Sinless Flesh

A Critique of Karl Barth's Fallen Christ

Rafeal Bello

• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781683594062
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Teología sistemática y ética

Did Christ assume a fallen human nature? "What is not assumed is not healed." So goes the Chalcedonian maxim articulated by Gregory of Nazianzus regarding the nature and extent of Christ's work in assuming a human nature. But what is the nature of that assumption? If Christ is to stand in solidarity with us, must he have assumed not merely a human nature, but specifically a fallen human nature? In Sinless Flesh: A Critique of Karl Barth's Fallen Christ, Rafael Bello argues against the assertion made by Karl Barth, T. F. Torrance, and those who follow them that Christ assumed a fallen nature. Through retrieval of patristic, medieval, and Reformed orthodox theologians, Bello argues that a proper understanding of human nature, trinitarian inseparable operations, and the habitual grace-grace of union distinction leads to the conclusion that the assertion that Christ assumed a fallen human nature is at odds with faithful theological and historical understandings of the incarnation. Readers interested in theological retrieval for issues in contemporary theology will find a faithful model and way forward for a thorny issue in modern dogmatics.

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INTRODUCTION

Purity is passé now. Purity culture has been denounced by former proponents (maybe rightly so) and to call someone a puritan has degrading connotations. I have no doubt that much has been done in the name of purity in order to exploit the weak and to abuse power. Today, solidarity, authenticity, and identification are probably more prized than purity. People do not want Mr. Perfect’s help because Mr. Perfect cannot understand their struggles and mistakes. Over the past few years, Christological studies have been forced to decide between identification and purity. The question motivating this study is, must one choose between the two?

Central to this question is the human nature of Christ. Various controversies regarding the humanity of the Savior have loomed over the church, reflecting on this matter. As early as the first century, gnostic tendencies challenged the goodness of created human nature and therefore provoked responses from biblical authors.1 Early church councils also dealt with issues regarding Christ’s human nature. Apollinarianism and Monophysitism held to some deficient notions of the humanity of the Savior.2 It is in the context of defending the Nicene trinitarian Christology against Apollinarian tendencies that Gregory of Nazianzus penned the words, “that which He has not assumed He has not healed” (To gar aproslēpton, atherapeuton ho de hēnōtai tō Theō, touto kai sōzetai; nam quod assumptum non est, curationis est expers).3 Opponents of Apollinarianism made this phrase by Gregory an axiom against the insistence that the soul of Christ is somewhat substituted by the divine person. In the following debate the same phrase is used, but to argue for another substitution.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a claim arose out of the German and English-speaking worlds. Several theologians asserted that the Son of God assumed a fallen human flesh mainly because he had to assume what was natural in our humanity. To be clear, the theologians who made such claims and the ones who will be covered in this study have not said that Christ sinned, but that his nature was one like humankind after the fall. The doctrine of Christ’s assumption of a fallen flesh (henceforth, non-assumptus) was made known by British theologian Edward Irving (1792–1834). Irving emphasized the role of the Spirit in the incarnation and was even charged with heresy by his contemporaries.4

Since the charge of heresy is often raised in this debate, it should be pointed that this present work does not aim to charge anyone with heresy.5 There are a few ways one can construe the relationship of the Son and his humanity and still remain orthodox. It is especially telling that many advocates of the non-assumptus (especially the ones surveyed here) also assert that the Son did not sin even if united to a sinful flesh. It is the concern of both sides of the debate to be fair to texts such as Hebrews 4:15. Christ must be said to be like us in every way, but also, to be without sin.

One cannot cover every position and nuance regarding the possibility of the human nature of Christ and sin. In order, however, to lay the subject at hand in a better purview, I will use the Sykes-Hastings taxonomy of affirmations used by E. Jerome van Kuiken in order to facilitate the analysis of those who affirm the non-assumptus:

1.Prior to the conception, the humanity of Christ existed in Mary in a state of original sin;

2.At the time of conception, the humanity of Christ was transformed;

3.During Jesus’s earthly ministry he suffered the amoral effects of the fall, but not the moral corruption: He was hungry, sad, sick;

4.Whatever one means by fallenness, it cannot mean that he sinned or has personal guilt.6

This grid should allow one to read proponents of the non-assumptus charitably, even when disagreeing with them. What remains then is to dispute issues like the manner and trinitarian character of assumption, sanctification, and the nature of sin and corruption. So, we start here with a basic notion of human nature and then follow the next chapters discussing deeper and more complex issues.

WHAT IS A HUMAN NATURE? A CHALCEDONIAN-THOMISTIC ACCOUNT

Foundational to the debate of whether Christ had a fallen human nature is a deeper discussion of what is a human nature. It is only normal that many points of departure are possible. In fact, it has been argued for a while that we should abandon church-imposed dogmas on what constitutes a human being (person and nature).7

This work, however, listens attentively to the church. Not with a presupposed distrust, or chronological snobbery, but with an initial trust that the rehashing of concepts regarding nature, person, grace, etc., has been guided and directed by the Holy Spirit. In such fashion, we have conceptual tools to help us talk—at least minimally—about human nature, starting with the One who reveals nature to us.8

