Christ’s Faith: A Dogmatic Account 0567033996, 9780567033994

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T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology Edited by John Webster, King’s College, University of Aberdeen, UK Ian A. McFarland, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, USA Ivor Davidson, University of Otago, New Zealand

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THE CHRIST’S FAITH A Dogmatic Account

R. Michael Allen

Published by T&T Clark A Continuum Imprint The Tower Building 11 York Road London SE1 7NX

80 Maiden Lane Suite 704 New York NY 10038

www.continuumbooks.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Copyright © R. Michael Allen, 2009 R. Michael Allen has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN-10: HB: 0–567–03399–6 ISBN-13: HB: 978–0–567–03399–4

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by the MPG Books Group

For Emily Jane

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contents

Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations

viii x

Introduction

1

1 A Dogmatic Account of the Christ’s Faith

8

2 Perfect Sight in an Imperfect World: Christ’s Beatific Vision or Human Ignorance?

36

3 Toward an Extensive Definition of Faith: Hebrews 11 and the Reformed Tradition

69

4 Metaphysics of the Incarnation

106

5 Christ’s Faith Within the Loci of Salvation, Covenant, and Eschatology: Three Case Studies

143

6 The Function of Christ’s Faith: from Faith to Faith

183

Conclusion Bibliography Index

211 215 239

vii

acknowledgements

This book was originally written as a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Department of Biblical and Theological Studies at Wheaton College. Stephen Spencer and Daniel Treier have given countless hours to reading, editing, and conversing about this project. I am well in their debt for this and other generosities. At earlier stages, Scott Hafemann and Douglas Moo provided valuable guidance in studying Holy Scripture. Henri Blocher has been to me a model of biblically formed theological scholarship, influencing me in ways he likely knows not. Any clarity found in this book is surely the product of Mark Noll’s faithful efforts to make me a better writer, and remaining obfuscation is surely my fault for not learning his lessons well enough. The Timothy R. Phillips Memorial Fellowship has provided needed funds for three years of uninterrupted research and writing, and I pray that this book does justice and honor to the memory of this late Wheaton professor and to the generous benefactors who have selflessly made this fellowship available to me. Also, the late John Fawcett and the ever-helpful staff at Buswell Memorial Library helped me acquire the necessary materials for research through the centuries and across the ocean. My journey through these studies has been encouraged at every step by colleagues and friends: in particular, Geoff Ziegler, Ryan Peterson, and Michael White have blessed me with the regular joys of theological camaraderie. The Postgraduate Systematic Theology Seminar at Wheaton College also kindly read and discussed parts of Chapter 2. Parts of Chapter 4 have received feedback during sessions at the Evangelical Theological Society and the American Academy of Religion. My long-standing friendships with John McAlister and Wesley Hill have brought me the delights of honest criticism, constant enthusiasm, and thoughtful engagement at every step. Friends like these make the theological task both enjoyable and somewhat feasible. I am grateful also for the ongoing community of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Warrenville, Illinois, and especially for the ministry of her former pastor, Mateen Elass. John Webster has proven exceptionally influential by offering an example of unflagging commitment to faithful dogmatic theology, by serving as external examiner for my dissertation, by encouraging a young theologian viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

from across the Atlantic, and by including this book within a series he edits. My thanks also to Ian McFarland and Ivor Davidson for their editorial support. Tom Kraft and the editorial team at Continuum/T&T Clark have been, especially helpful in bringing this book to its final form and have been a joy to work with at every step. In addition, Geoff Ziegler patiently solved my many computer-related dilemmas, and my wife, Emily, graciously prepared the index. Fellow theologians of days well past have provoked and sustained my own attempt to testify rightly about the gospel. The task of reading Scripture for the church would be immeasurably difficult without the communion of saints; thus, I am indebted to Augustine and Thomas, Calvin and Owen, Barth and Bavinck, not to mention the apostle Paul and that anonymous writer to the Hebrews. As Barth himself reminds us, these remain living voices because God has defeated death in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I hope that my critical appropriation of these classical and Reformed theologians honors the testimony of the Holy Spirit through these saints, and I pray that my engagement of the creedal and confessional traditions of the church has been generous and faithful. My parents have long instilled the importance of education and thoughtfulness into their children, especially as they exemplified a churchly and intellectual form of piety. I am thankful for the many sacrifices they have made to tend my fervent, esoteric, and overly expensive scholastic interests. My parents-in-law, grandparents, and siblings have provided friendship, conversation, normalcy, and the acceptance that one needs to justify spending day after day writing an academic tome. I dedicate this book to my wife, Emily Jane Allen, with as much love and gratitude as I can muster. I could not imagine its completion without her daily support, my sanity without her humor, my faith without her prodding, my happiness without her stories, or my life without her presence. This monograph does not do justice to her, but it certainly would be much less without her. Finally, I give all glory, laud, and honor to the eternally triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – who has graciously blessed me with these family and friends, every grace necessary for the completion of this work, and the delightful gospel of Jesus Christ. R. Michael Allen Wheaton, IL 60187, June 2008

ix

list of abbreviations

AB Anton AP ASHPT ATR AugStud BCR BET BGBE Bib BIS BRMT BRS BS BTCB CahRPR Cath CBQ CC CIT CCP CCR CCSL CCT CCTheo CJPS CO CollAug Comm CSCD CSRT CSS CTJ

Anchor Bible Antonianum Arguments of the Philosophers Ashgate Studies in the History of Philosophical Theology Anglican Theological Review Augustinian Studies Blackwell Companions to Religion Beiträge zur evangelischen Theologie Beiträge zur Geschichte der biblischen Exegese Biblica Biblical Interpretation Series Blackwell Readings in Modern Theology Biblical Resource Series Barth Studies Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible Cahiers de la Revue et de philosophie religieuse Catholica Catholic Biblical Quarterly Calvin’s Commentaries Current Issues in Theology Cambridge Companions to Philosophy Cambridge Companions to Religion Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina Challenges in Contemporary Theology Contours of Christian Theology Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplement Christian Origins Collecteana Augustiniana Communio Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine Columbia Series in Reformed Theology Calvin Studies Society Calvin Theological Journal x

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CWBL DMT DTC ESCT EGS EJT ExAud ExpTim FR Greg HTR HeyJ IBC IJST ISPR IST JAOS JECS JEH JR JSNTSup JThS LCC LNTS LQB LW MCT ModTheo NKZ NBf NCE NICNT NIGTC NSBT NTL NTS NTT NV NZST NZSTR OBT OECS

Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan Directions in Modern Theology Dictionnaire de théologie catholique Edinburgh Studies in Constructive Theology Etienne Gilson Series European Journal of Theology Ex Auditu Expository Times Faith and Reason Gregorianum Harvard Theological Review Heythrop Journal Interpretation Bible Commentary International Journal of Systematic Theology Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion Issues in Systematic Theology Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Early Christian Studies Journal of Ecclesiastical History Journal of Religion Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series Journal of Theological Studies Library of Christian Classics Library of New Testament Studies Lutheran Quarterly Books Luther’s Works Milestones in Catholic Theology Modern Theology Neue Kirkliche Zeitschrift New Blackfriars New Catholic Encyclopedia New International Commentary on the New Testament New International Greek Testament Commentary New Studies in Biblical Theology New Testament Library New Testament Studies New Testament Theology Nova et Vetera Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionphilosophie Overtures to Biblical Theology Oxford Early Christian Studies xi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

OSHT OSTE OTL ProEccl RO RP RSHT RSPT RT SBLSS SCES SCG SCJ SD SHCT SHT SJC SJT SMRT SNTSMS SP SPT SRTH ST SVTQ TBN TBT TSRPRT TS TSK Theo TTFC ThTo TJ TynBul VSpir WJO WSA WTJ WUNT ZTKB

Oxford Studies in Historical Theology Oxford Studies in Theological Ethics Old Testament Library Pro Ecclesia Radical Orthodoxy Series Religion and Postmodernism Rutherford Studies in Historical Theology Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques Radical Traditions Society of Biblical Literature Symposia Series Sixteenth-Century Essays and Studies Summa Contra Gentiles Sixteenth-Century Journal Studies in Dogmatics Studies in the History of Christian Thought Studies in Historical Theology Studies in Judaism and Christianity Scottish Journal of Theology Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Studia Patristica Studies in Philosophical Theology Studies in Reformed Theology and History Summa Theologiae St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly Themes in Biblical Narrative Theologische Bibliothek Töpelmann Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought Theological Studies Theologische Studien und Kritiken Theology Theology for the Twenty-First Century Theology Today Trinity Journal Tyndale Bulletin Vie Spirituelle Works of John Owen Works of Saint Augustine Westminster Theological Journal Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche Beiheft

xii

introduction

This book offers a dogmatic account of the Christ’s faith. ‘For us and for our salvation’ the Word became incarnate; my claim is that the oft-ignored time between his virgin birth and his eventual death by crucifixion also constitutes the shape of the gospel. One crucial component of the life of Jesus is the Son’s faith in his and our heavenly Father. Hence, this book arises for two reasons: to extrapolate the nature of the Christ’s humanity in an avenue not yet deeply explored within the catholic and Reformed dogmatic traditions – namely his faith, and in so doing to clarify the implicit logic within the biblical witness so that the guild of New Testament studies might assess potential interpretations related to this topic more adequately. The faithful one is truly God and truly human. This book navigates through some thorny twists within the realm of Christology, not least because it maintains the tenets of Chalcedonian orthodoxy as interpreted by the Reformed confessions of faith. Though the modern climate is one of post-Hellenization and post-metaphysical theology, the following arguments sustain the deep tradition of exploring the ontology of the gospel to which Holy Scripture testifies. Many undoubtedly find this nostalgic or folksy or even imperialistic (monistic hegemony). Nevertheless, the relation of Christ and humanity requires talk of ‘natures’ and ‘persons,’ however baptized such terms must be for faithful employment in properly Christian doctrinal exposition. My account of Christianity involves affirmation of the immanent trinity, God’s eternity, and the qualitative distinction between divine and human (even within the person of the Mediator, Jesus Christ); in this vein, I defend the deep catholic and Reformed tradition against some dominant modern sensibilities. This book is not merely a defense of tradition, however, in as much as it is impelled largely by a rather volatile contemporary discussion within 1

THE CHRIST’S FAITH

New Testament studies: should Paul’s phrase pistis Christou be understood as a reference to faith in Jesus or, as newer interpretations suggest, to Jesus’s own faith? Whereas many have combated the new interpretation of the Pauline phrase (Rom. 3.22, 26; Gal. 2.16 [twice], 20; 3.22; Phil. 3.9; Eph. 3.12) as the Christ’s own faith for grammatical and properly semantic reasons, others have marshaled a particular reading of the AugustinianReformation tradition against this exegetical option. Frustrated with such reticence, Morna Hooker has argued that this rejection of the subjective genitive interpretation is rooted in a deep concern that the notion of the Christ’s faith conflicts with orthodox Christology and Reformation soteriology.1 Sadly, the major advocates of the newer reading of the pistis Christou texts construe their exegetical advance as a repudiation of the soteriology of the Reformed and Lutheran churches, a move toward a ‘postprotestant Paul.’ Thus, I wish to critique both a rather unimaginative traditionalism and the concomitant iconoclasm it elicits in reaction. For I believe that the Christ’s faith coheres with and is, in fact, a necessary implication of orthodox Christology and the soteriology of the magisterial Reformation. Accordingly, this book is an exercise in critical traditioning and a dogmatic argument meant to provide ontological and covenantal support for a contemporary exegetical possibility. Without proving the validity of the subjective genitive interpretation – indeed, without engaging the debated pistis Christou texts at all – I show the theological coherence of this interpretive move.2 The faithful one exercises that very faith ‘for us and for our salvation’ precisely because this Jesus came to redeem and perfect humanity. ‘Without faith it is impossible to please God’ (Heb. 11.6), yet the Christ came to bring redemption to those who are unable to please God because incapable of sustaining perfect faith. Thus, the flawless life of the incarnate Son is itself constitutive of Christian salvation. That is, the fulfillment of the human vocation before God – ‘pleasing God’ – is a necessary, though not sufficient, aspect of the work of Christ. Though various dogmatic traditions have affirmed this in different ways, the present book highlights the centrality of

1 2

Morna Hooker, ‘ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΠΣΤΟΥ’, NTS 35, no. 3 (1989), pp. 322–23. For defense or, at the very least, adoption of such exegetical moves by a contemporary systematician, see David L. Stubbs, ‘The Shape of Soteriology and the pistis Christou Debate’, SJT 61, no. 2 (2008), pp. 137–57. Unfortunately, this article came to my attention too late to be included throughout this book. Stubbs intends for recent exegetical moves to be ‘deepening our understanding of our traditions [as Protestants], rather than abandoning them’ (p. 157). That I differ with regard to how such ‘deepening’ occurs should not negate my general approval of his concerns; nevertheless, many of my criticisms of Douglas Harink (littered throughout this book) would also apply to Stubbs’ attempt to use the pistis Christou texts to further a new ‘christologically-centred understanding’ (p. 139).

2

INTRODUCTION

the Christ’s faith in sustaining the broader claim that Jesus’s human life matters. So then, a theology of the humanity of Christ must attend to the nature and role of his faith. This account is situated within the discipline of Christian dogmatic theology. Dogmatics is a churchly exercise wherein the ecclesial testimony is critically examined according to the biblical logic of the Gospel. The church points to Jesus Christ in her worship and witness; dogmatics pursues the consistency and faithfulness with which she follows his Word. Dogmatic theology, summoned and marshaled by the divine Word, is never merely a work of creaturely poiesis. Rather, this study will reflect on the Word spoken singularly in Jesus Christ and witnessed by the prophets and apostles. The brief characterization of dogmatics by the master from Basel cannot be surpassed: Dogmatics is the science in which the Church, in accordance with the state of its knowledge at different times, takes account of the content of its proclamation critically, that is, by the standard of Holy Scripture and under the guidance of its Confessions.3 This study attends to the doctrine of Christ, then, within a confessional framework. Whereas much modern theology begins with certain sociopolitical baselines or ideological maxims by which to assess the biblical (or ancient Israelite and Christian religious) texts, dogmatic theology sustains the principle of particularity. God has assumed flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, thereby drawing humanity near the triune fellowship here. But God has done so here and, thus, these texts witness to a unique occurrence with God’s own authority. My attempt to aid contemporary study of the New Testament – in particular, the pistis Christou texts – flows from understanding dogmatics as a handmaid to the ecclesial task of exegesis. If dogmatics shapes the exegetical imagination along the lines sketched by the ontological and covenantal judgments of the Christian gospel, then dogmatics fulfills its meager yet necessary task. Finally, therefore, this study celebrates the heritage of catholic theology wherein the mystery of the incarnation has been attested and confessed. As Aquinas and Barth did in their own days, I will expand on the claim that ‘the Word was made flesh’ (John 1. 14). To expound on the faith of the Christ within the realms of orthodox Christology and Reformation soteriology is to engage in a task of critical appropriation: critical in as much as these two realms have not previously affirmed much about the Christ’s faith, appropriation in so far as this argument is propelled by the biblical logic 3

Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline (trans. G. T. Thomson; New York: Harper & Row, 1959), p. 9.

3

THE CHRIST’S FAITH

affirmed by Christological orthodoxy and the Reformational solas (with their attendant ontological inferences). Thus, inferences and implications and the oft-overlooked relations between disparate dogmatic loci mark the pages that follow. Affirming the Christ’s faith moves beyond the silence of many classical theologians, yet it does so on the basis of their deep convictions about the gospel of Christ Jesus. Attuned to two concerns noted above, my argument proceeds in two corresponding movements: first, demonstrating the coherence of the Christ’s faith; second, showing its necessity. Responding to the concerns clearly noted by Morna Hooker, this study suggests that the faith of the Christ coheres with both orthodox Christology and Reformation soteriology and, thus, need not be feared by those within the Reformed tradition. My first chapter outlines the recent debates within the New Testament studies and contemporary theology which have raised the question, ‘Did the Christ have faith’? Furthermore, methodological issues arise in this chapter, concerning critical appropriation of the catholic and Reformed tradition for dogmatic purposes, the relation of faith and history, and the theological interpretation of Holy Scripture. Chapter 2 will consider Thomas Aquinas’s objection to speech about the Christ’s faith. His objection arises throughout the book precisely because he offers the most sustained and cogent rejection of the thesis, flatly denying the Christ’s faith for consistently developed dogmatic reasons. As will be shown in depth, Thomas dissented on strictly epistemic grounds – namely Christ had perfect knowledge and, therefore, could not exercise faith. Thomas explains the double knowledge of Christ that disallows any epistemic room for faith as entailing infused knowledge and the possession of the beatific vision. Hence, engagement with Thomas will take two paths, each involving a criticism of his claims about the Christ’s human knowledge. The stronger criticism entails a denial of the Christ’s possessing the beatific vision during his sojourn on earth and, therefore, opens up plentiful room for the exercise of faith. The weaker criticism does not deny that Christ beheld the divine essence at various points throughout his earthly journey (e.g., his baptism and transfiguration), though it highlights the necessary importance of progression, or escalation, and in so doing maintains room for a dynamic faith in the Christ’s journey through trial and temptation. Both criticisms find the static possession of the beatific vision by Christ while incarnate to be lacking when correlated with the Chalcedonian claim that Christ is vere homo – providing a check to the claim that Christ’s perfect human knowledge disallows room for faith. After noting the limits of the Christ’s human knowledge, I will then question the very way in which the propriety of speaking about the Christ’s faith relates to epistemic issues in Chapter 3, by examining the holistic nature of faith as loyalty, covenant obedience, and faithfulness. Without being anti- or non-cognitive, faith must be possible for those in the know. The disciple 4

INTRODUCTION

Thomas will provide the paradigm for discussing the extra-epistemic nature of faith, as his faith is only noted upon his confession of Christ immediately after receiving cognitive awareness of the Christ’s risen presence. Thomas saw and touched the risen body of Jesus and believed; likewise, Jesus believed even if he did at certain points see the divine essence. While this chapter, of course, cannot provide a comprehensive discussion of faith, I demonstrate that faith entails much more than cognition by tracing the history of dogmatic definitions of faith in relation to the key text of Hebrews 11.1 (‘faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen’). By analyzing the theological exegesis of Augustine, Thomas, Calvin, the Reformed confessions and post-Reformation dogmatics, and, finally, Karl Barth, I show the analytic limitations placed on this ‘definition’ of faith by locating it within a broader canonical and confessional context. Debate about the Christ’s faith cannot then simply focus upon (or at least be circumscribed by) discussions of the knowledge of Jesus. The attempt to demonstrate the coherence of the Christ’s having faith requires consideration of metaphysical issues, specifically the union of the two natures of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. To speak of the Christ’s faith entails speaking of ontological concerns which have yet to be investigated in any of the relevant literature. The precise relationship between the divine and human natures of Christ must be specified, and the distinctly Reformed character of most talk regarding the Christ’s faith follows from their particular view of the communicatio idiomatum. I will here provide a distinctly Reformed and Chalcedonian understanding of the hypostatic union which clarifies the appearance of both ignorance and omniscience in the biblical narratives about Jesus, linking these two types of knowledge and life to the two categorically distinct natures of Christ. A nuanced consideration of the Trinitarian economy must account for both Christ’s assumption of a fallen human nature and his perfect life of faith and obedience. Such an account entails extended analysis of the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctifying and empowering the human Christ for faithfulness in the midst of temptation. In so doing one must avoid the dangers of some recent ‘SpiritChristologies,’ as the anointing and empowerment of the Spirit need not be played off his ontologically prior divinity. Indeed, much to the contrary, Christological and Trinitarian issues are complementary. The same Spirit who united the Word to flesh also empowers that enfleshed Word to submit faithfully to the Father from whom he came. Whereas Chapters 2 and 3 follow a narrative style in noting the Spirit’s gracing of the Son, this chapter offers metaphysical description of such relations, showing that speech about the Christ’s faith is coherent and fits with the primary doctrines of the Christian faith – the hypostatic union, the Trinity, and the story of the gospel. After demonstrating the coherence of speaking about the faith of Jesus, I move on to show why it was necessary for Jesus to exercise faith. Since the person and work of Christ are linked, the covenant and atonement theology 5

THE CHRIST’S FAITH

must be considered as the redemptive contexts in which the Christ’s faith will be dogmatically located. First, I show how three divergent soteriologies might include the doctrine of the Christ’s faith within their doctrinal borders (albeit with varying degrees of systemic alteration). Second, I demonstrate the necessity of faith for pleasing the triune God, clarifying the theological role of faith as root of all obedience and loyalty. If ‘whatever does not proceed from faith is sin’ (Rom. 14.23), then Jesus must have had faith in as much as he did not sin. Thus, I show the necessity of Christ’s faith in view of a broader covenantal anthropology. Third, I provide a positive argument for the dual function of the Christ’s faith as substitutionary and (only then) as paradigmatic, construed along analogical lines for ethical import, thereby showing how the gospel of Jesus necessarily implies the Christ’s faith. In Chapter 5, three traditions will be shown to cohere well with speech about the Christ’s faith, each by different means and to different ends. First, I argue that the broader theology of Thomas Aquinas requires the Christ’s fulfillment of human life in every way and, when taken together with my criticisms in Chapters 2 and 3, requires predicating faith of Jesus. In fact, Thomas includes basic dogmatic maxims regarding the person and work of Christ which might undercut his rejection of my thesis. Second, the tradition of ‘federal theology’ or ‘covenant theology’ strongly emphasizes the atoning significance of the Christ’s active obedience, that is, his loyal submission to the will of the Father unto death. Upon considering the pervasive importance of faith as loyalty and openness to God’s promises for the future, the active obedience of Christ ought to be understood to entail the active trust or faith of Christ. Third, Karl Barth’s theology of the ‘way of the Son of God into the far country’ requires the claim that Christ entered into the path of temptation and met it with loyal faithfulness. The relation of dogmatics and ethics will be sketched by noting the reconfiguration of gospel and law within Barth’s theology, and I highlight the way in which the Christ’s faith functions in both aspects of his doctrine of reconciliation. Without arguing that any one of these three traditions is superior to the others, I show the farreaching fittingness for talk of the Christ’s faith across the Roman Catholic and Reformed traditions. Finally, in Chapter 6, I demonstrate the necessity of the Christ’s faith by pointing to the axiomatic place of faith grounding all other forms of creaturely obedience. I then examine the relationship between the faith of Christ and of Christians, demonstrating the multi-faceted function of the faith of Jesus. His faith functions both objectively and subjectively as ground of justification and shape for sanctification, that is, as a vicarious life imputed to believers and as a paradigm for the Christian life of holiness. Gerald O’Collins and Daniel Kendall have helpfully introduced the terminology of ‘analogy’ into discussion of the Christ’s faith, and I hope to offer some specificity by noting the various particular ways in which Christ’s faith is analogous to that of Christians (beyond mere content and epistemic context 6

INTRODUCTION

as suggested by O’Collins and Kendall).4 So the much-marketed bracelets have it half right: ‘What would Jesus do’? is a good question, and consideration of this query must constitute part of the ethical task. The necessity of the question should not be confused with its sufficiency in addressing all the complexities of applying the ethic of Jesus to his followers, however. Christians must imitate Jesus even while they honor him as the unique Son of God sent to live and die for them. Thus, ethical imitation must be attuned to the existence of distinct ontological constitutions and varying covenantal vocations, lest slavish repetition result. With regard to this soteriological complexity, I argue that the Christ’s faith provides a helpful category for discussing atonement theology through offering a relatively pliable conceptuality for comparing the objective and subjective nature of the work of Christ. The Christ’s faith is coherent and necessary within the spacious architecture of doctrinal theology, and so deserves greater attention within the liturgies, proclamation, and teaching of the church. I seek to provide Christian wisdom for today by engaging voices of the past as diverse as Thomas and Barth while weaving examination of broader Christological, Trinitarian, and redemptive issues onto this one dogmatic investigation. Thus, the relatively modest claim that Christ had faith will provide matter for wideranging dogmatic explication and demonstration of the beauty found in noting the way the gospel story goes. To a great degree, my case hinges on showing the beautiful fit between the Christ’s faith and other Christian doctrines. Not only does the faith of the Christ uphold classical views of Christ’s person and work, but it enriches such dogmatic concerns along Reformed and catholic lines. Appreciation of this coherence and necessity not only opens up new exegetical vistas, but such affirmation also provides depth to the claim that the human life of Jesus is soteriologically constitutive.

