, PROVIDED you define love rightly, and that means defining it ‘relationally’, i.e., inter-hypostatically (inter-personally). So the divine PERSONS can have contingent ways/forms they express themselves, fine—but ceasing to be persons is not, and cannot be, one of them. But this is precisely what you’ve done, and in doing it you’ve destroyed what you say IS essential to the Son’s being divine, and that is his instantiating the love he is.
Without maintaining as unbroken the personal-hypostatic relation of the Son to the Father and the Spirit, you don’t have an incarnation OF the person of the Son who instantiates the love that God necessarily is. You have the divine Son ceasing to exist entirely as a person while a replica of his identity (or whatever you'll haveto call it) is resurrected by the Spirit in the human being Jesus.
Tom is absolutely RIGHT here. This means the Kenotic View ends up having MULTIPLE heresies on deck:
-Tritheism/Polytheism (God the Son's personal reality seen as separable from interpersonal relationship with the God the Father)
-Arianism (there was a time when the Son AS PERSON was not...ie. as embyro in Mary's womb)
-Apollinarianism (one mind in Jesus, supposedly that of the pre-existent Son)
-Adoptionism (there is NO HYPOSTATIC CONTINUITY between the pre-existent Logos and Jesus)
-Monothelism (one will in Jesus)
Again, this doesn't just hold for Greg...this holds for ALL KENOTIC THEORISTS that hold to the same beliefs! This is why Tom and I hold that there is absolutely NO REASON that the "Kenotic View" should even be a theological OPTION to Evangelicalism. It shouldn't be on that table of discussion AT ALL!!
Basically this means that just about half of Evangelicalism right now are raging, anti-Chalcedonian heretics.
Yup. 
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/14/2011 8:29:30 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/14/2011 8:13 AM (GMT -6) | | | Do you see all this, Jeff? Does EVERYONE see this clearly?
Holla back, y'all. I wanna make sure that you do.
There are EXEGETICAL and THEOLOGICAL reasons to disavow the "Kenotic View" as an evangelical option!
Honestly, it's SCANDALOUS how prevalent this idea is in evangelical seminaries and books...when a little thinking shows how bankrupt it is. Eastern Orthodox folks would see the problem RIGHT OFF!!
We gotta get it together. 
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/14/2011 8:26:56 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/14/2011 8:41 AM (GMT -6) | | We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/14/2011 8:44:36 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/15/2011 12:07 AM (GMT -6) | | Wanna see something weird?
Tom. Remember Martensen? Check this out. Something I wrote earlier on this thread...
Jesus' sense of knowledge was always contextualized from the capacities and categories of his human mind/brain throughout his body's maturation. In other words, the Incarnate Word's sense of knowledge would always be an irreducible bi-polar assymmetrical relational unity (James Loder)--empowered by the Holy Spirit--between the omniscience of the Co-Eternal Word's uncreated personal presence and nature (the Universal) and the non-omniscience of the brain capacity of the Word's human body, part of the Word's assumption of created nature (the Particular). You cannot take either pole out of the equation without saying less the the whole reality of how the Incarnate Word knew what he knew. The Word/Son/Logos' personal presence transcends, yet includes his human nature...and the personal reality of the Word grounds, empowers, and supports all activity of his humanity even as his humanity contextualizes and expresses the personal reality of the Word. For example, for those who hold that the person of Jesus was omniscient when he was in the manger as a baby...they would never say that he immediately began speaking full complete sentences talking about microbiology. They would concede that the knowledge of the Incarnate Word could only be expressed as the development of Jesus' brain would allow. Nor would they say the because of the Word's omnipresence, that Jesus' human brain was actually at all places at all times. What I'm trying to show is that there is a irreducible RELATIONALITY between the two realities within the Incarnate Word--by the Holy Spirit's empowerment--that is necessary to explain how Jesus knew what he knew, taking all revelant factors into account.
This is an utterly unique inTRAhypostatic relationship of the two natures of the one person of Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God the Father by the Power of the Holy Spirit.
Now here's Martensen...
The relationship between the revelation of the Logos in Christ and the eternal revelation of Him may therefore be described as follows: in the general revelation of the Logos, the Son of God is presupposed by every creature as being the one through whom all things are created; whereas, in His revelation in Christ, He is the goal of every creature, or the One into whom all things are created, and in whom all things shall be summed up and gathered together as in their head. In His revelation as Logos, the Son proceeded forth from the Father as God; in His revelation in Christ, on the contrary, He returns back to the Father as God-man.
...
Still there are not two Sons of God, but one Son; Christ did not add a new second Son to the Trinity; the entire movement takes place within the circle of the Trinity itself. At the same time, it must be allowed that the Son of God leads in the economy of the Father a twofold existence; that He lives a double life in His world-creating and in His world-completing activity. As the pure Logos of Deity, He works through the kingdom of nature by His all-pervading presence, creates the presuppositions and conditions of the revelation of His all-completing love. As the Christ, He works through the kingdom of Grace, of Redemption, and Perfection, and points back to His pre-existence.
He is very God; but in the revelation in Christ the very Godhead is never separated from the very manhood; the divine and human natures were never separated from each other and never neutralized each other.
H. L. Martensen
Christian Dogmatics: A Compendium of the Doctrines of Christianity
Pp. 266-267
--------------------------------
Tom, tell me that my statement wouldn't fit into Martensen's dual, simultaneous consciousness ( "double life" ) of the ONE Word/Son/Logos idea? Heh.
He's hand in glove with Loder, baby!
Both posit a bi-polar assymmetrical relational unity between the Uncreated (ie Eternal, Universal) and the Created (Incarnate, Particular) ranges of consciousness in the unified personal experience of the ONE Logos of God.
* the paper is only $3 to rent for a 24hr read...but it's worth it!
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/15/2011 7:42:57 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 10/15/2011 12:35 AM (GMT -6) | | Basically Martensen has more in common with the orthodox "two-minds", "two-wills" view than ANY of the modern day kenotic theorists.
AND he doesn't fall into the person-denying traps that they do; He's able to consistently affirm the hypostatic continuity between the Pre-Incarnation, pre-existent Logos and Post-Incarnation, embodied Logos.
Martensen's NOT heretical.
The modern day kenoticists ARE.
So...uh...I guess the 19th century guy has all our modern people pretty beat, huh?
"Clearly, R[ichard] Swinburne...and Sarah Coakley...are correct when they suggest that Gore--and one might add, Martensen--make use of what now is called the two-minds model. In that sense, these nineteenth-century kenoticists might have more in common with the twentieth-century defenders of classical Christology than with the contemporary kenoticists."
Edwin Chr. van Driel
Chapter 11: "The Logic of Assumption"
Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God
C. Stephen Evans
Page 267, Note 4.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Post Edited (One Love) : 10/15/2011 7:39:31 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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