Since Chalcedon solidified the talk about the human nature of Christ, it is only fitting that we start with this council. Sarah Coakley provides three possible readings of the Chalcedonian definition.9 The first is a linguistically regulatory view. According to this view, the council was not particularly setting an ontology of the person-nature distinction, but merely establishing parameters for predication. The second view is associated with John Hick. Here Chalcedon is seen only as metaphorical and in no way regulatory. The third option, proposed by Coakley, is the literal view. Here, Chalcedon provides something true about person and nature—in Christ. This, in some fashion, provides the possibility of ontological speech about the person of Christ, even if the details are not precisely discussed.10

Following the literalist view, we can say that the council makes a fundamental assertion that is later picked up regarding the development of natures and person in dogmatic theology. Even if not fully developed in ad 451, concepts such as natures and persons are cohesively developed following the parameters set by Chalcedon and Nicaea. The work of Brian Dailey on Leontius of Byzantium11 and of Hans Urs von Balthasar on Maximus the Confessor12 showcase the consistent development of the an-en-hypostasis and dyotheletism within the parameters of Chalcedon.

Developments of Chalcedonian dogma were not restricted to 551 (Constantinople II) and 681 (Constantinople III). The Scholastic period (roughly 1100–1700) saw an increase of questions regarding the God-World relationship that largely reflected on Christology.13 Thomas Aquinas (Doctor Angelicus) reflected on the modes of sanctification that can be attributed to Christ and also discussed human nature in a long philosophical reflection in prima pars. These were extended meditations that tried to preserve the concepts handed down from Chalcedon. Aquinas, however, did not contradict or develop his doctrines of sanctification apart from Chalcedon.

It is true that Aristotelian metaphysics played its part in Aquinas’s development of nature, essences, and existences, but that should not hinder us from appreciating the approach. Although Scripture gives general guidelines for metaphysical approaches, in several instances, Scripture does not determine what metaphysical approach one should take. As long as no contradiction arises, appropriation of a certain Greek formulation does not invalidate or undermine the philosophical-theological approach.14 Moreover, Aquinas does not uncritically receive Aristotle’s formulation, but Christianizes it in order to make sense of biblical data.15

Foundational for this discussion is Thomas Aquinas’s concept of essences and existences. St. Thomas explains that created reality has a fundamental difference between esse and essentia.16 By doing that, Thomas secures that God is the only being (ens) in which essence and existence are coexistent. Moreover, this doctrine gives Aquinas a way “to theorize as to how primary matter (the pure potentiality present in all material things) is entirely dependent ontologically upon the creative act of God (through the esse of its essential form, which gives existence to the materiality of the created substance).”17 Creation—and by extension human essence—participates in existence only derivatively, as God gives existence to humankind. This human essence as it is the focus of Q75–Q86 of Prima Pars is composed of body and a soul. Here again one sees Aquinas’s Christian dualism as dependent of the language of Chalcedon (“rational soul and body”). Although we cannot dive in here to hylomorphic theory and the relation of the soul as the form of the material body, for our purposes, we can simply defer to the affirmation that despite being intimately connected, the soul and the body are two different things.18 We can further affirm that although the soul is individuated in matter by the body, both soul and body are necessary for human nature. Bodily existence is the proper state of humanity.

THESIS

The thesis of this book is that those who argue for the Son’s assumption of a fallen human nature are mistaken because they invert trinitarian order, work with a faulty notion of the nature of the hypostatic union, or work with a defective notion of original sin. By retrieving the Patristic notion of inseparable operations, together with the Thomistic categories of grace of union and habitual grace, and the Post-Reformed theology of original sin, I will show that the formulations that assert that the Son assumed a fallen human nature are out of step with faithful, biblical, theological, and historical articulations. In order to explain this thesis further, I will summarize several of its main aspects: (1) what is meant by “inseparable operations,” (2) what is meant by “Thomistic categories of grace of union and habitual grace,” and (3) what is meant by “Post-Reformed theology of original sin.”

INSEPARABLE OPERATIONS

The principle of opera ad extra sunt indivisa states that the works of the persons of the Trinity toward the outside are one.19 They initiate in one and terminate in another person, following the order of God’s inner modes of being. So, when sanctification is scripturally (1 Pet 1:2; Rom 8:13) and theologically tied to the Spirit, for example, it does not mean that his actions are separate from the other persons of the Trinity, but it means that the Spirit comes as the perfecter/finisher of something started by the Father and the Son. This is why the Spirit is usually connected to works of habit and progressive sanctification—because it most fits him to be the perfecter, or one who applies the works of Father and Son. Khaled Anatolios notes this pattern of trinitarian operation as he discusses Gregory of Nyssa’s theology:

[W]ith regard to the divine nature (epi tes theias physeos), we do not learn that the Father does something by himself, without the Son taking part [in that very action], nor again that the Son distinctly does something without the Spirit. Rather, every activity (energeia) reaching from God to creation and named according to our various conceptions (ennoias) originates in the Father, proceeds through the Son, and is completed in the Holy Spirit. The exertion of each in any act whatsoever is not separated and owned distinctly. But whatever happens in the course of the providence towards us or the management and constitution of the universe happens through the Three and yet does not result in three happenings.20

The oneness of God’s being forbids us to account for a separate work of each person in creation. This same unity, however, should not propel us to affirm an “undifferentiated agency in which the persons partake in exactly the same manner.”21 God’s Trinitarian mode of agency, follows the order of his own being.22 John Owen concludes: “The order of the subsistence of the persons in the same nature is represented unto us, and they have the same dependence on each other in their operations as they have in their subsistence.”23 Created order follows the same patter...