4

Gerald O’Collins and Daniel T. Kendall, ‘The Faith of Jesus’, TS 53 (1992), pp. 403–23.

7

1 a dogmatic account of the christ’s faith

The Christ’s faith precedes, enables, and conditions the shape of Christians’ own faith. In what follows I will offer a dogmatic account of the coherence and necessity of this doctrinal claim: the Christ had faith. What might that refer to and why would anyone ever want to say that? Before developing this material content, I must tend to some formal concerns. This introductory chapter must clarify a few things: first, the impetus for such a study at this historical juncture – looking initially at developments in recent New Testament studies; second, the few precursors found in contemporary theology; third, a sketch of the theological method which will be followed, by locating this topic within the discipline of dogmatic theology. This study involves an investigation into particular ecclesial language. It entails a dogmatic consideration of the coherence and necessity of the claim that the Christ exercised faith. This claim has begun appearing within theological circles over the past century but has yet to receive extensive dogmatic analysis. Before laying out some ground rules for such an investigation, it will be helpful to note the contexts in which this claim has appeared and what little consideration has already been given to it. Our topic requires attention being paid to two areas of ecclesial speech: a heated debate within the scholarly study of Pauline theology during the past several decades, and occasional comments within theological treatises and ecclesiastical confessions during the same period. A dogmatic approach to consideration of the Christ’s faith is hastened by these references, though the necessary depth and breadth of my analysis will require the relocation of such debates within a deeper dogmatic matrix – rooting this particular Christological claim in broader metaphysical, anthropological, soteriological, and eschatological terrain. To understand the need for developing my argument as such, however, the previous attempts to speak of the Christ’s faith must be analyzed. 8

A DOGMATIC ACCOUNT OF THE CHRIST’S FAITH

I. New Testament Studies and Pistis Christou Talk of the Christ’s faith has been increasing among Pauline scholars for several decades now. Dozens of articles have been written to debate the import of a brief phrase found eight times in the broader Pauline corpus, pistis Christou.1 Debate has centered around the rendering of the genitive noun, Christou – is it an objective (‘in Christ’) or a subjective (‘of Christ’) genitive?2 For our purposes, the heightening support of the subjective genitive has led to a growing corpus of literature in affirmation of the Christ’s faith. Analysis of this debate is not my goal, yet, without attempting to be exhaustive, the critical points of this discussion will now be mentioned in chronological order. This will show the prevalence of recent terminology within biblical studies that calls for dogmatic analysis.

a. Early Discussions of Paul’s Phrase The early stages of the pistis Christou debate occurred within German NT scholarship of the late nineteenth century.3 Johannes Haussleiter found the text of Rom. 3.26 (ek pisteos iesou) to refer to the very faith of Jesus and later traced this textual point through Galatians as well.4 A decade later, Gerhard Kittel attempted a comprehensive attack on the objective interpretation.5 Neither Haussleiter nor Kittel made much headway in propagating the subjective genitive interpretation, however. Several decades later, A. G. Hebert and T. F. Torrance provided linguistic arguments for the subjective interpretation, though James Barr so thoroughly demolished their distinction between Greek (‘believing’) and Hebrew (‘faithfulness’) concepts of faith that, again, no major progress could be seen in their analysis.6 Though

1

2

3

4

5 6

The phrase is found in one of several forms in the following texts: Rom. 3.22, 26; Gal. 2.16 (twice), 2.20; 3.22; Phil. 3.9; Eph. 3.12. References to Holy Scripture throughout this study are from the NRSV, unless otherwise noted parenthetically. Whereas other genitival options have been mentioned (primarily in German debates of the early twentieth century), these two options have become entrenched as the major options. The subjective genitive might better be called the possessive genitive (‘Christ’s faith’). On the early history of the debate, see George Howard, ‘The Faith of Christ’, ExpTimes 85 (1974), pp. 212–15; Richard Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11 (BRS; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 2002), pp. 142–48. Johannes Haussleiter, ‘Der Glaube Jesu Christi und der christliche Glaube’, NKZ 2 (1891), pp. 109–45, 205–30; idem, ‘Was versteht Paulus unter christlichem Glauben’? in Greifswalder Studien (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1895), pp. 159–82. Gerhard Kittel, ‘πιστι Ιησου Χριστου bei Paulus’, TSK 79 (1906), pp. 419–36. A. G. Hebert, ‘Faithfulness and “Faith” ’, Theology 58 (1955), pp. 373–79; T. F. Torrance, ‘One Aspect of the Biblical Conception of Faith’, ExpTimes 68 (1957),

9

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Barr’s criticism of the linguistic analysis of Torrance and Hebert was powerful, a wave of scholarship has risen to support their exegetical results on other grounds.7

b. Richard Hays In 1983, Richard Hays published what may go down as one of the most influential doctoral dissertations in the history of NT studies.8 Amidst Hays’s engagement of broader concerns (‘narrative’ theology, the center of Pauline theology, and the theology of Galatians 3–4), he offered a sustained argument for the subjective genitive interpretation from which he titled his book (‘the faith of Jesus Christ’). Hays asserted that the objective genitive interpretation is not the most natural rendering of the Greek phrase, pistis Christou. He then searched for another possible meaning that makes sense of the usage.9 His judgment that the objective genitive is grammatically unlikely stems from the study of George Howard, which finds that every undisputed genitive following pistis in the NT (24 of them) is subjective.10 Hays found that, with grammatical analysis leading towards the subjective rendering, only theological concerns would lead one to read pistis Christou as an objective genitive.11 He offered an extended discussion of Gal. 3.22 and attempted to specify what Paul might mean by saying that the ‘faith of Christ’ is the basis on which God’s promise comes to those who believe.12 The explanation of the subjective genitive phrase leads to what Hays called a ‘representative Christology’, whereby faith is equivalent to obedience which Christ offers as the vicarious human. Such a Christology is attested elsewhere in the NT, and Hays pointed to the Pauline parallels in Rom. 5.2 and Eph. 3.12.13 Hays did not offer a linguistic analysis of the carryover between faith, faithfulness, and obedience, nor did he go into any detail regarding the purpose, context, or nature of Christ’s representation.14

pp. 111–14; James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 161–205. 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14

See bibliography in Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, pp. 147 fn 105. Now republished as The Faith of Jesus Christ. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, p. 147. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, pp. 148–49; George Howard, ‘On the “Faith of Christ” ’, HTR 60 (1967), pp. 459–65. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, p. 150. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, pp. 150–53. Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ, p. 152. Hays later noted the lack of linguistic analysis in The Faith of Jesus Christ, though he has not yet provided such an account [‘ΠΠΣΤΠΣ and Pauline Christology: What is at Stake?’ in Hay and Johnson (eds.), Pauline Theology, vol. IV: Looking Back, Pressing On, p. 38].

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While his account certainly ushered in heightened discussion of the Christ’s faith and anchored such talk in particular biblical texts, the coherence and necessity of this theological concept was not expressed at any length.

c. Luke Timothy Johnson Luke Johnson, then a teacher and colleague of Hays at Yale Divinity School, published an article in 1982 that ought to be seen as exegetically parallel to Hays and addressing a different text, Rom. 3.21-26.15 Whereas Hays’s project was so forceful since it demonstrated the benefit of the subjective interpretation in what had been regarded as the most difficult case (Gal. 3.22), Johnson argued that extended discussion of the ‘most compelling case’ ought to be undertaken. Johnson offered an explanation as to what the Christ’s faith might mean, intending to demonstrate the theological necessity of the subjective interpretation in one text.16 Johnson thought that doctrinal considerations inhibit exegetes from making sense of the Christ exercising faith, a state of affairs which he attributed to a ‘failure of imagination’.17 Against univocal definitions of faith, he demonstrated several aspects of the NT concept of faith: faith as confession, faith as response to God, and faith as obedience.18 Not only does faith have several sides, but faith is necessarily opposed to sinfulness as a metonymy, leaving no room for moral middle ground. Given the various tinges of faith-language, and the pervading nature of faith in avoiding sin, we should be surprised if Jesus did not exercise faith of some sort.19 Johnson then linked the Christ’s faith as mentioned in Rom. 3.21-26 with the obedience of Christ discussed in Rom. 5.19, suggesting that the latter text is a ‘plain explication of Rom. 3.21-26’. Thereby, ‘the human faith of Jesus is certainly not a virtue, nor is it simply a matter of trust and fidelity. For Paul, it is essentially obedience’.20 This faith is important for human salvation in that it ‘provides the basis for the faith response of others’. Johnson did not intend this to lead into an attempt to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps to believe like Jesus did; rather, ‘by virtue of the gift of the

15

16 17 18 19 20

Luke Timothy Johnson, ‘Rom 3:21-26 and the Faith of Jesus’, CBQ 44 (1982), pp. 77– 90. Johnson’s account is quite similar to that of Markus Barth, ‘The Faith of the Messiah’, HeyJ 10 (1969), pp. 363–70. Johnson, ‘Rom 3:21-26 and the Faith of Jesus’, p. 78. Johnson, ‘Rom 3:21-26 and the Faith of Jesus’, p. 81. Johnson, ‘Rom 3:21-26 and the Faith of Jesus’, pp. 81–87. Johnson, ‘Rom 3:21-26 and the Faith of Jesus’, p. 87. On the Christ’s faith as obedience, see also Richard N. Longenecker, ‘The Obedience of Christ in the Theology of the Early Church’, in R. Banks (ed.), Reconciliation and Hope: New Testament Essays on Atonement and Eschatology in Honor of Leon Morris, pp. 146–48; Michael Gorman, Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 101.

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Spirit the faith of Christians might become like that of Jesus’.21 Though not Pelagian due to his emphasis on the work of the Spirit, Johnson nonetheless limited the significance of Jesus’ faith to a subjective ground which leads to the righteous transformation of humans.22 Such an interpretation has understandably received criticism from Douglas Moo as it ‘must interpret Jesus more as the “pattern” for our faith than as the object of our faith . . . this interpretation not only misreads key parts of Paul’s letters but places too much emphasis on Christ as example in the atonement’.23 Oddly the link of Rom. 3.21-26 with Romans 5 has somehow led to the evacuation of any objective significance from the Christ’s faith and its complete tie to exemplarist atonement theology as found in a certain reading of Phil. 2.5-11.24 The value of Johnson’s study is twofold. First, it engaged the text of Paul’s letter to the Romans with regard to the pistis Christou debate, providing an argument for how the Christ’s faith might affect broader interpretation of this important epistle. Second, Johnson provided the most extensive theological exposition as to what the Christ’s faith might mean. By tying faith to obedience and openness to God, Johnson has noticed the sweeping use of faith to describe human activity (well beyond simple confession or belief). Yet Johnson has only offered a subjective function of the Christ’s faith that emphasizes Jesus as moral exemplar. While this is both useful and textuallygrounded (Phil. 2.5-11), Johnson failed to ask broader questions regarding the place of this function amidst other atonement concepts.

d. Society of Biblical Literature Pauline Theology Group The growing importance of the pistis Christou debate led to its being included in the published discussions of the SBL Pauline Theology group, with contributions by Richard Hays, James D. G. Dunn, and Paul Achtemeier.

21 22

23

24

Johnson, ‘Rom 3:21-26 and the Faith of Jesus’, p. 89. Johnson, ‘Rom 3:21-26 and the Faith of Jesus’, p. 88. Even Johnson’s consideration of the Christ’s faith as a ‘ground’ for human faith explained this ‘grounding’ as nothing beyond demonstrating a moral example. Johnson’s continual emphasis on human righteousness as ‘gift’ and ‘of the Holy Spirit’ is useful, yet it cannot disguise the fact that he never acknowledged or even considered the Christ’s faith having any objective function. Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), p. 225 fn. 29. For criticism of ethical interpretations of Phil. 2.5-11 by Ernst Käsemann, ‘Kritische Analyse von Phil 2.5-11’, in Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen I (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960), pp. 51–95; cf. J. B. Webster, ‘Imitation of Christ’, TynBul 37 (1986), pp. 106–12; Edvin Larsson, Christus als Vorbild: Eine Untersuchung zu den paulinischen Tauf- und Eikontexten (Uppsala: ASNU, 1962), p. 234.

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Hays stated that he has yet to repent of the material claims of his earlier work, and he here investigated the text of Romans in a manner similar to Johnson’s study.25 He suggested five matters of theological importance in the pistis Christou debate: (1) the relationship between Christology and soteriology in Paul; (2) the humanity of Jesus; (3) experiential-expressive theology as opposed to ‘narrative’ theology; (4) the cruciform character of Christian obedience;26 and (5) the link between the ‘righteousness of God’ and covenant faithfulness (of God, of Jesus, and of believers).27 It is clear that Hays has advanced his earlier thesis without renouncing any of his earlier claims, though we will see that some confusion nevertheless remains. Hays termed the debate as between the ‘Christological interpretation’ or the ‘anthropological interpretation’ of pistis Christou, rather than using the traditional syntactical titles (subjective and objective).28 Hays hoisted broad theological concerns on the debate, such as the Barthian ‘postliberal’ emphasis on divine action over against the neo-Protestant liberalism sometimes termed ‘experiential-expressive’. While the epochal significance given to the debate by Hays may detract from helpful argument, his search for greater precision in what is meant by the Christ’s faith helps move discussion of its validity along. Hays, following Johnson, understands the Christ’s faith to be his obedience unto death, yet he strongly distinguishes this particular act of obedience from Christ’s previous ministry (much less his whole life).29 Hays then notes that the relationship between Christ’s faith and that of Christians is one of analogy or metaphor due to ecclesial participation in Christ.30

25

26 27

28

29

30

Hays, ‘ΠΙΣΤΙΣ and Pauline Christology: What is at Stake?’ in Hay and Johnson (eds.), Pauline Theology, vol. IV: Looking Back, Pressing On, pp. 37, 39. Michael J. Gorman, Cruciformity, pp. 95–154. Hays, ‘ΠΙΣΤΙΣ and Pauline Christology: What is at Stake?’ in Hay and Johnson (eds.), Pauline Theology, vol. IV: Looking Back, Pressing On, pp. 55–56. Hays, ‘ΠΙΣΤΙΣ and Pauline Christology: What is at Stake?’ in Hay and Johnson (eds.), Pauline Theology, vol. IV: Looking Back, Pressing On, p. 39. This terminological change should not be read as an irenic characterization of his opponents. Hays, ‘ΠΙΣΤΙΣ and Pauline Christology: What is at Stake?’ in Hay and Johnson (eds.), Pauline Theology, vol. IV: Looking Back, Pressing On, p. 59 fn. 58. The textual contours of the Christ narrative as found in Rom 5:18-19 are linked to the ‘one act’ of Christ; given Hays’ emphasis on the narrative character of Paul’s theology and his postliberal emphasis on the contingent character of Scripture itself as ground for theology, it is not surprising that he limits the Christ’s faith/obedience to his obedience unto death. cf. Gorman, Cruciformity, pp. 175–76. Hays, ‘ΠΙΣΤΙΣ and Pauline Christology: What is at Stake?’ in Hay and Johnson (eds.), Pauline Theology, vol. IV: Looking Back, Pressing On,, pp. 59–60. Hays never explains what he means by ‘participation’ – a term with a varied history in theology.

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Christ’s faithfulness unto death is both objectively important and subjectively demonstrative.31 Hays stated that the testimony to the Christ’s faith is prevalent throughout the NT.32 James D. G. Dunn, respondent to Hays, also mentioned the broad testimony to the Christ’s faith elsewhere in the NT (Jas. 2.1; Rev. 1.5, 2.13, 3.14, 14.12, 19.11; Heb. 2.17, 3.2, 12.2; Eph. 3.12) and, quite apart from the pistis Christou texts, affirmed the concept of the Christ’s faith.33 The discussion of the Christ’s faith need not depend on these disputed texts in the Pauline corpus, according to Dunn; these Pauline texts serve as ciphers by which the neo-Protestant and postliberal theologies might be made textually apparent, according to Hays. Later responses, from both sides of the objective–subjective divide, have agreed with Dunn that the exegetical debate about the Pauline phrase, pistis Christou, must be distinguished from debate about broad theological systems (be they ‘Christological’, ‘anthropological’, or otherwise).34 The discussion of the broader concept has not occurred, however; debate has remained entirely tethered to the terminology found in these particular Pauline texts. Dunn also noted the link between the Christ’s faith and the doctrine of the Trinity. Whereas Hays and others see God’s faithfulness as manifest in the Christ’s faithfulness (and then echoed in Christians’ faithfulness: Rom. 1.17),35 Dunn finds that emphasis upon the Christ’s faith leads to a diminution of God’s faithfulness.36 While Dunn has not articulated the parameters within which claims of the Christ’s faith would necessarily

31

32

33

34

35

36

Michael Gorman has termed these two elements the prototypical and participatory [Cruciformity, p. 120], whereas Ian Wallis terms them the theological and paradigmatic [The Faith of Jesus Christ in Early Christian Traditions, (SNTSMS 84; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 179]. Hays, ‘ΠΙΣΤΙΣ and Pauline Christology: What is at Stake?’ in Hay and Johnson (eds.), Pauline Theology, vol. IV: Looking Back, Pressing On, p. 58. James D. G. Dunn, ‘Once More, ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΠΣΤΟΥ∋, in Hay and Johnson (eds.), Pauline Theology, vol. IV: Looking Back, Pressing On, p. 65. Paul Achtemeier, ‘Apropos the Faith of/in Christ: A Response to Hays and Dunn’, in Hay and Johnson (eds.), Pauline Theology, vol. IV: Looking Back, Pressing On, p. 82. Hays, along with many other contemporary Pauline exegetes, understands the ‘righteousness of God’ to refer to God’s ‘covenant faithfulness’. This point remains hotly contested; for one negative assessment, see Achtemeier, ‘Apropos the Faith of/in Christ: A Response to Hays and Dunn’, in Hay and Johnson (eds.), Pauline Theology, vol. IV: Looking Back, Pressing On, p. 85. James D. G. Dunn, ‘Once More, ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΠΣΤΟΥ’, in Hay and Johnson (eds.), Pauline Theology, vol. IV: Looking Back, Pressing On, p. 77; Dunn’s competitive view of the relationship between God and Christ appears closely tied to his minimalist understanding of Paul’s Christology with regard to the divinity and pre-existence of Christ [Christology in the Making: An NT Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn., 1986)].

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contradict or compete with claims of God’s faithfulness, he was the first person to suggest that the Christ’s faith needs to be discussed within the umbrella of Trinitarian theology.37 These broader Trinitarian issues, beyond Dunn’s consideration of divine identity, also have yet to be engaged. Recent NT debate has helpfully studied particular texts, but rarely have exegetes considered broader theological issues with any concerted attentiveness to issues of metaphysics, Trinity, Christ’s person, covenant, and atonement. Though the subjective interpretation has spread rapidly in the last 20 years (particularly amongst American scholars), not all are convinced.38 Many find talk of the Christ’s faith to be quite odd or alien, and the continual plea from those skeptical of the subjective interpretation seems to be curiosity about what such a claim means.39 The Christ’s faith has been much talked about in NT studies, yet dogmatic study of the coherence and necessity of the Christ’s faith is necessary to demonstrate the validity of such speech. Before embarking on that quest, I will next draw attention to hints at the usefulness of this doctrine emerging in contemporary systematic theology.

II. Christ’s Faith in Barth’s Wake As New Testament scholars have begun speaking frequently of the ‘faith of Christ’, contemporary systematic theologians have also been forthcoming with such language. Though many theologians have been unaware of or relatively uninterested in this debate within recent NT studies, several major theologians have begun to consider the doctrine of the Christ’s faith in ways similar to those discussed earlier.

a. Karl Barth While no one individual can be credited with putting the Christ’s faith onto the theological map, Karl Barth comes awfully close. Though Barth never gave sustained attention to the Pauline phrase pistis Christou, he tended to read it subjectively. Barth’s influence in this regard is not owing to his

37

38

39

Michael Gorman suggests that the Christ’s faith upholds the Christocentric character of Paul’s theology, as opposed to a more generic theocentric theology [Cruciformity, pp. 110–11]. For extensive bibliography of those who support the subjective and objective views, respectively, see Hays, ‘ΠΙΣΤΙΣ and Pauline Christology: What is at Stake?’ in Hay and Johnson (eds.), Pauline Theology, vol. IV: Looking Back, Pressing On, p. 36 fn. 3–4. ‘[I]t is necessary to introduce some very dubious theology in order to speak meaningfully about “the faith exercised by Jesus Christ” ’ [Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 225].

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material efforts to explicate the Christ’s faith, which are quite marginal and brief, but to his formal explication of a distinctly Reformed Christology which emphasizes the human response to God of the God-man, Jesus of Nazareth. Barth’s formal considerations have led to greater material emphasis among those persons and confessions influenced by him (e.g., Thomas F. Torrance, James B. Torrance, the Presbyterian ‘Confession of 1967’, and Douglas Harink). Barth was an exegete before he was a famed dogmatician. His first dogmatic post (in Göttingen) came as a result of his influential Romans commentary. Barth’s most explicit references to the Christ’s faith are within his exegetical corpus. In his second commentary on Romans, Barth writes, ‘The faithfulness of God and Jesus the Christ confirm one another. The faithfulness of God is established when we meet the Christ in Jesus’.40 Barth understands pistis Christou to be the Christ’s faith(fulness) to God in the midst of a sinful world. Though Jesus is no hero, no magician, and no sage, he renders to God perfect obedience, willful submission, and the selfnegating prayer which fittingly encapsulates creaturely existence.41 Barth does not always interpret pistis Christou phrases subjectively, but he certainly finds the Christ’s faith to be an essential element of Pauline theology.42 Barth rendered the Pauline phrase pistis Christou as a subjective genitive and spoke flowingly of the Christ’s faith in his Romans commentary, but he also took this concept within his dogmatic writings, thereby making the first interdisciplinary use of the Christ’s faith. In his 1935 essay ‘Gospel and Law’, Barth utilizes the Christ’s faith as a checkpoint against human efforts at self-justification and a judgment of all immanent eschatology.43 Barth states, This is the proper work of grace, that his eternal Word – by his becoming flesh, by his remaining obedient in the flesh, by his suffering punishment and therefore dying, because of this obedience – undertook to give the saving answer in our place, to expose our human autocracy and godlessness, to confess man’s lostness, to acknowledge the justice of God’s judgment against us, and thus to accept the grace of God.44

40

41 42

43

44

Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns; London: Oxford University Press, 6th edn., 1968), p. 96. Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 97. See his objective interpretation of Phil. 3.9 in Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Philippians: 40th Anniversary Edition (trans. James W. Leitch; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), pp. 99–103. Karl Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church: Three Essays (trans. G. Ronald Howe; Garden City, N. Y.: Anchor Books, 1960). Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, p. 74.

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Barth then characterizes this obedience as faith. Lest we think Barth means to attribute some more abstract faithfulness or constancy to the Christ, he clarifies that ‘he quite simply believed’.45 Christ’s belief exists in the midst of our punishment, the travails of human experience in which his glorious reign is hidden. Barth here accentuates the Word’s embrace of human existence by way of attributing belief to the Christ. Barth’s understanding of the Christ’s faith will be considered at greater length in Chapter 5, so I will not consider it further here. Suffice it to say that Barth was the first exegete to explain convincingly some of the theological context for the Christ’s faith (though Barth’s broader Christological formulations have been too rarely studied by NT scholars), the first dogmatic theologian to bring the pistis Christou debate across disciplinary boundaries, and the teacher of many later contributors to this topic.

b. Ebeling, Pannenberg, and the Torrance Brothers Other contributors to the growing consideration given to the Christ’s faith have come in Barth’s wake: Gerhard Ebeling and Wolfhart Pannenberg. Ebeling wrote extensively on faith, and he extends this broader analysis to consider the possibility that even Jesus might have exercised faith.46 Finding Mk 9:23 and other synoptic texts to hint perhaps at the faith of Jesus, he concludes that ‘it is surely impossible, in view of the manner in which Jesus speaks of faith, to except him from faith himself’.47 He then notes that later specifications of faith have exempted Jesus from the exercise of faith, and he finds these medieval theologians to have erred in denying the Christ’s faith (e.g., Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas). Ebeling does not explain his disagreement with the critics of the Christ’s faith, though he clearly found the notion to be of some minor importance. Wolfhart Pannenberg agreed with Ebeling that the Christ’s faith deserved attention. He notes that ‘Jesus is eminently the believer who exposes himself directly to God’s future’.48 Pannenberg cites Ebeling throughout his brief discussion of the Christ’s faith as bringing the message and conduct of Jesus together, though he quickly elides Ebeling’s categories of ‘witness’ and ‘basis’ into that of Jesus the eminent believer.49 Whereas Ebeling was quite modest in his claims, and Pannenberg may have overreached the bounds

45 46

47 48

49

Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, p. 74. Gerhard Ebeling, ‘Jesus and Faith’, in Word and Faith (trans. James W. Leitch; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963), p. 234. Ebeling, ‘Jesus and Faith’, p. 234. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man (trans. Duane A. Priebe and Lewis L. Wilkins; Philadelphia: Westminster, 2nd edn, 1977), p. 199. Fns. 9 and 10 inappropriately cite Ebeling as discussing the Christ’s faith. Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man, p. 199 fns. 8–10.

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of faithful interpretation of Ebeling in his exuberance to witness to the Christ’s faith, both followed Barth in affirming the concept of the Christ’s faith as an embrace of God’s eschatological work. Englishmen soon followed the German attention to the Christ’s faith by studying Karl Barth intensely, giving greater precision and material attention to this notion of Christ as believer. Two brothers, James B. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance, have written more than anyone else about the vicarious humanity of Christ, the faithfulness of Christ, and the fulfillment of all human action in Christ Jesus. T. F. Torrance began the postBarthian NT debate of pistis Christou with his publication of ‘One Aspect of the Biblical Conception of Faith’, and James Barr vigorously attacked his linguistic method (whereby Torrance had differentiated between distinctly ‘Hebrew’ and ‘Greek’ concepts).50 Torrance did not give up the theological understanding of the Christ’s faith, though he no longer pushed the subjective reading of pistis Christou publicly after Barr’s rebuke. T. F. Torrance notes that, ‘if we think of belief, trust or faith as forms of human activity before God, then we must think of Jesus Christ as believing, trusting, and having faith in God the Father on our behalf and in our place’.51 Torrance means to affirm the true humanity of Christ as salvifically significant in that Jesus presents the human response to God that other humans fail to render. ‘Thus Jesus steps into the actual situation where we are summoned to have faith in God, to believe and trust in him, and he acts in our place and in our stead . . . and provides us freely with a faithfulness in which we may share’.52 Torrance’s emphasis upon the faithfulness of God as seen in the faith of Christ rests upon a representative Christology that strongly insists on the objective nature of salvation.53 James B. Torrance’s explication of the Christ’s faith closely follows that of his brother.54 He traces the vocation of Israel and her failure to render

50 51

52 53

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Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man, p. 199 fn. 14. Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Helmers & Howard, rev. edn, 1992), pp. 92–93; Theology in Reconstruction (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), pp. 95–98. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, p. 92. On the objective nature of the Christ’s faith as significant in even the psychological aspects of salvation (e.g., redemption from suffering and theodicy), see the study of Torrance by Christian Kettler [The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Reality of Salvation (New York: University Press of America, 1981)] and Kettler’s later application of this aspect of soteriology [The God Who Believes: Faith, Doubt, and the Vicarious Humanity of Christ (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2005)]. See further, James B. Torrance, ‘The Vicarious Humanity and the Priesthood of Christ in the Theology of John Calvin’, in W. H. Neuser (ed.), Calvinus Ecclesiae Doctor: International Congress on Calvin Research (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1978), pp. 69–84.

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due faithfulness to God, and he then notes that ‘he (Jesus Christ) is the one whose whole vicarious life in our humanity is a faithful obedient response to the Father’s purpose in electing him’.55 Again, the importance of the Christ’s faith as a vicarious offering to the Father on behalf of Israel and the nations is front and center.56 This faith finds application in considering the church’s worship, noting that Christ faithfully worships for us, in our stead, and offers us the grace of participation in his own true worship and prayer. This application is a distinctly Trinitarian application, as Torrance insists, for Jesus offers faith to the Father by the Spirit.57 The contribution of the Torrances to our understanding of the Christ’s faith will come up again in Chapter 5, but a brief affirmation and caveat can be offered here by way of summary. T. F. and J. B. Torrance have both affirmed the true humanity of Christ as entailing his faith, which I applaud, and they have both insisted on the vicarious work of Christ, a Reformed understanding of the atonement with which I agree. Yet they have so emphasized the work of Christ for us, vicariously, that the place of Christ’s faith as any sort of ethical norm seems displaced.58 Such disagreement should not preemptively distract attention from the importance of the Torrances in bringing the Christ’s faith to the attention of many contemporary theologians.

c. Presbyterians: John Murray and the ‘Confession of 1967’ Presbyterians in the United States were quick to follow Barth and the Torrances in speaking of the Christ’s faith, albeit with little explication. Of utmost importance is the broad ideological spectrum within which the Christ’s faith was affirmed by both conservative and mainline theologians and pastors. John Murray, a Scottish theologian who spent most of his time training pastors for the newly-founded Orthodox Presbyterian Church under the auspices of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, engaged the pistis

55

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James B. Torrance, Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace (Downers Grove, Ill.; InterVarsity, 1996), p. 63. Torrance, Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace, pp. 62–64. Torrance, Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace, pp. 74–77. Donald Macleod, ‘The Doctrine of the Incarnation in Scottish Theology’, in Jesus is Lord: Christology Yesterday and Today (Fearn, Ross-shire: Mentor, 2000), p. 134. Macleod affirms T. F. Torrance’s claim that Christ believed, but Macleod criticizes the opposition Torrance places between Christ’s activity and that of Christians. This unilateral emphasis will be discussed later as it relates to the distinct criticism of ‘federal theology’ from the Torrances and their students, whereby they find the federalists to morph wrongly Calvin’s covenant theology into an alien legal framework. The recent historical studies of Muller, Steinmetz, Helm, Lillback, and others have shown the ahistorical nature of such a criticism.

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Christou debate in commenting on the text of Romans.59 Whereas Murray quickly dismisses the notion that pistis Christou refers to the Christ’s own faith, he notes that it ‘would not be contrary to the analogy of Scripture in general, yet there is not good warrant for this interpretation’.60 He provided an appendix to discuss the phrase ‘from faith to faith’ (Rom. 1.17) and again noted that the Christ’s faith was a fitting concept and, at the same time, a bad rendering of pistis Christou phrases in Romans and Galatians. ‘There is no reason why “the faith of Jesus” should not refer to his faithfulness’, and Murray ties the Christ’s faith to his obedience unto death, a link many exegetes have recently noted (e.g., Johnson, Hays, Gorman).61 The United Presbyterian Church of the United States of America (UPCUSA.) added the ‘Confession of 1967’ to its Book of Confessions in an effort, among other aims, to move beyond strict adherence to the Westminster Standards as affirmed by Murray, the OPC, and (up to that time) the mainline Presbyterian churches.62 The ‘Confession of 1967’ simply affirmed that ‘Out of Israel, God in due time raised up Jesus. His faith and obedience were the response of the perfect child of God’.63 Christ’s faith is placed parallel to his obedience and within the broader context of God’s covenant with Israel: Christ fulfills what Israel could not. This confession certainly lacks any extended dogmatic elucidation given its very genre. Its clarity amidst confessional brevity, however, stands out as an acknowledgement that the Christ’s faith ought not be viewed as an odd claim when one views Jesus in the proper context, God’s purposes with Israel and the church. The attention given to the Christ’s faith from Presbyterians of varied stripes adds a new dimension to the discussion of the Christ’s faith, the covenantal context of this human activity. Christ’s faith must be viewed as part and parcel of the human response called for by God’s covenant with Israel. As the faith of Jesus is investigated, larger questions of Scriptural cohesion and the continuity of God’s purposes must be kept in mind to explain why the Christ would need to have faith.

59

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John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition, and Notes, vol. I: Chapters 1–8 (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959), pp. 110–11, 363–74. Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 111. Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 364. ‘Confession of 1967’, in The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Part One: Book of Confessions (Louisville: Office of the General Assembly, 1991); repr. Book of Confessions: Study Edition (Louisville: Geneva, 1999), p. 315. Hereafter Book of Confessions. ‘Confession of 1967’ (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 324).

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d. Roman Catholics: Jon Sobrino, Gerald O’Collins and Daniel Kendall Reformed theologians were not the only ones considering the Christ’s faith, though most of the major figures discussed thus far have been tied to the Reformed church.64 The Jesuit theologian Jon Sobrino included a careful explication of the Scriptural claims for the Christ’s faith in his attempt to provide a Christology ‘from below’.65 He notes that the Christ’s faith has been lost due to medieval and Chalcedonian concerns.66 The rediscovery of the Christ’s faith must, therefore, be a polemical claim that seeks to accentuate the oft-forgotten and ever-disconcerting humanity of Christ.67 Whereas Chalcedonian faith assumes comprehension of the concepts of divinity and humanity and, therefore, of what can be predicated of the God-man, Sobrino found that a ground-up approach is needed given Jesus’ central place in defining both the Godhead and humanity.68 Hence the move to Christology ‘from below’. Sobrino termed the faith of Jesus to be ‘the key Old Testament concept in terms of which Jesus understood himself’.69 His concerns in fleshing out the particularities of Jesus’ faith flow from concrete concerns in his Latin American context – Jesus’ faith is not a privatized relationship to God but a ‘relationship to the kingdom of God’ and ‘the history of his subjectivity framed in the context of a sinful world which must be transformed’.70 He centered his scriptural analysis around the Synoptic passages where faith is tied to the potential for miraculous healing or liberation (e.g., Mark 9.23), though he was quick to point out that faith is not an idealistic claim to eschatological closure but a loving trust in the midst of hurt and suffering.71 Sobrino has salvific concerns in mind when speaking of the Christ’s faith – namely, human liberation and the trusting embrace of the world’s hurt by Christ and his followers. He did not note any objective nature to the faith of Jesus; rather it is a moral imperative and example that invites his followers to engage in the work of the ‘kingdom of God’.72 For Sobrino, Jesus is at his

64

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66 67 68 69 70 71 72

Reasons for the dominance of Reformed theologians in advocating speech of the Christ’s faith will be explained metaphysically in Chapter 4 (as being tied to a particular understanding of Christ’s person) and covenantally in Chapter 5 (as being tied to particular understandings of how Jesus fulfills God’s covenant purposes). Jon Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads: A Latin American Approach (trans. John Drury; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1978), pp. 79–145. Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads, pp. 80–81. Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads, p. 80 Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads, pp. 81–83. Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads, p. 85. Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads, p. 87. Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads, pp. 88, 95–102. Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads, pp. 108–18.

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most human when he is faithfully imagining and trusting God’s kingdom care of the pained world. Two major problems arise in Sobrino’s analysis, however. He never returned to the criticisms of Thomas Aquinas which made the Christ’s faith seem so odd. And he reduced the faith of Jesus to a moral category, something to be imitated. Such questions might have been answered helpfully from within Sobrino’s own categories, yet he never offered such an account. Gerald O’Collins and Daniel Kendall, Roman Catholic scholars, provided the lengthiest discussion of the Christ’s faith.73 They attempt to demonstrate the broad NT support for speech of the Christ’s faith, the coherence of such a claim, and the analogical nature of the faith of Jesus and Christians.74 Their discussion of the atonement and the analogical nature of the faith of Jesus and Christians helpfully points to the difficulty in avoiding both solely representative atonement theories and merely exemplar Christologies.75 O’Collins and Kendall find the claim that Jesus believed threatened by the epistemological claim that Christ, knowing all things, would not need to and could not believe.76 This dichotomy has served to stall speech of the Christ’s faith since the time of Thomas Aquinas and deserves the attention that O’Collins and Kendall give it, though their account is seriously hampered by their failure to address the question in metaphysical and Trinitarian categories. Their account is both helpful and limited due to its exclusive use of epistemological terminology. O’Collins and Kendall are content to deny the traditional claim that Christ possessed the beatific vision (visio Dei) during his earthly sojourn and, thereby, to open room for faith as an epistemic category.77 Their account will be shown to be correct and yet, at the same time, only partially successful in providing a discussion of the faith of Jesus. In so doing, O’Collins and Kendall have highlighted the need to discuss how the Christ might have faith without lapsing into dogmatic incoherence. These questions of metaphysical (Incarnational) and Trinitarian substance also relate to the other concerns raised by O’Collins and Kendall, the question of the faith of Jesus and

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Gerald O’Collins and Daniel Kendall, ‘The Faith of Jesus’, TS 53 (1992), pp. 403–23. This material reappears substantially unchanged in Gerald O’Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus Christ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 250–68. O’Collins and Kendall, ‘The Faith of Jesus’, p. 405. O’Collins and Kendall, ‘The Faith of Jesus’, pp. 418–21. O’Collins and Kendall, ‘The Faith of Jesus’, p. 406. O’Collins and Kendall, ‘The Faith of Jesus’, pp. 405–11. Much of their account rests on the claim that recent Roman Catholic doctrinal statements have minimized or denied the claim that Christ possessed the beatific vision and infused knowledge, such as would deny his need for faith. Lacking is any suggestion that this faith-reason dichotomy might be inherently problematic. This will be investigated in Chapter 3.

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atonement theology. What Jesus does is intimately related to who Jesus is, and his belief is no exception to this rule. Investigating this claim requires addressing the coherence of the Christ’s faith as well as the necessity of the Christ’s faith, and at all times remaining aware of the link between these two questions.

e. Recent Claims: Walter Moberly, Douglas Harink, and Michael Horton Several recent theological studies have addressed the human response to God as witnessed in the life of Jesus of Nazareth in a fashion compatible with and affirmative of the recent claims that Jesus had faith. I will only highlight the most notable instances.78 Walter Moberly has noted the typological relationship between the call to obedient faithfulness in suffering as given to Abraham in Genesis 22 and the divine Sonship which Matthew’s Gospel claims for Jesus.79 After noting the tie between testing and faith in the akedah account (Genesis 22), Moberly claims that such testing is inherent in the very relationship of divine Father and Son as evidenced during the Son’s journey into the wilderness of creaturely life.80 He then explicitly talks of Jesus as believer: ‘Jesus’ sonship means unqualified trust in God’ or ‘faithfulness when tested’.81 This faith is later given some definition: ‘For Jesus to be Son means living in constant trust and obedience towards God as his Father . . . Jesus’ need to remain receptive to God giving that dominion which it would be natural to strive to take’.82 Moberly notes the parallel between Matthew’s account of divine Sonship as enduring faithfulness and the Christological narrative found in Phil. 2.5-11.83 Moberly finds this to have anthropological importance in that Christ demonstrates what it means to be creaturely – enduring, receptive, faithful, self-emptying.84

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80 81 82 83 84

For other such examples, see James Mackey, Jesus the Man and the Myth (New York: Paulist, 1979), p. 171; Karl Rahner and W. Thüsing, Christologie—Systematisch und Exegetisch (QD 35; Freiburg: Herder, 1972), pp. 211–26; Hans Urs von Balthasar, ‘Fides Christi’, in Sponsa Verbi (Einsiedeln: Johannes, 1961); FT: La Foi du Christ (Paris: Aubier, Montaigne, 1966), pp. 45–79; Colin Gunton, The Christian Faith: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002), p. 103; Jacques Guillet, La Foi de Jésus (Paris: Desclée, 1980). R. W. L. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith: A Study of Abraham and Jesus (CSCD; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, p. 196. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, p. 207 (cf. p. 203). Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, p. 223. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, pp. 220–23. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, p. 224.

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Douglas Harink writes with a substantially distinct concern, namely, the Christ’s faith judges and graces all human efforts at self-justification.85 Harink attempts to combine the recent NT studies on pistis Christou (e.g., Hays) and recent postliberal approaches to theology (e.g., Barth, John Howard Yoder, and Stanley Hauerwas).86 His chapter on justification contains discussion of the pistis Christou debates, the subversion of all merely anthropological accounts of religion, and the need to get beyond psychologizing accounts of faith.87 Harink finds that Paul’s emphasis upon Christ’s faith as ground of our justification provides the judgment of all human effort and the promise of every divine gift.88 While Harink, like Hays, tends to weigh down the pistis Christou with greater theological significance than it can or should bear, in so doing he shows the dogmatic import of the concept of the Christ’s faith (quite apart from its tie to this particular textual debate). Michael Horton has provided the most provocative Christology of this decade, broad in its scope, balanced in judgment, and faithful in its revised use of Christian tradition.89 One of Horton’s primary concerns is to demonstrate the importance of Christ’s humanity and obedience in the face of what he perceives to be a Barthian over-emphasis on revelation to the exclusion of redemption within historical covenant.90 Throughout his brilliant exposition, Horton several times explicitly refers to the faith/faithfulness of Jesus as significant for human salvation.91 His understanding of the Christ’s faith is such that Christ fulfills the true vocation of Adam and Israel, rendering faithful obedience in the power of the Spirit and under the probative standards of the ‘covenant of works’, thereby meriting the rewards of the ‘covenant of grace’ for all who are united to Christ by faith and baptism. Horton does not hint at any ethical significance for Christ’s faith; rather, he emphasizes the importance of Christ’s ‘active obedience’ or enduring faith for justification.92 Three very different accounts have been offered. Moberly notes the ethical significance of Christ’s exemplification of divine Sonship as enduring faithfulness in the midst of suffering and testing. Harink characterizes the 85

86 87 88 89

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Douglas Harink, Paul among the Postliberals: Pauline Theology Beyond Christendom and Modernity (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2003), pp. 25–65. Harink, Paul among the Postliberals, pp. 13–22. Harink, Paul among the Postliberals, pp. 56–65. Harink, Paul among the Postliberals, pp. 45–56. Michael S. Horton, Lord and Servant: A Covenant Christology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005). Another way of putting this would be to say that Horton wants to emphasize Christ’s place within the covenant as a human, rather than Christ’s place as Word of God to humanity. Horton, Lord and Servant, pp. 170, 172, 175, 218, 224, and 227. Horton, Lord and Servant, pp. 224–28.

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Christ’s faith as a demonstration of the apocalyptic judgment upon all human activity. Horton claims that the Christ’s faith fulfills the creational mandate to render true faithfulness unto God. Each account has much to offer and will contribute throughout this study. Yet, as with other recent theological works that have been mentioned, broader questions must be engaged, linking questions of coherence with those of necessity, epistemology with metaphysics, covenant with Trinity, and atonement with ethics.

III. The Shape of the Argument Talk of the Christ’s faith has been increasing in the past few decades in the guilds of both biblical and systematic theology. My study will demonstrate the coherence and necessity of such speech by means of dogmatic investigation, linking the Christ’s faith with issues of Christology as well as Trinitarian, atonement, and covenant theology. The dual concern of this study is to show that the faith of the Christ neither conflicts with orthodox Christology, nor negates Reformation soteriology. Morna Hooker has highlighted these concerns, suggesting that opponents of the subjective reading of pistis Christou have hesitated to embrace this interpretation for three reasons: (1) ‘a concern lest this translation undermines the basic Reformation emphasis on faith’; (2) ‘the assumption that faith is an appropriate action for the believer, but is inappropriate for Christ himself’; (3) ‘dislike of the principle of imitatio Christi’.93 Hooker’s three-pronged depiction of the opposition to the Christ’s faith can be distilled into two major concerns: a soteriological and a Christological worry. To emphasize the Christ’s faith may minimize or negate the call for Christians to have faith, particularly as emphasized in the Reformation doctrine of sola fide. The faith of the Christ also strikes many as incoherent given traditional claims about Christ’s person. Thus the contours of my argument address these two concerns by engaging the doctrine of Christ’s person and the doctrine of Christ’s work, respectively, showing the fit between the Christ’s faith and orthodox Christology and Reformed soteriology. Before commencing my argument, a brief methodological précis must address the nature of dogmatic theology, the conversation partners engaged in this study, the relation of faith and history, and the theological interpretation of Scripture.

a. Dogmatic Theology and the Church’s Witness We live in a day of many causes, many interest groups, many activisms. Theologians tailor their constructive projects to listen to and advance each

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Morna D. Hooker, ‘ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ’, NTS 35, no. 3 (1989), pp. 322–323.

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of these causes – feminist, ecological, Zionist, womanist, queer, bourgeois, neo-conservative, etc. A quick tour of the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion evidences the diversity of approaches to theological analysis; for any given question posed to five scholars, one is bound to receive at least half a dozen methodological and advocacy-driven responses. The theological agora is bustling with products ready to move. While various movements and concerns might dictate the theological issues and jargon of the day, the church has (at least in its better moments) always engaged such contemporary issues from within its own culture. Feminist concerns have been addressed not simply in categories of oppression, fulfillment, or class, but also in distinctly Christian terms such as sin, redemption, and Trinity. Political theologians from both the third world and within the first world have not only discussed political, economic, and sexual issues in Marxist terminology, but have also employed ecclesial language such as the kingdom of God, eschatology, and prophetic ministry. Simply put, the church brings its own language and concepts to engagement of culture. John Webster describes this encounter as such: ‘Theology is responsible for articulating a theological reading of these occasions. It needs to learn to interpret its present situation, not merely as a set of cultural norms or constraints or opportunities, but as an episode in the history of the gospel’s dealing with humanity’.94 The church must tend to her vocabulary and concepts. Christian speech is meant to be sanctified speech, the truthful depiction of reality tended to by the life-giving Spirit. Unless they are stretched and bent to testify to the gospel, simply borrowing the terms of the surrounding culture will not do. The particular manner in which the church reflects upon her speech, both praise and prophetic witness, can be called dogmatic theology. Dogmatic theology does not stand alongside feminist theologies or Marxist theologies simply as one more interest group. Rather, dogmatic theology reflects upon the speech of the church, considering its order and cogency when placed under the judgment of the gospel. Karl Barth describes the dogmatic task as such, ‘As a theological discipline dogmatics is the scientific self-examination of the Christian church with reference to the content of its distinctive talk about God’.95 Dogmatic theology does not proceed from the interests of the individual theologian, for it is bound to its object, the Word of God as spoken amidst the people of God – Israel, Jesus, the Church. Affinity interests cannot rule

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John Webster, Word and Church: Essays in Christian Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2001), p. 5. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I/1: The Doctrine of the Word of God (ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance; trans. G. W. Bromiley; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1975), p. 3. Hereafter abbreviated CD.

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the terminology and order of dogmatic theology, for her investigation is bound to a tradition preceding such interests and extending well beyond such affinities. Yet each theologian does bring her interests to the task. Without denying the full humanity of any theologian, dogmatics takes place within a particular ecclesial (and, thereby, intellectual) context that mortifies and vivifies.96 Context and culture should not be ignored, yet the Spirit’s testimony to the Word as found in Scripture, Creed, and culture may affirm, chastise, or deny activist claims brought to the dogmatic task.97 Sinners, in thought as in word or deed, are judged and graced by the presence of God. Such a process of mind-renewal (Rom. 12.2) occurs within the context of a body, the universal church of Jesus Christ.

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On mortification and vivification in theological method, see John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (CIT; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 86–91. It should be noted that the dogmatic method does not prevent theology from ‘plundering the Egyptians’ in any way. Mediation of intellectual and cultural knowledge by means of Christian theology testifies to the presence of the logos asarkos as recognized by those who have learned his character from strict attention to the logos ensarkos attested in the Scriptures. What is of upmost importance in the practice of dogmatic theology is careful attention to the gospel, which necessitates a distinctly Christian or gospel-driven engagement of culture, history, and the academy. As the Barmen Declaration states, Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would acknowledge as the source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God’s revelation. [‘The Theological Declaration of Barmen’ (cited in The Book of Confessions, p. 11)] To this emphasis on the Word-oriented nature of theology, one must also note the place Karl Barth continually grants to the situation of the church (and, secondarily, of the theologian herself), In its testing of the Church’s proclamation, dogmatics must orient itself to the concrete situation towards which Church proclamation itself must today be geared . . . i.e. to the Word of God as it is spoken in the present and is to be proclaimed by the Church. Dogmatics must therefore locate itself with the teaching Church in this concrete situation, making the place and task of the teaching Church its own, trying to hear with its own ears the Word of God which is spoken in the present to the present . . . An ecclesial attitude excludes the possibility of a dogmatics which thinks and speaks in a timeless way. [CD I/2: p.840] Word-centered dogmatics – attuned to the speech of God in Scripture – must condition the manner in which broader revelation is received. The Word cannot be contradictory to or separated from the Word found in these Scriptures. This methodological statement flows directly from the Christological identity of the logos asarkos and logos ensarkos.

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Dogmatic theology is catholic, universal, and whole, by its very nature. Its catholicity does not imply uniformity in every aspect, as the debates to follow will demonstrate. Rather, dogmatic theology is ordered reflection upon the gospel and the church’s response to it in faithful speech as found throughout the history of the church, both near and far. Human tendencies to make of Scripture what we want it to say can be chastened (though certainly not simply solved) by the apostolic confession of the ‘communion of saints’. Saintly communion entails giving space and attention to Christian voices of the distant present and ecclesial past, voices from every region and era. Dogmatic consideration gives ‘boundaries’ to the whole vision of the church, such that the whole gospel is heard amidst cultural myopia, intellectual and ecclesial fads.98 Considering the church’s witness to the gospel gives freedom in that it delimits the scope of the study to that spoken by the church, and it challenges the church’s speech by attending to the witness of the whole diaspora of saints found throughout the world and history. Before beginning, several methodological comments ought to be made to note the manner in which the study will actually proceed. Dogmatic theology, though engaged with the Word of God as spoken to the church throughout history, must be attuned to the particular intellectual, cultural, and ecclesial context in which it proceeds. My attempts to speak in an ordered fashion in response to the Word will no doubt be influenced by material relationships as (hopefully) by the Spirit illuminating the living Word.

b. Conversation Partners: Thomas and the Reformed Tradition As a means to this dogmatic end, I will be engaging the work of Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and Reformed orthodoxy throughout the study. Conversation with these theologians is not happenstance, rather dialogue with these theological predecessors composes an inherent strand of dogmatic theology in the Reformed tradition. Engaging Thomas on the issue of the Christ’s faith is helpful for several reasons. First, Thomas denies that the Christ exercised faith and provides a helpful point of contrast.99 Though many deny the Christ’s faith with their silence and plenty also deny it explicitly, Thomas offers a denial that

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Colin Gunton, ‘Dogma, the Church, and the Task of Theology’, in Intellect and Action: Elucidations on Christian Theology and the Life of Faith (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000), p. 16; Gunton, ‘A Rose by Any Other Name? From Christian Doctrine to Systematic Theology’, in Intellect and Action, pp. 43–44. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 3a. 7, 3. References to the Summa Theologiae will be to the Blackfriars edition (60 vols.; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963–1976). Hereafter abbreviated ST.

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is focused and extended. Second, Thomas represents a launch pad for much Roman Catholic Christology, yet most proponents of the Christ’s faith are from Reformed backgrounds. Thomas will provide a helpful dissenting voice in that his broader theological concerns are distinct from those of the Reformed tradition. In an era when evangelical theologians have not engaged Thomas at length or in depth (though there are signs of change), his voice needs to be heard with critical appreciation by evangelicals and other Protestants. Third, Thomas remains a part of the dogmatic tradition of the Western churches – Roman Catholic and those of the magisterial Reformation. To ignore Thomas and the pre-Reformation theologians would be to deny one’s own catholic integrity. Thomas must be dealt with as representative of the concrete tradition within which Reformed dogmatic theology occurs: the catholic church. Dialogue with a church teacher whose texts are saturated in Scripture, metaphysically nuanced, historically aware, and theologically substantive will certainly aid in building the strongest case possible for speaking of the Christ’s faith. I will not engage Thomas historically. Rather, his concerns about speaking of the Christ’s faith will serve as a point of conversation. This will not be a study of the theology, or even the Christology, of Thomas. This conversational method leads to the prominence given to Thomas when discussing the beatific vision (Chapter 2), faith (Chapter 3), and the covenant (Chapter 5), whereas he will play a less prominent role in considering the metaphysics of the incarnation (Chapter 4) and the doctrine of the atonement (Chapter 6). This follows from the particular interests of Thomas in addressing the question of the Christ’s faith (to be explained in detail in the next chapter), which he denies by discussing the beatific vision, faith, and the fittingness of Christ’s life for human salvation. My conversation with Thomas does not rest on the claim that Thomas’s objection to the Christ’s faith is the source of all later dissent, though his influence has clearly been enormous. Thomas is useful because he presents the strongest objection to my thesis in a clear and concise manner within the dogmatic tradition of Western theology. By outflanking Thomas, the most potent protest will have been dismissed. Theological discussion with Thomas will be mediated by the voices of the Protestant Reformation and its heirs, theologians working in the period of Protestant orthodoxy. Again, this is a constructive dogmatic proposal that can, therefore, not be limited to historical argumentation. Yet the varied testimonies of John Calvin, John Owen, Francis Turretin, Heinrich Heppe, and Herman Bavinck will all be considered throughout as concrete markers to be engaged. While none of these individuals should be accorded confessional status, the task of constructive Reformed theology requires engagement of the traditional accounts of Christology which have previously gone under the name ‘Reformed’. Such attention devoted to voices of the often maligned era of Reformed orthodoxy will pay enormous dividends 29

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regarding the topic at hand, for they often engaged Christology explicitly in terms of engaging Thomas’s theology.100 John Calvin offered very little by way of incarnational description in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, undoubtedly due to his hesitancy to engage metaphysical debates.101 Consideration of Christ in the Institutes follows the contours of the munus triplex, so extended consideration of Christ’s life occurs elsewhere in his corpus.102 Most pertinent to the Christ’s faith is his discussion of Heb. 2.13 in his commentary: ‘It does not seem to follow that we and Christ are one so that He puts the greatest faith in God. I reply that the argument stands because if He had not been a man subject to human needs, He would have no need of such faith. Since He depends on the help of God, His condition is therefore the same as ours’.103 Calvin rarely states explicitly the ontological judgments which interpreters long for, but metaphysical inferences can be drawn from the polemics in the Institutes of the Christian Religion and, most pertinently, his commentaries.104 Later Reformed theologians will be engaged on a variety of topics: the human knowledge of Christ, the character of faith, the metaphysics of the incarnation, and covenant theology. Without attempting to idealize the history of Reformed theology, certain tendencies can be traced which, for a self-identified Reformed dogmatic theology, lend themselves to formal strictures and essential material claims. John Owen, Francis Turretin, Heinrich Heppe, and Herman Bavinck each endorsed Calvin’s affirmation of the Christ’s faith against the dissent of Thomas.105

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Michael Horton has similarly highlighted the necessity and benefits of engaging Protestant orthodoxy as a real theological conversation partner, with great Christological results, yet his account has tended to present these theologians as ideal types who are not engaged much by way of citation and debate [Covenant and Eschatology: The Divine Drama (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001); Lord and Servant]. Bruce L. McCormack, For Us and Our Salvation: Incarnation and Atonement in the Reformed Tradition (SRTH; Princeton: Princeton Seminary Press, 1993), p. 6. Stephen Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 192–93. The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews and the First and Second Epistles of St. Peter (eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance; trans. William B. Johnston; CC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963), p. 28. See R. Michael Allen, ‘Calvin’s Christ: A Dogmatic Matrix for Discussion of Christ’s Human Nature’, IJST 9, no. 4 (2007), p. 383. John Owen, Pneumatologia or A Discourse concerning the Holy Spirit: Wherein an Account is Given of His Name, Nature, Personality, Dispensation, Operations, and Effects; His Whole Work in the Old and New Creation is Explained; the Doctrine concerning It Vindicated from Oppositions and Reproaches (WJO 3; ed. William L. Goold. London: Banner of Truth, 1966), p. 179; Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology (ed. James T. Dennison, Jr.; trans. George M. Giger; Phillipsburg, N. J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1992), vol. 2, p. 348; Heinrich Heppe, Reformed

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Description of the Christ’s faith stems from a particular theological tradition – the Reformed – in conversation with larger catholic interlocutors. Engagement of concrete theological ancestors results in both historical diversity and dogmatic divergences, as will be evidenced particularly regarding atonement theories in Chapter 5.106 The continuing discussion with Thomas Aquinas will evidence the need for doctrinal traditions to be chastened by continual exegesis of Scriptural judgments and cultural contexts. Whereas Thomas reformed the theological trajectory of his forefathers, heightening interest in the life and humanity of Jesus, I will point to ways in which Thomas’s own Christology has and must be further reformed. Thomas Aquinas will be the primary conversation partner throughout this study, standing in for the broad tradition which has traditionally ignored or expressly denied the coherence and necessity of the Christ’s faith. Thomas’s denial of the Christ’s faith is important in its own right as a theological argument which I hope to answer, and his claim continues to exercise great sway. Liam Walsh, in his editorial comments on the ST, stated that, ‘[i]t has never been seriously suggested in the Christian tradition that Christ lived by faith’.107 I will not claim that all later denials of the Christ’s faith are owing to the influence of Thomas, though his influence cannot be minimized. As noted above, I will converse with Thomas because his protest is the most potent objection to my thesis. Therefore, my engagement with Thomas will be theological, not historical.108 Likewise, I will discuss various figures of theological pertinence throughout the study and can only hint at the complex debates surrounding interpretation of figures such as Athanasius, John Owen, and Karl Barth. Historical study will be engaged as necessary to give substance to the theologies of Reformed orthodoxy and

Dogmatics, as Set Out and Illustrated from the Sources (ed. Ernst Bizer; trans. G. T. Thomson; San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1950; repr. London: Wakeman, 1950), pp. 434–38; Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics (ed. John Bolt; trans. John Vriend; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), vol. 3, pp. 311–12. 106

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Covenantal and atonement theology will provide the forum for discussing the relationship of Reformed orthodoxy and Karl Barth, noting the similarities and differences. Barth has been introduced previously with the contemporary theologians that his work spawned for the sake of clarifying recent trends, yet he could also be considered here after Herman Bavinck. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, vol. 49: The Grace of Christ (ed. and trans. Liam G. Walsh; London: Blackfriars, 1974), p. 15 fn.b. On the variety of interpretations of Thomas, see Romanus Cessario, A Short History of Thomism (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2004); the various essays in Fergus Kerr (ed.), Contemplating Aquinas: On the Varieties of Interpretation (FR; London: SCM, 2003).

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‘covenant theology’ in Chapter 5, as this debated topic heavily shapes my division of Reformed theology into two camps: Barth and ‘covenant theology.’109 Nonetheless, this remains a dogmatic study such that engagement of historical theology and church history must remain subsidiary, primarily limited to footnotes.

c. Faith and History Over the past two hundred years all statements about the life of Jesus have undergone historical study as to their authenticity. The tendency has been to minimize the material available for constructing a Christology, and the segmentation of biblical studies into Synoptic studies, historical Jesus studies, and Pauline studies has only fed this thinning of biblical Christology. Such cultural trends toward cynical and critical engagement of the Scriptures need to be addressed in multiple styles – theological, sociological, historical, etc. But the necessity of asking historical questions about the veracity of the testimony of the Gospels to the life of Jesus does not mean that historical study is sufficient in itself.110 This study is not historical. It does not attempt to argue for the veracity of any Scriptural statement on historical grounds. While these questions must be engaged by some, and I think some have provided helpful efforts to this end, this study is not of that sort. I will offer what has come to be termed a Christology ‘from above’.111 Jon Sobrino and others have noted the need to define humanity and the Godhead by means of looking at Jesus of Nazareth, the God-man who reveals true God and true humanity to us.112 Thus we ought to begin with a Christology ‘from below’ which seeks to argue for the importance and deity of Christ (whatever that might mean) on the basis of historical

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Attention will be given (primarily in footnotes) to the debate surrounding the issues of continuity and discontinuity between Calvin and the later Reformed tradition. See two divergent approaches in R. T. Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism until 1649 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), and Richard A. Muller, After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition (OSHT; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Wayne Meeks, Christ is the Question (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006). But note that Meeks’s criticism of the culture of modernity, and its absorption into piety and biblical studies, is much more convincing than his later theological suggestions. Evangelical treatments of Christology have tended to come ‘from below’ and ignore the dogmatic questions internal to historical theology and confessions, according to John Webster [‘Jesus Christ’ in Timothy Larsen and Daniel Treier (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology (CCR; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 57–58]. Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads, p. 79; Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man, pp. 30–37.

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particularities found by critical study of available historical accounts. While history matters, Christ does exegete God to us and demonstrate what being truly human means, and, therefore, we should focus on the particularity of Jesus of Nazareth, these concerns become problematic when loosed from theological analysis of our own situation as theologians after the fact and before the consummation. Christology ‘from below’ and Christology ‘from above’ are both proper, so long as we are pursuing a Christology ‘from the middle’. That is, Christology done after the incarnation but without eschatological presence or historical closure requires the engagement of both movements. Sin and finitude limit the success which we may expect from historical study (by whatever method) or visio Dei (in whatever liturgical, dogmatic, or mystical form).113 Therefore, we continue to engage both realms of inquiry in the hope that they will mutually inform one another. A theological account of what we are doing will situate whatever methodological commitments we may undertake at any given time or for any particular purpose. Engagement of Christology ‘from below’ will make use of historical-critical methodologies in an ad hoc manner subject to doctrinal correction (as Pannenberg so clearly exemplifies in his embrace of supernatural occurrences amidst broad use of modern historiography).114 In fact, any attempt to do Christology ‘from below’ must recognize the limitations of self-knowledge. Nicholas Lash has noted, Could man be ‘transparent’ to himself, and thus able appropriately to express himself in language, unless he were fully free? And is not the acquisition of such freedom, the overcoming of all forms of oppression and alienation, only possible (if at all) at, and as, the end of history? . . . The paradox and tragedy of man is that he is unable to attain his own nature because he is unable, and knows himself unable, fully and with complete transparency to ‘express’ himself. Man is mysterious to himself.115 Christology ‘from below’ remains troubled by the failure of humans to understand themselves, a problem parallel to that noted by Sobrino, Pannenberg, and others in the attempt to understand God ‘from a God’s eyepoint of view’ by offering a Christology ‘from above’. Whether one grows up or burrows down, the quality of the soil in the middle limits the harvest.

113

114 115

Nicholas Lash, ‘Up and Down in Christology’, in Stephen Sykes and Derek Holmes (eds.), New Studies in Theology 1 (London: Duckworth, 1980), pp. 31–46. Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man, pp. 53–114. Lash, ‘Up and Down in Christology’, in Sykes and Holmes (eds.), New Studies in Theology I, p. 40.

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Engagement with Christology ‘from above’ will remain critical (though not cynical) of dogmatic traditions and cultural piety, seeking to be shaped by greater insight into the historical developments of Scripture and creed. Confidence cannot be entirely shaken, for God has spoken to us in Christ and through the Scriptures in the church to explain Godself to humanity (John 1:18). So Christology ‘from above’ is necessary to reflect critically on what has been shown the world, though it may need a bit more attention paid to the doctrine of God’s transcendence and the apophatic tradition than is presently demonstrated in systematic theology. Interdisciplinary study is absolutely necessary – bringing historical, philosophical, theological, political, liturgical, and other interests into play.116 The particular manner of such interaction will be decided in via and must be justified prudently in acknowledgement of our broader approach of doing Christology ‘from the middle’. This particular study of the Christ’s faith offers a Christology ‘from above’ and assumes much by way of Scripture and tradition.

d. Theological Interpretation of Scripture This study seeks to learn from and aid the project of theological interpretation of Scripture.117 Such interpretation assumes the trustworthiness of Scripture and attempts to engage critically with traditional readings of the Scriptures and the culture by the church in centuries past. Still, in particular, this Christology ‘from above’ rests on the historical efforts of others to demonstrate ‘from below’ that the Scriptures are generally reliable. Without ever claiming to vindicate the text’s claims from all objections and without acquitting the canon from the many charges put to it, my study will ignore questions ‘from below’ regarding the reliability of Scripture and its relation to history. History matters, even for reading the Scriptures. Yet history only matters insofar as the gospel matters, and this study focuses upon the precise explication of the gospel. My engagement of biblical texts will be shaped by the ecclesial reading of Scripture that has been sustained in monasteries, rectories, and university settings over the centuries. The historical methods of modernity will not always be followed, though many of their beneficial gains will be heard.118 116

117

118

David F. Ford, ‘Salvation and the Nature of Theology: A Response to John Webster’s Review of Self and Salvation: Being Transformed’, SJT 54, no. 4 (2001), pp. 560–75. See, e.g., the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible series, the Two Horizons Commentary series, and The Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer et al.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005); as well as the introductory volume by Daniel J. Treier, Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Recovering a Christian Practice (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, forthcoming). James Barr has noted that there is no such thing as the ‘historical-critical method’, only certain tools or methods which seek to be critical and historical [History and Ideology in the Old Testament: Biblical Studies at the End of a Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 32–58].

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Likewise, the history of exegesis found in the treatises, commentaries, and summae of Christian theologians throughout the last two millennia will be plumbed for faithful ways of articulating the gospel about the Christ in relation to this topic. As my engagement of Thomas shows, ecclesial tradition will be dealt with critically, ever mindful of the need for mortification and vivification by the Spirit’s testimony to and by the Word.119 Exegetical studies – be they so-called ‘pre-critical,’ modern, and post-critical or post-modern – will be dealt with in an ad hoc manner throughout this study. Readers will notice that I do not engage the hotly debated Pauline texts that have called forth sustained disagreements in the world of New Testament studies throughout the last century. While I am aware of the debates (see aforementioned) and not without my own exegetical opinions, these debates will be aided by theological reflection that is both wider-reaching and removed from the very texts in question. Much of the debate over the pistis Christou texts moves between theological and lexical-semantic argument with very little clarity as to what is being asserted and denied. After 20 years, Hays and other advocates of the subjective interpretation still have not satisfied their detractors with a definition of what the ‘faith of Christ’ might mean. By looking elsewhere in the biblical canon and the history of theology, I hope to provide an answer. Whether or not certain Pauline texts refer to what I will demonstrate dogmatically is another subject for another day. I will demonstrate that the humanity of the Christ and the work of Christ in redemptive history require the faith of the Christ, without endangering orthodox Christology or Reformation soteriology. Exegetical discussion of the ‘faith of Christ’ will be limited here for strategic reasons, but should be prodded and critiqued by my dogmatic argument. Such are my concerns and the intellectual-ecclesial context within which the following account resides. Full disclosure being given, I will now turn to the objections of these claims’ great detractor, St. Thomas Aquinas.

119

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005), esp. pp. 151–210; Webster, Holy Scripture, pp. 88–91.

35

2 perfect sight in an imperfect world: christ’s beatific vision or human ignorance? I will explain here the theological reasons for Thomas’s disagreement with my thesis.1 Thomas wrote much about Christology in various genres: Scriptural commentary, disputed questions in academic debate, catechetical writings, and summae. Given its lasting influence, fairly late date (as opposed to the early Summa contra gentiles), nearly complete form (superseding the very fragmentary, though later, Compendium), and clear order, I will focus upon Thomas’s Summa Theologiae.2 My comments upon his 1

2

I wish to highlight the theological nature of Thomas’s objection. Thomas was a theologian, not a philosopher, by profession and method. While much of his work remains useful for historical and constructive use in the discipline of philosophy, Thomas considered this endeavor to be ancillary to his properly doctrinal focus. In this respect, my understanding of Thomas as a theologian has been greatly shaped by the revisionary studies begun by the so-called nouvelle théologie (Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, M.-D. Chenu, Henri Bouillard, and Jean Daniélou). For broader discussion of the nouvelle théologie, see Aidan Nichols, ‘Thomism and the Nouvelle Théologie’, The Thomist 64, no. 1 (2000), pp. 1–19; John Milbank, The Suspended Middle: Henri de Lubac and the Debate Concerning the Supernatural (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005); Aidan Nichols, From Newman to Congar: The Idea of Doctrinal Development from the Victorians to the Second Vatican Council (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1990). On the relation of this broader movement to reflection on Thomas, see Marie-Dominique Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas (trans. A. M. Landry and D. Hughes; Chicago: Regnery, 1964); Chenu, Aquinas and His Role in Theology (trans. Paul Philibert; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 2002); Otto Hermann Pesch, Thomas von Aquin: Grenze und Größe mittelalterlicher Theologie (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1988). Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1: The Person and His Work (trans. Robert Royal; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), pp. 145–48.

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master-work will be supplemented with attention to his daily task, commentary upon Holy Scripture, by noting relevant discussions in his properly exegetical works (especially as found in his commentaries on the Gospel of John and the Epistle to the Hebrews).3 I will comment on his doctrines of faith, knowledge, beatific vision, and the humanity of Christ, as found in the ST. Thomas denied that Jesus exercised faith precisely because he affirmed certain perfections of Christ. Thomas affirmed that Christ possessed certain human knowledge that befitted the incarnate Son of God who comes to save sinners and unite them with the Triune God: acquired knowledge, infused knowledge, and the beatific vision. In attributing infused and beatific knowledge to Christ, Thomas considered him to be above the need for faith. In his view, immediate knowledge negates the need or possibility of faith, by definition, for faith is ‘the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen’ (Heb. 11.1). Thomas understood the Epistle to the Hebrews to teach that faith and hope are limited to objective content as yet unseen or unknown. I will later suggest that this verse cannot serve as a definition of faith without posing great difficulties in understanding other Scriptural texts (particularly the faith of the disciple Thomas, noted in Jn 20.26-29). In this chapter, I will challenge the basis of Thomas’s claim that Christ could not exercise faith: the nature and implications of the knowledge Thomas believed Christ to possess. The argument will proceed by, first, noting that Thomas does distinguish between divine and human knowledge, thereby limiting the debate to the relationship between human knowledge and the exercise of faith; second, considering Thomas’s claim that Christ possessed maximal infused knowledge (a habitus graciously granted to his human nature); third, suggesting a concise explanation of what the beatific vision is, in Thomas’s own words and categories; fourth, exploring Thomas’s claim that Christ continually enjoyed the beatific vision during his earthly sojourn, from conception onwards; fifth, and only after having considered Thomas’s case on its own merits, suggesting a criticism of Thomas’s account, noting that Christ assumed true humanity and in so doing was limited by human ignorance during his earthly life; sixth, noting the dogmatic necessity of affirming the development of Christ’s humanity within the limits of true humanity; seventh, and finally, showing that Thomas’s argument requires Christ’s immediate glorification upon conception, and suggesting

3

On Thomas as master of sacra pagina – both vocationally and theologically, an interpreter of Holy Scripture – see esp. W. G. B. M. Valkenberg, Did Not Our Hearts Burn? Place and Function of Holy Scripture in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Utrecht: Thomas Institute, 1990); the essays in Thomas Weinandy, Daniel Keating, and John Yocum (eds.), Aquinas on Scripture: An Introduction to His Biblical Commentaries (London: T&T Clark, 2005); Pesch, Thomas von Aquin, pp. 42–51, 83–100.

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an eschatologically restrained alternative which affirms the incremental journey of the Son of God toward such consummate bliss.

I. Human Knowledge and Human Faith: Keeping God and Humanity Distinct Thomas distinguishes between Christ’s divine and human knowledge. Moreover Thomas does not answer the question – ‘Did Christ have faith?’ – by simply reaffirming the Son of God’s omniscience.4 The metaphysical explication of the Incarnation which allows for the distinction will be discussed at length in Chapter 4, but my explanation of Thomas’s view of the Christ’s knowledge in this chapter requires acknowledging his emphasis upon Christ’s humanity. While his doctrine of humanity (and its correspondence in Christ as ‘truly human’) may be less than ideal by modern standards of psychology, biology, and epistemology, Thomas does allow for dogmatic emphasis on Christ’s humanity as distinct (though not separate) from his divinity. Raymond Maloney has noted that the early fathers only gradually came to anything like a consensus regarding Christ’s knowledge.5 In the seventh century, when the majority of theologians finally agreed, they supported the thesis that Christ was not ignorant.6 The claim that Christ was not ignorant was anything but novel, yet the form in which it was argued added new depth to the debate, a depth which finds greater precision in the medieval scholastic theologians (especially Thomas). Whereas, Athanasius and Basil the Great had noted that the identification of Jesus with the Divine Son meant that Jesus possessed all knowledge, later theologians distinguished between (what I will term) mediate and immediate knowledge flowing from the union of the divine and human natures.7 Immediate knowledge, as affirmed by Basil, entailed the direct communication of omniscience to Jesus due to his identity as the second person of the Trinity; that is, ‘the divinity of Christ is the primary issue at stake’ in tallying the level of Jesus’s knowledge.8 Discussion of the nature of human knowledge

4 5

6

7

8

ST 3a.7.3. Raymond Moloney, ‘Approaches to Christ’s Knowledge in the Patristic Era’, in Thomas Finan and Vincent Twomey (eds.), Studies in Patristic Christology (Portland, Ore: Four Courts, 1998), pp. 37–66. Moloney, ‘Approaches to Christ’s Knowledge in the Patristic Era’, in Finan and Twomey (eds.), Studies in Patristic Christology, p. 66. Moloney, ‘Approaches to Christ’s Knowledge in the Patristic Era’, in Finan and Twomey (eds.), Studies in Patristic Christology, pp. 42–45. Moloney, ‘Approaches to Christ’s Knowledge in the Patristic Era’, in Finan and Twomey (eds.), Studies in Patristic Christology, p. 45.

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was beside the point, because Jesus knows all things immediately from his divinity. Likewise, those who posited an immediate knowledge within Christ also denied the existence of two wills.9 Later patristic theologians began to distinguish between divine and human knowledge in Christ, such that a mediate relationship between the divinity and human knowledge of Christ might be expressed. Mediated knowledge in the union of divine and human natures (required by Chalcedonian theology) entails a blessing of the humanity of Christ such that it acquires perfection.10 Gregory the Great characterizes this by stating that ‘Christ has fullness of knowledge in his humanity but not from his humanity.’11 This mediated relationship became the norm through the later patristic era and (particularly due to the influence of Augustine) led to the claim that Christ possessed the beatific vision (and, therefore, omniscience) while on his earthly pilgrimage.12 Thomas followed this line of Christological reflection, tying the question of faith in Christ to discussion of human knowledge which may fittingly receive certain graces due to its union with a divine nature. For Thomas, as for a few patristic precursors, the relationship remained mediated by the union, however, because the two natures must be considered as distinct.13 Thomas denied that Christ exercised human faith precisely because he possessed human knowledge which disallowed the

9

10

11

12

13

Moloney, ‘Approaches to Christ’s Knowledge in the Patristic Era’, in Finan and Twomey (eds.), Studies in Patristic Christology, p. 63. Moloney, ‘Approaches to Christ’s Knowledge in the Patristic Era’, in Finan and Twomey (eds.), Studies in Patristic Christology, pp. 56–60; Lionel Wickham, ‘The Ignorance of Christ: A Problem for the Ancient Theology’, in Lionel R. Wickham and Caroline P. Bammel (eds.), Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy in Late Antiquity: Essays in Tribute to George Christopher Stead (New York: E. J. Brill, 1993), pp. 213–26. Moloney, ‘Approaches to Christ’s Knowledge in the Patristic Era’, in Finan and Twomey (eds.), Studies in Patristic Christology, p. 61 (emphasis mine); Lionel Wickham, ‘The Ignorance of Christ’, in Wickham and Bammel (eds.), Christian Faith and Greek Philosophy in Late Antiquity, p. 225. Moloney, ‘Approaches to Christ’s Knowledge in the Patristic Era’, in Finan and Twomey (eds.), Studies in Patristic Christology, pp. 50, 60–61. Moloney, ‘Approaches to Christ’s Knowledge in the Patristic Era’, in Finan and Twomey (eds.), Studies in Patristic Christology, p. 63 fns. 67–68. Moloney follows Bernard Lonergan in tying the distinction of divine and human and the move to a mediated relationship between the Word and Christ’s human knowledge to the emergence (and culmination in the twelfth century) of nature and supernature as a comprehensive distinction for doing metaphysics (Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas [CWBL 2; New York: Herder & Herder, 1971], pp. 13–19). Moloney also here notes the role of Leontius of Byzantium in foreshadowing the later medieval distinction; see Brian E. Daley, ‘ “A Richer Union”: Leontius of Byzantium and the Relationship of Human and Divine in Christ’, SP 24 (1993), pp. 239–65. Daley has more recently noted that precedent for the distinction of the natures and, therefore, a mediated framework for the perfection of Christ’s human

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exercise of faith. Thomas articulated the mediation of complete (though not comprehensive) knowledge to the human nature of Jesus in two ways: being maximally graced with infused knowledge and his constant possession of the beatific vision.

II. Infused Knowledge and the Aesthetics of the Incarnation Thomas affirmed Christ’s experience of three types of knowledge: experimental, infused, and beatific. Experimental knowledge (experimentalis scientia) entails the gaining of understanding by way of sensory experience, a typical human progress toward mature knowledge. While possession of beatific and infused knowledge may interfere with incremental growth in experimental knowledge, this type of knowledge itself does not interfere with the exercise of faith.14 Every human learns by way of experimentation – the sensory acquisition of knowledge – and is only inhibited from the exercise of faith wherever the experimentally acquired knowledge is identical to the content of faith. Bereft of immediate possession of replete experimental knowledge, this type of knowledge does not inhibit someone from exercising faith at least temporarily (until the later acquisition of greater experimental knowledge). Therefore, I will not discuss experimental knowledge in the life of Christ at any length. Infused knowledge results from the gracious act of God granting understanding in a manner that does not follow the typical fact-finding progression of sensory experience. Thomas distinguished between the two manners of natural knowledge by dividing the mind’s operation into active and passive principles. The active exercise of the mind learns by way of experimentally acquiring knowledge from particular sensory perception. The mind also passively learns by infusion or endowment, supplanting the standard gradual and frustrating attempts to actualize the potencies of the mind. The active exercise of the mind remains limited by the bodily, created, and sinfully tainted efforts of the individual; therefore, progress in this experimental knowledge typically comes slowly and in fragments. Passive knowledge, therefore, becomes greatly important, insofar as it makes up the difference. In Thomas’s words, ‘the passive intellect of man is in potentiality to all intelligible objects. It is made actual by intelligible

knowledge, can be found in Gregory of Nyssa’s interaction with the Apollinarians (‘Divine Transcendence and Human Transformation: Gregory of Nyssa’s AntiApollinarian Christology’, ModTheo 18, no. 4 (2002), pp. 497–506). 14

ST 3a.9.4, ad.2–3; cf. Ioan. 6, lect. 2, n.868.

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species, which are its complementary forms.’15 God supplies the ‘intelligible species’ which complement the passive potency of the mind’s grasp of reality in its particularities. This divine gift has been given to the angels (according to both Augustine and Thomas) and befits Christ as well.16 Thomas’s belief that Christ was endowed with knowledge, beyond his mere experimental acquisition of particulars and infused in a manner distinct from the beatific vision (to be discussed below), rests on shaky ground, that of fittingness. Thomas notes that the ‘human nature assumed by the Word of God ought not to be in any way imperfect.’17 Orthodox theologians of all stripes have consistently noted the need for the Savior to be altogether perfect. But perfection requires definition of some sort, and Christ himself is the primary demonstration of true humanity.18 Thomas errs when he quickly asserts that potentiality is inherently flawed or imperfect: ‘everything that is in potentiality is imperfect, until it is reduced to actuality.’19 Lest Christ be imperfect, Christ must not possess any potential knowledge. Therefore, Christ’s potential knowledge must be upgraded or transformed into active knowledge by an endowment from God. As soon as Thomas notes that potentiality is wrong, his conclusion that Christ possessed infused knowledge is required.

III. Thomas on the Beatific Vision Prior to analyzing Thomas’s claim that Christ perpetually possessed the beatific vision while on earth, I must explicate his doctrine of the beatific vision to demonstrate what is being predicated of Jesus. Because Thomas did not complete the tertia pars of the ST, in particular the section on eschatology, his comments on the beatific vision in the ST are incomplete.20 Therefore, I will use both the ST and the earlier Summa contra gentiles.21 Thomas’s account of the beatific vision must be seen within a particular context: historical, doctrinal, and pastoral. First, his historical context must be appreciated, particularly as a distinct point in intellectual history.22 The writings of Aristotle had only recently reentered the life of the West, thanks to the discovery of Islamic translations and commentaries. Whereas most

15 16 17 18

19 20 21

22

ST 3a.9.3, reply. ST 1a.58.6. ST 3a.9.3, reply. See, e.g., P. E. Hughes, The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989; repr. Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 1999), pp. 213–14. ST 3a.9.3, reply. Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. I, pp. 289–95. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975). Hereafter SCG. On socio-political issues, see Pesch, Thomas von Aquin, pp. 52–65.

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theologians operated within Platonic frameworks (many continuing the watered-down neo-Platonism of Augustine), Thomas followed his teacher, St Albert the Great, in attempting to make use of this ‘new philosophy’ for his theological project. To that end, Thomas spent much time in commentary upon Aristotle. Thomas sought to use Aristotelian thought as a grammar by which the Christian message might be spoken more clearly. Thomas must be seen as voicing a particularly new answer in the debate over grace and nature, by then typically discussed solely in the categories of faith and reason.23 Thomas has a particularly Christian answer to this debate, and the beatific vision provides an eschatological limit for such debate.24 Secondly, Thomas’s account of the beatific vision exists within a dogmatic system of various doctrines, necessarily interpenetrating one another. The beatific vision involves discussing the doctrines of the Trinity, Christology, atonement, anthropology, and eschatology. The nature of Christ’s life is discussed primarily as a particular apprehension of the divine essence by the God-man, signaling the status of Christ as the human par excellence. Christ partook of what is inherently an eschatological experience – namely the apprehension of the divine essence by a human. Anthropological questions regarding the relationship between creature and Creator, as well as discussing the relationships between soul, mind, and body, are necessarily raised by these Christological and eschatological issues. Finally, the precise nature of human participation in the life of the Triune God shapes this doctrine, for human apprehension of the divine essence must be related to the divine unveiling of the divine.25 Each of these doctrinal loci relates to one another and must be seen systemically, so an account of Thomas’s theology of the beatific vision must be attentive to the theological warp and woof of the ST in its own dogmatic milieu. Third, Thomas’s account of the beatific vision suits a particular pastoral concern – the pursuit of happiness. While medieval theology substantively shifted from the patristic quest to know God toward offering a solution to

23

24

25

Edward Mahoney, ‘Sense, Intellect, and Imagination in Albert, Thomas, and Siger’, in Norman Kretzmann et al. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 602–22. For accounts of his anthropology which appropriately highlight the formal claims sustained by his deep dogmatic commitments, see Mark D. Jordan, The Alleged Aristotelianism of Thomas Aquinas (EGS 15; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1990); Marcia L. Colish, Remapping Scholasticism (EGS 21; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2000), pp. 7–8. For two spacious accounts of creaturely participation which highlight Thomas’s Christian adoption of neoplatonic categories, see Fergus Kerr, After Aquinas, pp. 149–61; John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock, Truth in Aquinas (RO; London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 19–59.

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the plight of sinners before a just God,26 Thomas’s account of the beatific vision continues to operate within categories of vision, knowledge, and participation.27 Thomas avoided the simplicity of some (e.g., Peter Abelard) who sought to limit the variety of theories applied to the atonement or salvation. His emphasis on the promise of the beatific vision creatively maintained the patristic emphasis on participation and knowledge of God amidst the medieval turn toward more objective theories of the atonement and more emphatically legal metaphors for the divine–human relationship.28 In all this, Thomas’s goal is to describe the character of ultimate happiness, the desire of all. Noting that all seek the good, he points out the virtue of seeking the greatest good, thereby promoting a distinctly medieval piety.29 These contextual points made, the content of Thomas’s doctrine of the beatific vision can now be explained. The beatific vision entails human apprehension of the essence of God, as 1 Jn 3.2 states: ‘We shall see him just as he is.’30 Thomas considers this sight in his early discussion of the knowledge of God, after discussing the divine nature and prior to consideration of appropriate theological language. God’s distinctive way of being – simple, perfect, good, infinite, immutable, eternal, united – shapes the way in which God will be known by creatures.31

26

27

28

29 30 31

On this shift, see Ellen T. Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 153. Francesca Aran Murphy, ‘Gilson and Chenu: The Structure of the Summa and the Shape of Dominican Life’, NBf 85 (2004), p. 299. Myrrha Lot Borodine, La deification de l’homme selon la doctrine des pères grecs (Paris: Cerf, 1970); Yves Congar, ‘La déification dans la tradition spirituelle de l’Orient’, Vie Spirituelle 43 (1935), pp. 91–107; Luc Thomas Somme, Fils adoptifs de Dieu par Jésus Christ: La filiation divine par adoption dans la théologie de saint Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Vrin, 1997); A. N. Williams, The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 34–101. SCG 3-1.24. ST 1a.12.1. On Thomas’s doctrine of God, see ST 1a.3–11; David Burrell, Aquinas: God and Action (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979); Christopher T. Hughes, On a Complex Theory of a Simple God: An Investigation in Aquinas’ Philosophical Theology (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989); Brian Davies, ‘Aquinas on What God is Not’, in Brian Davies (ed.), Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae: Critical Essays (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), pp. 129–44; Reinhard Hütter, ‘The Directedness of Reasoning and the Metaphysics of Creation’, in Paul J. Griffiths and Reinhard Hütter (eds), Reason and the Reasons of Faith (TTFC; New York: T&T Clark, 2005), pp. 160–93; Gregory P. Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God: Thomas Aquinas on the Interplay of Positive and Negative Theology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2004), pp. 255–333; Erich Przywara, Analogia Entis: Metaphysik (Einsiedeln: Johannes-Verlag, 1962); cf. Reginald GarrigouLagrange, The One God: A Commentary on the First Part of St. Thomas’s Theological Summa (trans. Bede Rose; London: Herder, 1946).

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Thomas begins his discussion of the knowledge of God by noting the prime example of such knowledge: actual sight of God’s essence. He will only later move toward more manageable and modest types of knowledge of the divine, because the category of divine knowledge can only be defined by first noting its goal; as with other things (e.g., goodness in ST 1a.5–6), a thing is defined by its intended fulfillment.32 The beatific vision represents the culmination of human knowledge of the divine. The beatific vision makes sense for Thomas in two ways: from consideration of both God and humanity. It only makes sense that God would be wholly knowable, given that God is ‘wholly realized.’33 ‘In so far as a thing is realized it is knowable’; therefore, God in se, being wholly realized and purus actus, qualifies as the most knowable of objects.34 From the side of humanity also, it only makes sense that knowledge of God would be possible, given that knowledge of one’s source characterizes happiness and fulfillment.35 True happiness occurs when one’s mind reaches the apex of its intellectual journey toward understanding.36 This intellectual apex entails knowledge of one’s source, because intellectual apprehension of causality (particularly final causality) lies at the heart of the development of the human mind.37 Based on arguments from fittingness regarding the perspectives of both God and humanity, Thomas finds the beatific vision to be a most logical doctrine. Thomas acknowledges some possible difficulties with this doctrine, however. His exposition, true to its scholastic methodology and wise engagement of theological and philosophical traditions, engages various objections in the course of its argument.38 The greatest concern of Thomas relates to the transcendence of God and the difficulty this poses for human knowledge of the divine. The worry runs as such: God is transcendent and infinite (as Thomas has demonstrated in ST 1a.3–11); humans are finite; therefore, God

32

33 34 35 36 37 38

Thomas finally discusses other types of knowledge in ST 1a.12.12–13, after engaging details of the beatific vision in 11 articles. His comments toward the end of question 12 surely point the reader back to the first question of the prima pars, where the nature of ‘holy teaching’ is defined and related organically to ‘holy Scripture.’ ST 1a.12.1, reply. ST 1a.12.1, reply. ST 1a.12.1, reply. ST 1a2ae.3.4. ST 1a2ae.2.8; 3.8. Note that Thomas addresses both theological and philosophical objections in the first article on the beatific vision (ST 1a.12.1, reply). On scholasticism as a type of academic method (as opposed to any specific dogmatic or philosophical position), see Stephen R. Spencer, ‘Reformed Scholasticism in Medieval Perspective: Thomas Aquinas and Francois Turretini on the Incarnation’ (unpublished Ph.D. diss., Michigan State University, 1988), pp. 52–64.

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cannot be known (much less seen in the essence).39 In Thomas’s words: ‘What is in itself supremely knowable may, however, so far exceed the power of a particular mind as to be beyond its understanding, rather as the sun is invisible to the bat because it is too bright for it.’40 Thomas finds this objection flawed on both theological and philosophical grounds, however. ‘If therefore the created mind were never able to see the essence of God, either it would never attain happiness or its happiness would consist in something other than God. This is contrary to faith.’41 The eschatological purpose of creation as found in Scripture requires the beatific vision, providing Thomas with a theological argument for the beatific vision. The objection is also flawed on philosophical grounds, given that ‘it belongs to human nature to look for the causes of things . . . [i]f therefore the mind of the rational creature were incapable of arriving at the first cause of things, this natural tendency could not be fulfilled.’42 Thomas argues from observation about human nature: intellectual pursuits arise from questions of causality; intellectual efforts culminate in understanding of causes from top to bottom; therefore, intellects must pursue knowledge of the final cause.43 Thomas argues for the possibility of the beatific vision by noting its fittingness with Christian eschatology and philosophical anthropology.44 Affirming the beatific vision, Thomas does not merely brush aside the objection from finitude. He chastens the characterization of the beatific vision, rather, by noting the particular manner in which it takes place, the

39

40 41 42 43

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For particularly instructive accounts of Thomas’s epistemology as related to the doctrines of God and creation, see Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God, pp. 27–48; Victor Preller, Divine Science and the Science of God: A Reformulation of Thomas Aquinas (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967; repr. Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2001). ST 1a.12.1, reply. ST 1a.12.1, reply. ST 1a.12.1, reply. On the eschatological nature of intellectual pursuit and the twofold manner of scientia, see John I. Jenkins, Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 11–50. Jenkins helpfully notes the distinction between knowing as an ‘apprentice’ (on loan from someone who knows things according to their orders of causality) and ‘saintly’ knowing (which understands causality and order on its own), pp. 51–77. Jenkins’s claim that the ST serves to move one from ‘apprenticeship’ to ‘saintly’ knowledge is more conjectural than his solid exposition of the Aristotelian distinctions which (he has demonstrated) were most certainly followed by Thomas. Given Thomas’s broader views of providence, it is enticing to say that Thomas also argues for the actuality of the beatific vision. This, of course, is a broader contextual judgment in no way found in the immediate discussion of the beatific vision. Regarding Thomas’s views on providence, see Pesch, Thomas von Aquin, pp. 145–65; Kathryn Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology: Tyranny or Empowerment? (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988; repr. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), pp. 91–104.

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occasion for its occurrence, and the degree to which it sees the essence of God. First, Thomas limits the manner in which it occurs by distinguishing it from other knowledge of God which proceeds from ‘created likeness’ (per aliquam speciem creatum).45 Thomas affirms (with Paul and Augustine) that our earthly knowledge of God happens by way of ‘dull reflection’ found in ‘created likenesses,’ thereby distinguishing the theophanic visions and parabolic epiphanies of earthly sojourners from the unmediated vision of eschatological bliss.46 Rather than claiming that God is seen by way of some representation or likeness (a finite created likeness), which would certainly mislead the viewer by limiting the ‘transcendent degree of every perfection’ within earthly limits, Thomas clarifies that the manner of sight is analogous to normal human sight. ‘Accordingly we should say that for the seeing of God’s essence some likeness is required on the power of sight, namely the light of divine glory strengthening the mind, of which the Psalm speaks, In thy light we shall see light.’47 Thomas does not shirk the transcendence of God and the epistemological limitations following from God’s immensity. He redefines sight analogously such that the beatific vision is a ‘likeness’ of the ordinary power of sight.48 Thomas follows this discussion of analogous sight with a redefinition of the faculty by which sight comes. In answer to the question of whether or not God can be seen with the corporeal eye, Thomas notes that corporeal faculties can only attain corporeal results.49 The beatific vision, by definition, is sight of that which is spiritual and non-bodily; therefore, the faculty by which one sees cannot be the bodily eye. Such sight comes ‘only by the mind’ (solo intellectu).50 Thomas does note that Job claims that he will see God ‘in

45 46

47 48

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ST 1a.12.2. ST 1a.12.2, sed contra. Milbank and Pickstock note the focal role of Jesus in mediating knowledge of God by way of ‘creaturely likeness’ (a claim which in no way denies the full divinity of Christ), claiming that the Christology of the tertia pars serves as the archetype of all earthly knowledge [Truth in Aquinas, p. 26]. Thomas later expands on the distinction between knowing by ‘created likeness’ and by the ‘essence of God itself’ in ST 1a.12.9. The knowledge of God granted to humans in the Incarnation is of the first type; while the Son of God truly reveals the Father (John 1:18), he does so by assuming a human nature. ST 1a.12.2, reply. Beyond saying that the analogous sight is non-corporeal (ST 1a.12.3), the distinctions between ordinary sight and the beatific sight are not spelled out. As with all Thomas’s discussions of analogy, this is precisely the point: the analogical nature of sight and talk of God limits even the way we distinguish it from other sight or speech. He never resorts to univocity by which analogy may be defined. See Janet Martin Soskice, ‘Naming God: A Study in Faith and Reason’, in Griffiths and Hütter (eds.), Faith and the Reasons of Faith, pp. 241–54. ST 1a.12.3, reply. ST 1a.12.3, reply.

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my flesh’ (Job. 19.26; 42.5), but the claim of Job relates to sight attained while in the flesh, not by means of the flesh.51 Thomas finds the notion of the ‘mind’s eye’ to find Scriptural support in Paul’s prayer that ‘he enlighten the eyes of your mind’ (Eph. 1.17).52 Besides denying the role of the bodily eye in the beatific vision, Thomas further denies the role of the imagination in such ultimate sight. The imagination cannot be the faculty for such vision, because ‘[w]hat appears there is an image representing God according to some likeness, as is the way with the divine Scriptures which describe God metaphorically by means of material things.’53 Thomas here limits the vision of God’s essence to the mind’s eye, a type of sight only analogous to other experiences of human vision.54 Thomas also clarifies the fitting circumstances for the experience of the beatific vision. This vision cannot occur by the human’s ‘own natural powers.’55 For that very reason, the beatific vision cannot ensue unless the viewer ‘be uplifted out of this mortal life.’56 Uplifting ‘out of this mortal life’ can occur in two ways: actual death and removal from bodily constraints or by suspension of bodily activity.57 Thomas’s motivation in this claim is to relate beatific vision and eschatology in general to the work of grace, not nature (per gratium, et non per naturam).58 Thomas notes that grace cannot circumvent nature, however.59 In point of fact, a ‘thing is known by being present in the knower’ and, therefore, the limitations of the knower – its nature – circumscribe the extent of its knowledge: ‘the way something knows depends on the way it exists.’60 God is infinite and simple; humans are finite and complex.61 To this distinction, Thomas applies a sharp limitation: ‘if the way of being of the thing to be known were beyond that of the knower, knowledge of that thing would be beyond the natural power of the knower.’62

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55 56 57 58 59 60 61

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ST 1a.12.3, ad. 1. Note that Thomas limits the occurrence of this beatific sight to life in the flesh and after the resurrection of the body. ST 1a.12.3, ad. 1. ST 1a.12.3, ad. 3. Thomas later limits the knowledge of created effects as apprehended within the beatific knowledge of their cause – God’s essence – as also by means of the mind’s eye and no ‘created likenesses’ (ST 1a.12.9, reply). ST 1a.12.4, reply. ST 1a.12.11, reply. ST 2a2ae.180.5, reply. ST 1a.12.4, sed contra; SCG 3-1.50, 52. ST 2a2ae.175.5, ad. 2. ST 1a.12.4, reply. ST 1a.12.4, reply. Thomas refers here to God as one whose ‘existence is what he is’, whereas humans are ‘of a nature that cannot exist except as instantiated in individual matter – all bodies are of this kind.’ ST 1a.12.4, reply: ‘only to the divine intellect is it connatural (connaturale soli) to know subsistent existence itself.’

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But humans do know God (hence the writing of the ST), so Thomas notes that ‘no created mind can see the essence of God unless he by his grace joins himself to that mind as something intelligible to it.’63 Thomas then distinguishes between corporeal eyesight and the created mind. ‘Since its eyesight is altogether corporeal it cannot be raised to what is immaterial.’64 The ocular faculty entails no principle of abstraction by which it can ‘transcend the material.’ The created mind ‘can consider in abstraction what it knows in the concrete, for although we know things that have their forms in matter it can nevertheless untie the two and consider the form as such.’ Aristotelian in his psychology, Thomas characterizes that apprehension of truths by way of form embedded in matter.65 The mind may then abstract from matter to consider forms. ‘Hence since the created mind has the capacity by nature to see the concrete form or concrete act of existence in abstraction by analysis, it can by grace be raised so that it may know unmixed subsistent being and unmixed subsistent existence,’ by which he means the essence of God.66 Thomas’s argument here demonstrates his broader concern to emphasize the priority of grace in perfecting nature, neither supplanting creation, nor neglecting the need for divine gifting.67 Finally, Thomas chastens the doctrine of the beatific vision by noting the limits of its grasp. First, the beatific vision will vary from person to person in its depth and clarity: ‘one will see him more perfectly than another . . . because one mind has a greater power or ability to see God than has the other.’68 Egalitarian views of the beatific vision relate to the equity of eternal life generally: ‘If therefore all saw the essence of God equally, all would be equal in eternal life.’69 Thomas considers the beatific vision to be the principium of eternal life – its pathway and its end – so his emphasis on its

63 64 65 66

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ST 1a.12.4, reply (emphasis mine). ST 1a.12.4, ad. 3. Jenkins, Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas, p. 46. ST 1a.12.4, ad. 3. Thomas then clarifies the grace given as ‘some disposition given to the understanding beyond its own nature so that it can be raised to such sublimity’ (ST 1a.12.5, reply), what he refers to as ‘created light’ and specifies as a ‘means by which he is seen’ (ST 1a.12.5, ad. 2). For the broader argument, see ST 2a2ae.175.1, ad. 2: ‘It belongs to the mode and worth of a man to be uplifted to the divine because man was created in the image of God. But as the divine goodness infinitely surpasses human capacities, man needs to be supernaturally helped to attain this good – and this takes place in any bestowal of grace. That a mind should be so uplifted by God is not against nature but above the capacities of nature.’ ST 1a.12.6, reply; see also SCG 3-1.63. On movement from lesser to greater visions of the divine essence, see Matthew Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple: Salvation according to Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), p. 134. ST 1a.12.6, sed contra.

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variability follows logically.70 This variability is occasioned by differences among humans, ‘not because of a likeness of God which is more perfect in one than in the other.’71 The differences among glorified humans relate to varying degrees of charity, ‘because a greater charity implies a greater desire, and this itself in some way predisposes a man and fits him to receive what he desires.’72 Thomas has carefully noted that way in which the ‘mode of knowing’ the essence of God varies among glorified humans, without predicating error of any of the less perfect viewers of God’s essence.73 Second, no created mind will enjoy comprehensive knowledge of the divine.74 Thomas notes two ways in which something can be comprehended: ‘strictly and properly’ by being contained, and in ‘a broader sense’ by grasping onto something.75 God may be grasped firmly (Song 3.4) but never contained. Human vision of God cannot attain ‘the most perfect sort of understanding available’ insofar as ‘the created light of glory cannot be infinite.’76 This limitation applies to the way in which all of God is known, not merely some portion of God that can be known, and, therefore, can be appropriately dubbed a qualitative limitation.77 Third, as the created mind does not comprehend God, neither does the created mind see all things (i.e., creation) in seeing God.78 ‘[H]ow things are to be seen in God depends on how they are in him.’79 All created things reside in God as effects, and knowledge of effects is limited by the comprehension of the cause. One who knows a cause thoroughly will be able to envision its effects. Humans, not knowing God comprehensively, cannot know all creaturely effects. ‘But the more perfectly God is seen the more of what he does or can do is seen in him,’ again highlighting the variegated nature of the beatific vision.80 The depth of one’s apprehension of God’s essence directly relates to the extent of one’s knowledge of created effects.

70 71 72 73

74 75 76 77

78 79 80

On the centrality of the beatific vision to Thomas’s eschatology, see SCG 3-1.25. ST 1a.12.6, reply; see also, ST 1a.12.6, ad. 3. ST 1a.12.6, reply. ST 1a.12.6, ad. 2. Less perfect vision requires error only if the distinction refers to the thing thought, wherein thinking of something as higher or lower than is justified is surely untrue and, therefore, error. Thomas will then clarify this distinction in ‘modes of knowing’ as a ‘diversity of intellectual capability . . . given by the light of glory’ (ST 1a.12.6, ad. 3). ST 1a.12.7, reply; see also SCG 3-1.61. ST 1a.12.7, ad. 1. ST 1a.12.7, reply. ST 1a.12.7, ad. 3: ‘[w]hoever sees God in his essence sees something that exists infinitely and sees it to be infinitely intelligible, but he does not understand it infinitely.’ ST 1a.12.8, reply. ST 1a.12.8, reply. ST 1a.12.8, reply.

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In conclusion, Thomas’s limitation of the beatific vision to life beyond the resurrection accentuates the thoroughly eschatological character of this epistemic category.81 As noted above, a human cannot see the essence of God ‘unless he be lifted out of this mortal life’ in one of two ways: death and resurrection or ecstasy prior to death. Whereas most will only see God’s essence after being recreated anew with bodies that will not trouble their sight, ‘he may raise up certain minds to see his essence in this life but not by making use of their bodily senses.’82 Thomas elsewhere notes three degrees of such divine elevation: imaginatively comparing, acutely contemplating God from effects, and contemplating the ‘divine truth in its essence’ (as done by Moses and Paul).83 Paul’s enrapture into the ‘third heaven’ is read as a beatific ecstasy surpassing the knowledge of both heavenly and spiritual bodies in reaching the third object of knowledge, of ‘God’s very self.’84 Thomas defines this knowledge as follows: ‘one by the Spirit of God is uplifted to a supernatural level, with abstraction from the senses.’85 Such abstraction is abnormal, momentary, and radical in severing the mind of the human from any sensory or created intellection.86 The soul is not disentangled from the body, but the body is rendered entirely passive.87 The experience is distinct from, though not discontinuous with, the normal wayfaring life of the recipient: Paul, therefore, remembered the experience and the ideas, though he could not express the knowledge in words.88 Aside from this ecstatic intervention whereby the body limits sight, humans cannot perceive the divine essence prior to resurrection.

IV. Christ’s Perpetual Possession of the Beatific Vision According to Thomas Thomas affirms the perpetual possession of this beatific vision by Jesus Christ throughout his earthly sojourn. As noted above, he distinguishes between the divine knowledge of the Son of God and that understood in a

81 82 83 84 85 86

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ST 1a.12.11; see also 2a2ae.180.5, sed contra. ST 1a.12.11, ad. 2. ST 2a2ae.175.3, ad. 1. ST 2a2ae.175.3, ad. 4. ST 2a2ae.175.1, reply. On the momentary nature of such ecstasy, see ST 2a2ae.175.3, ad. 3; on the radical abstraction and temporary lapse in sense perception and created intellection, see 2a2ae.175.5, reply. ST 2a2ae.175.5, sed contra. ST 2a2ae.175.4, ad. 3. The temporary nature of this ecstatic experience renders it categorically distinct from the beatific vision considered properly, which is by definition eternal (see SCG 3-1.62).

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created fashion (i.e., beatific, infused, and acquired).89 Thomas first states that Christ possessed the beatific vision in ST 3a.9.2 and combats three objections to his thesis: being substantially God, Christ need not participate in God beatifically; enjoying beatitude by hypostatic union with God, he need not have enjoyed this by means of (created) knowledge; having superior knowledge, Christ would not need supernatural human knowledge.90 Each of these objections extends one primary objection: Christ’s being God himself negates the need for human participation in the Triune God by means of the beatific vision. In this sense, it is fitting that Thomas addresses the beatific vision prior to infused and acquired knowledge, for the case for Christ’s enjoyment of the beatific vision seems the most critical given Thomas’s broader project and context. Only after demonstrating the fittingness of the most exalted human knowledge, the beatific, can Thomas then suggest that Christ also enjoyed other means of human knowledge.91 Christ’s possession of the beatific vision is necessary due to his causative function toward the redeemed saints.92 This follows from the principle that ‘[w]hatever is in potentiality is activated by something that is already actual: that which heats things must itself already be hot.’93 Thomas cites Heb. 2.10 to demonstrate that humanity’s perfection comes to pass by the elevation of humanity in Christ. Therefore, Christ’s own humanity must be perfect if it is to activate the participation of other humans, since the ‘cause must always be superior to what it causes.’94 Having defined supernatural perfection, beatitude, as the intellectual vision of the divine essence, the beatific vision must be possessed by Christ and extended to other humans.95 Christ’s actual vision of the divine essence does not follow that known by other humans because Christ is a unique human. At least three pertinent distinctions surface in the ST: the extent of Christ’s beatific knowledge, its clarity, and the perpetuity of this vision during his earthly sojourn. First, Christ knows all things in his knowledge of the divine essence, contrary to the typically limited nature of beatific knowledge previously described in ST 1a.12.8.96 By everything Thomas affirms Christ’s knowledge of all actual particulars. This knowledge extends from universal causality to personal intuitions and thoughts, all of which Christ must know to function 89

90 91 92 93 94

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ST 3a.9.1, reply; see also ST 3a.9.2, ad 3: ‘uncreated knowledge is above the nature of the human soul in every way’ (emphasis mine). ST 3a.9.2, obj.1–3. ST 3a.9.3–4. ST 3a.9.2, reply; Ioan. 8, lect. 8, n.1286. ST 3a.9.2, reply. ST 3a.9.2, reply; also SCG 3-1.51; Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, p. 134. On the place of the beatific vision within supernatural perfection, see ST 1a2ae.3.4; SCG 3-1.50, 52. ST 3a.10.2.

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as both Lord and Judge of all. The principle guiding Thomas here is that ‘no blessed intellect lacks knowledge through the Word of all that concerns itself.’97 Christ’s knowledge must therefore extend to all things due to his ontological lordship over all and his coming judgment of all persons. So Christ knows ‘everything that is, was or will be, in any way whatever, be it deed, word or thought, by anyone, at any time.’98 Certain Scriptural texts seem to contradict such a claim for omniscience in the Incarnate Son of God, however. Thomas carefully surveys various interpretative options for rendering the seeming ignorance of Christ regarding eschatology (Acts 1.6) and settles the matter by rendering the term ‘know’ equivalent to ‘make known’ publicly; that is, Christ did not ‘make known’ the days and times of coming events.99 Christ did know all things insofar as they all relate to him as sustaining Lord and coming Judge. Second, Christ’s beatific knowledge obtains greater clarity.100 While lacking the clarity found in God’s own knowledge within Godself, Christ did possess greater clarity of vision than other humans.101 Apart from a theoretical ‘sublimity’ which must be posited of the ‘infinite power of God,’ ‘there cannot be a greater grace than Christ has.’102 Though all the blessed do see the divine essence by means of their participation in the Word, the depth of this vision varies as does the intensity of the fellowship between the seer and the Word.103 Given Jesus’s hypostatic union with the Word, his vision through the Word entails a richness which cannot be equaled by those whose fellowship with the Word is less than identical. Thomas can articulate this qualitative superiority in terms of metaphysical nearness or moral habitude: Christ is superior to other humans as the Word of God and because of his virtuous perfection.104 Third, Christ possessed the beatific vision from his conception.105 Thomas follows a principle of Christological dignity: namely Christ does not receive any grace which does not immediately result in activity.106 Granted that

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ST 3a.10.3, reply. ST 3a.10.2, reply. ST 3a.10.2, ad.1. ST 3a.10.4. ST 3a.10.2, ad.3. ST 3a.10.4, ad.3. ST 3a.10.4, reply. ST 3a.10.4, ad.1; Ioan. 8, lect. 8, n.1286. ST 3a.34.4; on the psychological and developmental difficulties of such a claim, see Benedict M. Ashley, ‘The Extent of Jesus’ Human Knowledge according to the Fourth Gospel’, in Michael Dauphinais and Matthew Levering (eds.), Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas: Theological Exegesis and Speculative Theology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), p. 250 fn.11. ST 3a.34.3, reply.

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Christ would not leave nascent any such gifting, any gifting equivalent to or beyond that of the blessed seers would, therefore, lead to activity of such equivalence or superiority.107 Thomas finds such extravagant grace to be lavished on Christ, given the claims of John’s Gospel (Jn 3.34). Therefore, Christ must be blessed beyond the most magnanimous grace known to us – that of the blessed seers – and this limitless grace must be actualized immediately. Christ’s knowledge of the divine essence, in spite of these extensions, does not comprehend God.108 Thomas affirms Augustine’s maxim that ‘anything that fully comprehends itself proves itself finite’ and notes the futility of seeking to comprehend that which is infinite.109 Approximating something like the later extra Calvinisticum (finitum non capax infiniti), Thomas affirms another claim of Augustine: the Word of God did not cease to govern the universe in taking human nature into the Son of God’s own person.110 This ontological claim entails an epistemic corollary: ‘In the same way the soul of Christ saw the entire essence of God, but did not fully comprehend it.’111 The gracing of the Son of God’s human nature entails the perfection, not the implosion, of its finite form; therefore, Jesus did not humanly comprehend the divine essence. Christ was both a pilgrim and a beholder.112 The oddity of being both a wayfarer and a blessed seer was not lost on Thomas, given that wayfarers are traveling and the blessed have arrived.113 The claim is only incoherent, however, if both predicates are affixed to someone in the same manner, a confusion which Thomas attempts to avoid.114 Thomas considers Christ a beholder in the soul; that is, Christ saw God perfectly in his soul and thereby enjoyed beatitude. Yet Christ did not enjoy complete beatitude insofar as ‘his soul could still suffer, and his body was liable to pain and death.’115 Certain aspects of his person were not yet glorified, though he enjoyed the vision of God which represented the perfection of soul and mind, even from his conception. Thomas here and elsewhere privileges the mental as the key

107 108 109 110

111 112 113 114 115

ST 3a.34.4, reply. ST 3a.10.1, reply. ST 3a.10.1, sed contra. ST 3a.10.1, ad.2; for the catholic history of the so-called extra Calvinisticum, see E. David Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology: The Function of the So-Called Extra Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology (SMRT 2; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966); Heiko Oberman, ‘The Extra Dimension in the Theology of Calvin’, JEH 21, no. 1 (1970), pp. 43–64. ST 3a.10.1, ad.2. ST 3a.15.10. ST 3a.15.10, obj.1. ST 3a.15.10, ad.1. ST 3a.15.10, reply.

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ingredient to beatitude and, therefore, humanity; hence, the perfection of the mental soul is real beatitude, even if it occurs in one liable to frailty, fleshly sufferings, and even death.116 Perhaps it would be most fitting to say that Christ’s body was wayfaring, whereas Christ’s mental soul was a beholder.117 This claim – that Christ was both wayfarer and beholder – encapsulates Thomas’s account of Christ’s possession of the beatific vision. Christ perpetually enjoys the full vision of the divine essence due to the unmeasured grace lavished upon him by the Father, mitigated only in theory by certain aspects of embodiment which Thomas does not extrapolate on or theoretically account for in his broader theology. I will now examine two ways in which this claim might be challenged.

V. Christ’s Human Ignorance Thomas intends to uphold the possession of universal knowledge by Christ while incarnate, dogmatically mediated by the grace of beatific vision, and Scriptural texts can be marshaled to support such a claim. In Col. 2.3, Paul’s words of admonition locate ‘all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ in ‘Christ himself.’ Paul uses the terminology of ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ to refer his readers’ curiosity to the fulfillment of the divine mystery in Jesus, the revelation which brings assurance (2.2). The ‘treasures’ in Col. 2.3 may refer to wisdom and knowledge possessed only by Christ or to spiritual blessings found primarily in Christ and, secondarily, in others by union with Christ (cf. Eph. 1.3). Paul does have a polemical concern here: Christ’s possession of these ‘treasures’ – whether shared or not – entails the assurance of divine revelation and, therefore, disallows dependence on deceptive teachers who claim to possess secret knowledge (2.4). Either as a means to silence speculation or to route it directly to Jesus’s person, Paul wishes to undercut the gnostic pursuit of extra-canonical revelation.118 The particular content of ‘all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,’ however, remains quite underdeveloped and, in fact, does not reappear in the letter.119 To find

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ST 3a.15.10, ad.2: ‘Beatitude principally and more properly resides in the soul as mind. Secondarily, however, and in a kind of instrumental way, the things that perfect the body are required for beatitude.’ Thomas does leave open the possibility, noted here in his reply, that physical struggle leads to mental failures or limitations. He does not explain what such failures might entail and, in fact, leaves little room for such failure in his Christology or anthropology. ‘Extra-canonical’ is here used to describe teaching outside the doctrine of Christ and his apostles, not outside the Scriptural canon (as this would be a historically anachronistic comment to make regarding the text of Colossians). Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 351.

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Scriptural roots for the doctrine of Christ’s beatific vision and human omniscience, other texts must be sought out. The Gospels contain certain statements which have seemed to some to imply a universal knowledge possessed by Jesus.120 In Mt. 11.27, Jesus claims that he alone knows the Father.121 The Father has ‘handed over’ to Jesus all things, such that revelation of the Father becomes dependent on the Son’s good will. Interestingly, the context is somewhat similar to that of Col. 2.3 in that Christ’s possession of knowledge leads to the call for others to look only to Christ.122 Christ’s uniqueness in Matthew’s Gospel is contrasted with the yokes of Jewish nomism (vv. 28–30) and the elite sophists (vv. 25–26). Again, the possession of unique knowledge by Jesus is not extrapolated; the exact nature of Christ’s own knowledge is not the point. While the claim that Christ knew all things may be compatible with these texts, it must be rooted elsewhere. Following the resurrection and Jesus’s presentation of his risen body to his disciples, Peter is questioned by Jesus and, out of frustration at Jesus’s repetitious inquiries, tells Jesus that ‘you know everything’ (Jn 21.17). John’s presentation of Peter’s observation leaves much to the imagination: how broadly should Peter’s use of the term ‘all’ (panta) be taken to describe Christ’s knowledge – ‘all’ as enough to know that Peter’s answer to a question will be the same as his two immediately previous answers to the question or all as universally encompassing knowledge of God and all things relating to Christ as seen in God’s essence (the beatific vision) or something else entirely? The two options represent two very different claims here: one more strictly conversational (essentially ‘Jesus, you are bright enough to remember what I just told you’), the other theologically suggestive and rhetorically heavy (‘Jesus, you know everything – why bother asking?’). The immediate text of John’s Gospel simply does not necessitate either reading; therefore, again evidence from elsewhere must be taken into consideration. At this point then I will survey the roots for a claim that Christ did not know everything. By noting Scriptural evidence for his ignorance, his intellectual growth, and his human experience (similar to our own), the options for rendering Jn 21.17 might be illuminated by the analogia fidei.123 Before proceeding, the term ‘ignorance’ deserves explanation, as it may seem unseemly. John Owen helpfully defines the term:

120 121 122

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Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 350. See also Jn 6.46. Similarly, the context of Jn 6.46 demonstrates the use of Jesus’s profuse knowledge as a ground for entreating readers to seek knowledge only in Christ. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 350.

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Take ‘ignorance’ for that which is a moral defect of any kind, or an unacquaintedness with that which any one ought to know, or is necessary unto him as to the perfection of his condition or his duty, and it is false that any of them ascribed it unto him. Take it merely for a nescience of some things, and there is no more in it but a denial of infinite omniscience – nothing inconsistent with the highest holiness and purity of human nature.124 Owen distinguishes between sinful and simple humanity, that is, between what is irresponsibly human and innocently naïve.125 Whether or not Christ ever sinned or irresponsibly lacked knowledge (‘that which any one ought to know . . . as to the perfection of his condition or his duty’) will not be discussed here, for my discussion will consistently use the term ‘ignorance’ to refer to innocent ignorance. Irrespective of how one understands the references to knowledge of ‘all’ in Col. 2.3, Mt. 11.27, and John 21.17, the texts do not specify the manner in which this knowledge was possessed – humanly or divinely. Given the Chalcedonian commitment to a ‘two natures’ Christology, particular care must be given to clarify whether a Scriptural claim properly predicates knowledge of Christ’s person simply or as related to a particular nature.126 The metaphysics necessary to make such distinctions will be discussed in Chapter 4. At this point, I only wish to interject the distinction itself: texts may claim extensive knowledge for Christ (even universal knowledge) and make no claim for universal human knowledge. As noted above, Thomas appreciated this distinction and, therefore, limited his argument to mediated enjoyment of human omniscience for the God-man. Given the broader case for Christ’s ignorance, these texts likely do not imply that he knew

124 125 126

Owen, Pneumatologia, p. 170. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 350. To anticipate an objection to Reformed Christology: Christ knows things personally, that is, as a person; therefore, any attempt to parcel intellectual acts out to different natures necessarily divides Christ in a Nestorian fashion. For this objection, see Robert Jenson, ‘With No Qualifications: The Christological Maximalism of the Christian East’, in Kenneth Tanner and Christopher Hall (eds.), Ancient and Postmodern Christianity: Paleo-Orthodoxy in the 21st Century: Essays in Honor of Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2002), p. 19; Colin Gunton, ‘Creation and Mediation in the Theology of Robert W. Jenson: An Encounter and a Convergence’, in Colin E. Gunton (ed.), Trinity, Time, and Church: A Response to the Theology of Robert W. Jenson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 84. This objection confuses Jesus’s life with Scriptural commentary upon his life; therefore, it mistakes what are properly analytical statements made and implied in Scripture regarding the way in which the person of Jesus knew things for statements that only a part of Jesus (or, even worse, one of two Jesuses) knew something. See chapter four for discussion of the divine and human in Jesus by means of hypostatic union.

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everything humanly. I will now address the broader Scriptural case for acknowledging certain limitations in Christ’s human intellectual life to undercut the epistemology of the beatific vision and, in so doing, demonstrate the likelihood that these claims to extensive knowledge do not refer to a perpetually extensive human knowledge, that is, human omniscience. The case for Christ’s human ignorance (and, therefore, against his perpetual possession of the beatific vision) cannot be based on merely conventional usage of questions in his speech with others.127 His attempts to identify the names of particular people (Mk. 5.9; Lk. 8.30) need not entail anything more than accommodating conventions of social interaction and may simply be read as rhetorical devices, thereby being tangential to the question at hand. Likewise, his question regarding the location of Lazarus’s grave (Jn 11.34) most likely occurs as little more than a rhetorical ploy to highlight the seeming finality of Lazarus’s plight and Jesus’s grief, evidencing little concern for engaging the question of Jesus’s knowledge of the burial site. Jesus’s conversational – even inquisitive – interaction with others cannot ground my claim that he lacked certain human knowledge any more than yhwh’s questions imply divine ignorance (Gen. 3.9, 11, 13). More to the point is Matthew’s account of neighborly perspectives on Jesus, expressed by Nazarenes upon hearing his teaching in the local synagogue (Mt. 13.54-57). ‘They were astounded’ by his teachings and questioned the source of his great ‘wisdom and these deeds of power’ (v. 54). They perceived Jesus’s childhood as intellectually and hortatorily normal, suggesting a typical development that would not have tipped off his neighbors to a static greatness looming in the carpenter’s household.128 Jesus does deny the possession of certain knowledge, moreover, and this is germane to the topic. In the midst of his extended eschatological discourse (recounted in Mk. 13.5-37 and Matthew 24-25), Jesus volunteers a note of caution: ‘But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father’ (Mk. 13.32; see also Mt. 24.36). Though he does place himself between the angels and the Father, thereby hinting at a discussion of his divinity, this is likely not a claim to divine ignorance or else it goes against extensive Scriptural claims regarding divine omniscience as related (even in the New Testament) to the Son (e.g., Col. 2.3). Nor does Jesus seem to be denying the disciples the knowledge they want, even though he possesses it.129 Christ here claims to be ignorant, 127 128

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Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, p. 312. Francois Bovon, Luke, vol. 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 1:1–9:50 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), p. 115: ‘God’s favor and human recognition rest on the child as he develops’ (emphasis mine). Contrary to much of the patristic and medieval exegetical tradition (Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity [ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; trans. E. W. Watson; NPNF 2:9; n.p.: Christian Literature, 1899; repr. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999],

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whereas elsewhere he seems willing to deny the disciples that which they foolishly seek (Acts 1.6–7).130 Rather, his denial here relates precisely to his own knowledge, noting that the angels and he lack something which is only possessed by the Father, the creator of heaven and earth.131 The particular manner in which the Father is contrasted with creation – angels and Jesus, the incarnate Son – will be explored in Chapter 4. At this point, the claim to ignorance must be highlighted, though ‘we are to understand the ignorance in the most reverent sense, by attributing it to his human nature, and not to the Godhead.’132 This ignorance regards eschatological activities which clearly involve the Father and, by extension, the Son who represents his Father – particularly given the Son’s role as lordly Judge. Christ, therefore, lacked certain knowledge which relates to the Godhead (i.e., coming judgment of God’s creation), knowledge identified with Christ’s own words (v. 31).133 In Athanasius’s words, ‘viewed as an ordinary man, he does not know the future, for ignorance of the future is characteristic of the human condition . . . along with all human beings, similarly as human he does not see the future.’134 John Owen notes that the eschatological plans which Christ humanly lacks at this stage of his earthly life are revealed to him humanly only upon his glorification (Rev. 1.1). God (assumedly the Father) ‘gave him [the revelation] to show his pp. 175–77 [58–62]; Augustine, On the Trinity, pp. 82–83 [1.4.23]; Gregory the Great, Epistle 39 [ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; trans. James Barmby; NPNF 2:13; n.p.: Christian Literature, 1898; repr. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999], p. 48). For assessment of the patristic exegetical spectrum on these issues, see Kevin Madigan, ‘Christus Nesciens? Was Christ Ignorant of the Day of Judgment? Arian and Orthodoxy Interpretation of Mk 13:32 in the Ancient Latin West’, HTR 96, no. 3 (2003), pp. 255–78; Madigan, ‘Ancient and High-Medieval Interpretations of Jesus in Gethsemane: Some Reflections on Tradition and Continuity in Christian Thought’, HTR 88, no. 1 (1995), pp. 157–73. 130

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Athanasius, Against the Arians (ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; trans. J. H. Newman; NPNF 2:4; n.p.: Christian Literature, 1892; repr. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999), p. 420 (III.48); for helpful discussion of Athanasius’s understanding of Christ’s human nature, see Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 138–61. Bas M. F. van Iersel, Mark: A Reader-Response Commentary (trans. W. H. Bisscheroux; JSNTSS 164; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 409–10; cf. the solely redactional emphasis of W. R. Telford, The Theology of the Gospel of Mark. (NTT; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 19, 38, 183. Gregory of Nazianzen, Fourth Theological Oration (ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; trans. C. G. Browne and J. E. Swallow; NPNF 2:7; n.p.: Christian Literature, 1894; repr. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999), p. 315 (xv). Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, pp. 349–50. Athanasius, Against the Arians (ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; trans. J. H. Newman; NPNF 2:4; n.p.: Christian Literature Publications, 1892; repr. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999), p. 419 (III.46).

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servants what must soon take place,’ implying that the Son learned something.135 Applying the analogia fidei, the Son learned this humanly upon his glorification and ascension, when his human nature was readied for such effulgent knowledge. It is precisely the eschatological nature of Christ’s extensive human knowledge and, prior to that realization, his nascent ignorance that demonstrates the incongruity of Thomas’s claim with the Scriptural accounts. Whereas Thomas claimed that the perpetual possession of the beatific vision entailed knowledge of the beatific vision and all things which relate to the seer – all things in Christ’s case – Calvin understands ‘there was nothing absurd for Christ, who knew everything, to be ignorant of something as far as man could understand’ because ‘the Divinity was silent (quievit Divinitas) and made no assertion of itself whenever it was the business of the human nature to act alone in its own terms.’136 Ignorance of God’s future judgment surely entails a failure to know something at the heart of God’s relation to the world and, therefore, demonstrates the incoherence of Thomas’s doctrine of Christ’s having the beatific vision.

VI. Jesus’s Perfection Within the Limits of Humanity The ignorance of Christ attested to in Mark’s Gospel (13.32) coalesces with the incarnational theology developed in the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Synoptic Gospels, whereby the taking of humanity en esse entails the experience of growth and development in the life of the incarnate Son.137 Christ’s life was singular and metaphysically different from any other life, yet this singularity does not follow from any lack or implosion of his humanity, but from a divine excess (which will be explained in Chapter 4).138 I will now

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Owen, Pneumatologia, p. 161: ‘So after his ascension God gave him that revelation that he made to the apostle, Rev. i.1.’ John Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 3 (eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance; trans. A. W. Morrison; CC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), p. 99. Emil Brunner, Dogmatics, vol. 2: The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption (trans. Olive Wyon; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1952), pp. 323–24. It is this singularity that distinguishes metaphysical discussion of Christ’s two natures, wills, and knowledges from psychological discussion of schizophrenia and the like. Christ, being the theanthropos, cannot be likened unto any other human and, therefore, cannot be psychologized, as he is sui generis. Jesus Christ exists humanly and divinely, and it is not the dual nature of his existence that renders him psychologically indescribable, but that one of his natures is divine. See Ivor J. Davidson, ‘ “Not My Will but Yours be Done”: The Ontological Dynamics of Incarnational Intention’, IJST 7, no. 2 (2005), p. 200, and Chapter 4 of the present study.

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briefly clarify the dogmatic importance of growth and development as highlighted by Luke’s Gospel and the Epistle to the Hebrews. Luke offers the most extended narrative regarding Christ’s childhood, and his account provides the best commentary on Christ’s intellectual life. In Luke 2 the early childhood of Jesus boasts one summation: ‘the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him’ (2.40).139 The wisdom which Christ demonstrates is such that he is ‘filled’ (pleroumenon), likely denoting a stage-appropriate maturation and fulfillment of human destiny. Jesus has engaged the teachers in the temple and astounded them with knowledge, such that they were ‘amazed at his understanding and his answers’ (2.47). Jesus is here distinguished from typical adolescents, highlighting the singularity of his life. Luke clarifies this singularity by reporting Jesus’s own apprehension of his dependence on the Father: he identifies yhwh as Father and demonstrates the need he has for his presence (2.49). Whether or not ‘Father’ here ought to be taken in a Trinitarian fashion is debatable.140 Either way, Luke has shown the unique knowledge of yhwh that Jesus possesses. But Luke quickly disabuses readers of any docetic tendencies with his summative statement: ‘And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor’ (2.52). In so doing, Jesus’s adolescence receives the textual description as similar to that of Samuel (1 Sam. 2.21, 26), which certainly implies a development of exceptional humanity. The singularity of the God-adolescent qualifies the life of a truly human young man; that is, special wisdom and answers resound from the lips of a curious, growing boy. Calvin notes that ‘[i]t seems strange that anything should have been lacking in the perfection of God’s Son. We may readily answer that if it takes nothing from His glory that He was utterly “emptied out” (exinanitus), then it was not alien for Him to wish, for our sakes, to grow in body and also in spirit.’141 Calvin challenged the idea that perfection and dignity require immediacy and punctiliar perfection in the theanthropic Christ and this became a hallmark of Reformed Christology, which emphasizes the importance of the life of Christ.142 Calvin notes that such an inference, which holds 139

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Owen takes the phrase ‘waxed strong in spirit’ (based on the received text, which included a spurious pneumati) to refer exclusively to mental/intellectual development. While his text was certainly flawed by a scribal insertion, the theological import is likely the same (given what follows in v. 47), albeit with an emphasis upon wisdom (sophia). See Owen, Pneumatologia, p. 169; Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, p. 312. Joel Green, The Theology of the Gospel of Luke (NTT; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 55–56; Bovon, Luke, pp. 114–15. John Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 1 (eds. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance; trans. A. W. Morrison; CC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), p. 106. Horton, Lord and Servant, pp. 171–77; Barth, CD IV/2, pp. 95–96.

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that ‘ignorance was a fault,’ would thereby confuse sinful blindness with creatureliness and even require that angels be subsumed within the divine nature, lest the angelic creatures be inherently sinful in their ignorance.143 Gregory of Nyssa’s summary of the regula fidei for catechumens likewise emphasized the importance of a gradual perfection (or deification) of humanity in Christ’s own history: ‘in view of the fact that our life is bounded by two extremities (I mean its beginning and end), the power which amends our nature had to reach to both points.’144 Confessional affirmation of Christ as vere homo implicitly requires affirmation of Christ’s human history as inherently and essentially significant for the benefits of salvation, and it is this dogmatic implication which required a reform of Thomas’s Christology – Christ’s life matters as much as his conception, death, and burial.145 Thomas certainly affirms the importance of Christ’s humanity: in fact he extends this dogmatic concentration greatly in his own milieu.146 As shown earlier in this chapter, Thomas also affirms the importance of considering the human knowledge of Christ apart from confusion with the divine knowledge of the Son. Yet Thomas limits the dynamism of intellectual activity to Jesus’s experimental knowledge, whereby Christ merely learns by experience that which he already knows by immediate and infused knowledge.147 This obviously follows from the soteriology and eschatology of Thomas, whereby Christ’s uniting the divine and human in his own person saves humanity and accomplishes the perfection of human nature. That is, the perfection of humanity occurred in Mary’s womb, quite apart from Jesus’s own activity (though, of course, the paschal activity of Christ accomplishes the sacrificial ministry of Christ). Thomas upholds a punctiliar view of the perfection of human nature in Christ, whereas the texts of Luke’s Gospel and the Epistle to the Hebrews point toward a dynamic and gradual maturation of humanity in the person of the Word.148

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Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels, vol. 1, p. 107. Gregory of Nyssa, ‘An Address on Religious Instruction’, in Christology of the Later Fathers (ed. Edward Hardy; trans. Cyril Richardson; LCC 3; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1954), p. 304; Bovon, Luke, p. 115: ‘God’s favor and human recognition rest on the child as he develops’ (emphasis mine). Tanner, Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity, pp. 27–28, 52; Barth, CD IV/2, pp. 140–43; John Meyendorff, ‘Christ’s Humanity: The Paschal Mystery’, SVTQ 31, no. 1 (1987), pp. 22–30; Horton, Lord and Servant, pp. 164–65. Jean-Pierre Torrell, Le Christ en ses mystères: La vie et l’oeuvre de Jésus selon saint Thomas d’Aquin (2 vols.; Paris: Desclée, 1999). Ashley, ‘The Extent of Jesus’ Human Knowledge’, in Dauphinais and Levering (eds.), Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas, p. 251. Ashley, ‘The Extent of Jesus’ Human Knowledge’, in Dauphinais and Levering (eds.), Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas, p. 252.

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The incremental development of the Christ’s humanity was prefigured by the maturation of the people of God noetically, as stated by Paul (Gal. 3.24). The ‘law’ or ‘old covenant’ did not include the fullness or fulfillment of revelation insofar as knowledge of certain divine mysteries was pedagogically delayed. Calvin carefully teases out the incremental tutorial that yhwh offers amidst Israel, delaying explicit knowledge of God’s triune nature and the incarnation.149 Calvin’s affirmation of progressively mediated revelation parallels his doctrine of Christ’s humanity as maturing through gradual, though sinless, development; all this in contrast to Thomas, who minimizes the development of Jesus’s humanity and Israel’s knowledge of yhwh in redemptive history.150 Scriptural figuration entails Christological paradigms, linking Jesus and Israel with an eschatological humanism of a particular bent. Thomas represents a particular classical tendency to emphasize punctiliar deification, though Calvin’s tendency to focus on incremental maturation better fits the New Testament characterization of Christ’s humanity. This development finds no clearer exposition than in the Epistle to the Hebrews. This Epistle often highlights the human nature of Christ, demonstrating the fulfillment of what was originally a human task: priestly mediation.151 Christ’s singularity entails the qualitative and quantitative supremacy of his own mediation (Heb. 1.2). Christ’s solidarity flows from his assumption of true human life into his eternal person; by assuming a human nature, Christ assumes the shape of human life with its developments and limitations.152 149 150

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Calvin, Institutes, II.xi.5. Thomas, ST 1a.2ae.103.2 and, especially 2a.2ae.2.8. Thomas’s exposition on revelational development is quite complex and not entirely unsatisfactory, particularly given the manner in which he relates divine revelation in time to divine aseity and identity in se. On the issue of an expanding divine self-revelation, see Bruce Marshall, ‘Israel: Do Christians Worship the God of Israel?’ in James J. Buckley and David S. Yeago (eds.), Knowing the Triune God: The Work of the Spirit in the Practices of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), pp. 231–64; Matthew Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics, pp. 47–74; cf. R. Kendall Soulen, ‘YHWH the Triune God’, ModTheo 15, no. 1 (1999), pp. 25–54. Levering (following Marshall) demonstrates that Thomas clarifies the identity of yhwh and the Trinity, though Thomas still errs in arguing that knowledge of this identity surfaced during the period of the ‘old covenant.’ Lindars notes that the background for Jesus’s importance in Hebrews is the Jewish priesthood and not Greco-Roman mystery religions [The Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews (NTT; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 44–45)]. A positive theory of kenosis is thereby requisite for any two-natures Christology which affirms the assumption of truly limited human life (Phil. 2.5–8). As will be discussed briefly in Chapter 4, a negative theory of kenosis is quite a different matter and logically distinct from this exegetical and speculative affirmation; cf. Bruce McCormack, ‘Karl Barth’s Christology as a Resource for a Reformed Version of Kenoticism’, IJST 8, no. 3 (2006), pp. 250–51.

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Hebrews makes several claims regarding these limitations which impinge on discussion of the Christ’s human knowledge: Heb. 2.10-18, 5.7-9 speak of struggle, temptation, and growth which imply that Jesus developed humanly.153 The sufferings of Jesus were used by God the Father to render Jesus ‘perfect’ as the ‘pioneer of salvation’ (Heb. 2.10), to destroy the deathly power of the devil (Heb. 2.14), to be sympathetic as a priestly mediator between the divine and the struggling (Heb. 2.17-18), to ‘learn obedience’ (Heb. 5.8), and to be the ‘source of eternal salvation,’ having been perfected (Heb. 5.9). That is, Christ’s sufferings functioned to prepare him in a plurality of ways which embrace a multitude of atonement metaphors: leader, victor, priest, faithful son, and deliverer. That struggle and temptation factor into so many facets of Jesus’s ministry demonstrates the importance of Christ’s humanity in the Epistle. While the argument of the letter focuses upon the sacrificial nature of Christ’s work and, therefore, the cultic necessity of Jesus’s humanity, the sacrifical aspect cannot fully encompass the extensive claims made for the human development of Jesus even within this Epistle.154 Karl Barth noted the restraint with which Christ’s growth is mentioned in the New Testament, even in Hebrews: ‘By all these passages, we are only made aware that Jesus had a real human inner life. But we are given no guidance for reflection concerning it, and for forming a picture of this matter we are in fact offered no material at all.’155 Likewise, David Peterson notes the paucity of specifics regarding the contours of Christ’s early years and limits the textual evidence to a ‘vocational understanding of the

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Jesus developed humanly, because he is truly human. This is logically distinct from the (mistaken) claim that he developed divinely, the oft-recycled jargon of adoptionist Christologies which fail to maintain that he is also truly divine in a logically distinct manner from his human way of life. contra David Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection: An Examination of the Concept of Perfection in the ‘Epistle to the Hebrews’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 100–102; Lindars, The Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews, p. 40. For a masterful account of Hebrews’s portrayal of Jesus’s humanity as tied to priestly mediation, see Donald A. Hagner, ‘The Son of God as Unique High Priest: The Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews’, in Richard N. Longenecker (ed.), Contours of Christology in the New Testament (MNTS; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), pp. 247–67. Unfortunately, Hagner occasionally minimizes the importance of Christ’s humanity for anything other than sacrificial work (‘the primary purpose of the Son of God taking on humanity was for the sake of his unique sacrificial death’, p. 255), though he elsewhere highlights the plurality of roles the humanity of Christ plays (i.e., ‘believers can rely on the ongoing intercession of their great high priest, who has also experienced testing and who provides a model of faith and fidelity for them’, p. 266). Chapters 5 and 6 will explore broader soteriological ties. Barth, CD III/2, p. 329.

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perfection of Christ.’156 Oddly, Peterson claims this is a widening of Moisés Silva’s proposal that Christ’s perfection was a change in his human nature of eschatological importance (as also in 1 Cor. 15.42-49), yet Peterson’s approach severely limits Silva’s claim. Christ’s perfection, as Peterson mentions, certainly entails preparation for priestly service; it receives little concrete explication, as Barth points out; yet it necessitates certain theological judgments of import beyond mere ‘vocational’ preparation. The perfecting of Christ extensively transforms the whole of his human existence, demonstrating the dogmatic necessity of affirming eschatological dynamism as vere homo. Christ came to help humans, embodied creatures (unlike angels), and Israel (the ‘descendants of Abraham’) in particular (Heb. 2.16). Given his determination to save embodied humans, ‘he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect’ (Heb. 2.17).157 Obviously, as pointed out in Luke’s narrative accounts of Jesus’s adolescence, Jesus was atypical in certain respects – wise beyond his years – and elsewhere we read that Jesus did not sin (Heb. 4.15; 7.26; Jn 8.46; 2 Cor. 5.21); singularity has ripple effects which find expression in Christ’s sinlessness and heightened wisdom (cf. Lk. 2.47). Yet the argument in Hebrews impinges on a more fundamental issue: the need for the Savior to assume humanity en esse, ‘in every respect.’ Gregory of Nazianzen stated this judgment as such: ‘That which he has not assumed he has not healed.’158 So long as sinfulness is considered inessential to humanity (a point uncontested in orthodox Christianity), Christ must have assumed every facet of human life. Christian confidence and perseverance depends on Christ’s sympathy ‘with our weaknesses’ (Heb. 4.15), a ‘testing’ which demonstrates the solidarity of the Son of God with the feeble children of humanity. The perfection of Christ, then, must be understood as a process whereby the humanity of Christ matured and developed such that death was defeated and fellowship with God was won (Heb. 7.28). Christ’s perfection entails the gradual ‘learning obedience’ by which he lived as people do, seeking rest as a wayfarer in pursuit of God’s continuing favor (Hebrews 3-4). Perfection necessarily involves a process, indicating the implicit judgment that Christ’s

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Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, pp. 70–73; cf. Moisés Silva, ‘Perfection and Eschatology in Hebrews’, WTJ 39, no. 1 (1976), pp. 60–71. David Peterson helpfully differentiates between the solidarity of Heb. 2.14 (assumption of humanity) and that of Heb. 2.17 (assumption of human development through experience) [Hebrews and Perfection, p. 64]; cf. J. Swetnam, ‘Form and Content in Hebrews 1–6’, Bib 53 (1972), p. 378; Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 350. Gregory of Nazianzen, First Letter to Cledonius (ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; trans. C. G. Browne and J. E. Swallow; NPNF 2:7; n.p.: Christian Literature, 1894; repr. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999), p. 440.

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entire life is soteriologically significant.159 While the argument in Hebrews focuses upon the aspect of suffering (Heb. 2.10, 18; 5.7-8), the open-handed embrace of human life in its dynamic and progressive fashion attains its own soteriological value by implication; that is, the solidarity shown in assuming humanity proper gives meaning to the incarnation as a sine qua non for even a positive kenosis doctrine. It is likely then that certain texts which purport to speak of Christ’s extensive knowledge (and, therefore, may imply that he did possess the beatific vision within which all things were apprehended) refer not to his human knowing, but to that knowledge which is his divinely – as the eternal logos.160 One example will suffice: in Jn 1.14, the Word’s becoming flesh and life entails that ‘we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.’ Whereas Thomas understood the phrase ‘full of truth’ to entail (among other things) that ‘his precious and blessed soul knew every truth, human and divine, from his conception,’ this immediate link between truth’s fullness and Jesus’s human nature may be rhetorically and theologically questionable.161 Christ did not possess all grace humanly at the time of his conception, even in Thomas’s own schema. Rather, Thomas elsewhere claims that Christ will merit further grace by his human life until this path of virtue eventuates in resurrection life.162 That Thomas interprets ‘fullness of truth’ punctiliarly severs its tie in the Johannine text to broader soteriological concerns, to grace in its varied forms (particularly bodily entailments of vivified life).163 It is all the more likely, then, that Christ possesses ‘grace and truth’ divinely and embodies the granting of these gifts to humanity gradually, thereby allowing room for the rest of the gospel narrative to be of some import. In Tanner’s words, ‘[s]alvation, what the incarnation brings about, takes time, in short; it is a process of temporal, historical proportions, involving struggle with the forces of sin and death, and the sort of changes that any human life, sinful or not, faces.’164 This journey into the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Gospel of Luke, and various theological commentaries on Scriptural claims about Christ’s growth and knowledge has demonstrated the limitations which humanity necessarily involves, limitations which Christ assumed when he became ‘truly human.’

159 160 161

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Lindars, The Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews, p. 40. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, p. 312. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John. Part One (trans. James Weisheipl and Fabian Larcher; Albany, N.Y.: Magi, 1980), p. 93. ST 1a.2ae.114.6, reply; Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 347. Bodily concerns are elsewhere acknowledged by Thomas (see ST 1a.2ae.4.5-6). Kathryn Tanner, ‘Incarnation, Cross, and Sacrifice: A Feminist-Inspired Reappraisal’, ATR 86, no. 1 (2004), p. 46.

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VII. Christ’s Journey and Pre-Beatific Vision Jesus grew and developed humanly in such a way that the typical limitations of human finitude applied to his intellectual life as much as his bodily embrace of suffering unto death. The testimony to Christ’s humanity in the Gospel of Luke and the Epistle to the Hebrews has shown the importance of acknowledging the human ignorance of Christ and gradual maturation of his human identity. In so doing, Christological predication must navigate between positing Jesus as an ‘everyman’ who is, therefore, salvifically impotent, and the blurring of his two natures such that he ceases to be ‘truly human,’ able to heal humanity. As suggested previously, this discussion pertains to the humanity of Christ and, in so doing, stands alongside the claim that he is also ‘truly God’ and, therefore, omniscient. Whereas Thomas carefully acknowledged this latter truth, his understanding of Christ’s humanity was flawed and, therefore, detrimental to his consideration of the standard question, ‘Did Christ have faith?’ Thomas’s argument that Christ perpetually enjoyed the beatific vision while on earth and, in so doing, knew all things and had no need of faith is incoherent when paired with the Scriptural testimony to Jesus’s intellectual life and human development.165 While acknowledging Barth’s warnings that the New Testament does not attempt to offer material for a biography of the youth of Jesus or a psychological sketch of his intellectual activity, the dogmatic judgment that Christ’s incarnation requires the assumption of human creational limitations proves necessary in light of the Scriptural claims seen above.166 Christ did not possess the beatific vision of God’s essence and, in so doing, know all things in the divine essence, precisely because Christ’s humanity was pre-glorified, in via, wayfaring.167 Thomas’s own eschatology disallows the Christological claim that he makes: the beatific vision is inherently a glorified activity which requires a transformation of one’s body such that it no longer limits one’s ability to focus intellectually on the divine essence.168 We can criticize Thomas’s Christology, therefore, without considering his eschatology’s

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Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 351. Chapter 4 will discuss the relationship of creational and lapsarian limitations, arguing that Christ also embraced limitations of a fallen humanity. Regarding the topic at hand, the beatific vision and extensive human knowledge, it is simply enough to note that Christ became incarnate as a creature in pre-glorified fashion. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2, p. 312. ST 2a.2ae.180.5. Note that one can be raptured (as Thomas understands Paul was – 2 Cor. 12.2) and disengage from bodily activity even while living in the body (as in 2a.2ae.175.4, ad.2). But this completely severs one from bodily sensation temporarily, something which does not fit the Gospel narratives in which Christ eats and drinks, thirsts and dies.

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merits. Mediate escalation of humanity in the incarnate Christ must involve temporal and eschatological limits and, as grace is lavished in the sending of the Spirit, development. There may be room for arguing Thomas’s thesis on a smaller scale: the narratives of Christ’s baptism in the Jordan and transfiguration may allow for a temporary rapturous vision of God’s essence.169 To acknowledge such a possibility is to note how distinctive these instances were within the broader life and ministry of Jesus, however. They represent, perhaps, proleptic instances of post-resurrection reality, rather than narrative hints of the perpetual possession of glorified vision by the incarnate Son of God. My argument here rests on the broader Scriptural witness to Christ’s weakness and intellectual limitations, his growth and development, his participation in creaturely life, and so on, such that perpetual rapture would be inhumane and salvifically self-defeating.170 Given the importance of human, bodily life for Christ’s mission, perpetual rapture would be docetic and gnostic. While the all-encompassing critique of Thomas by Gerald O’Collins and Daniel Kendall would rule out tout court the possession of the beatific vision by Christ while on earth, this lesser eschatologically refined claim might allow for the patristic tradition’s exegesis in certain cases without supplanting the gains of Reformed Christology, namely its focus upon Christ as vere homo in strictly Chalcedonian terms. Thomas’s argument from ‘fittingness’ falters precisely because it wrongly assumes that Christ’s assumption of humanity requires intellectual elitism immediately. When the Epistle to the Hebrews provides impetus for predicating what is ‘fitting’ of the Christ (Heb. 2.10), the context provides a Scriptural figuration which links Christ with the priestly ministry and, therefore, a defined human experience.171 But the words of Karl Barth note the danger of such arguments from ‘fittingness’: The only thing is that we must not measure Him by a preconception of what is divine, of what is worthy of the Son, of what is pleasing to God the Father, of what is meant by the presence of the Spirit in fullness. On the contrary, we must be content to recognize what is divine and worthy and well-pleasing and spiritual at the very point where it is

169

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For a helpful entry into the theology of Christ’s baptism, see Daniel Keating, ‘The Baptism of Jesus in Cyril of Alexandria: the Re-creation of the Human Race’, ProEccl 8, no. 2 (1999), pp. 201–22. Keating helpfully notes the weakness of Cyril’s interpretation of the baptism in delimiting its significance to Jesus pro nobis without a complementary significance for Jesus in se (p. 218). Noted pointedly by Carl R. Trueman, The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology (St. Ives, UK: Paternoster, 1998), p. 170. Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, p. 55.

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human history – in the happening of His history, in the way of Jesus of Nazareth, and therefore in his human essence.172 Arguments from ‘fittingness’ must be chastened by the Scriptural figurations, particularly linking Christ to the economy of God’s works in Israel, rather than human experience in general (e.g., Schleiermacher on ‘god-consciousness’) or eschatological hopes (e.g., Thomas’s view of contemplation and the beatific vision). Thomas’s views of incarnational ‘fittingness’ and human intellection do not fit the Scriptural depiction of Christ’s ignorance and growth, suffering, and perfection; therefore, his affirmation of the beatific vision possessed by the incarnate Christ before his resurrection cannot cohere with New Testament anthropology and Chalcedonian Christology.173 As John Meyendorff puts it, ‘[t]he true dimension of the humanity of Jesus can only be understood in the context of soteriology.’174 Without endorsing Meyendorff’s own schema in its heavily ecclesiocentric details, his mandate strikes a necessary chord which dare not be ignored. The person of Christ, in this case the humanity of Christ, must cohere with the soteriological vocation of the God-man. Christ lacked human omniscience and, far from undermining or slandering his ‘true humanity,’ this statement enriches the claim that he is ‘truly human.’ Thomas’s argument regarding the question of Christ’s having faith will not do: Christ lacked some knowledge, though one cannot point to the exact scope and extent of these limitations, and needed to believe God the Father amidst such uncertainty. Assumption of true humanity necessarily involves the embrace of certain limitations, specifically intellectual and developmental ones. Having erased the major thrust of Thomas’s objection – Christ’s beatific vision and human omniscience – now it remains to be seen whether even his anthropological dichotomy will stand: must faith and knowledge be inversely related? Chapter 3 will examine his doctrine of faith and argue that his understanding is incomplete, that faith entails more than mere intellection, and, therefore, that Christ’s faith would not be precluded even if he possessed replete human knowledge.

172 173 174

Barth, CD IV/2, pp. 95–96. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, p. 312. Meyendorff, ‘Christ’s Humanity: The Paschal Mystery’, p. 27.

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3 toward an extensive definition of faith: hebrews 11 and the reformed tradition The claim that Christ exercised faith predicates a particular activity of the incarnate Son, one that Thomas Aquinas classically denied him. Whereas Chapter 2 involved a consideration of the context within which Christ’s faith might occur, reasserting the human and, therefore, limited knowledge of Christ which allows room for his faith, consideration must now extend to the activity being predicated: faith. What does Thomas mean by faith? Is his definition of faith adequate to Scriptural norms and the rigors of logical consistency both internal and external to his own system? Quite apart from the claim in Chapter 2 that Thomas misunderstands the human nature of Christ and in so doing falsely attributes the perpetual enjoyment of the beatific vision to the incarnate Christ, I will here demonstrate that Thomas’s denial of Christ’s faith is misleading on another account, insofar as his definition of faith lacks the breadth required by Scripture as cogently interpreted by the Reformed confessional tradition. Augustine’s suggestive hypothesis predates the extensive definition of faith found in the Reformed tradition, such that Thomas was not unaware of possible extra-intellectual aspects of faith. A broader definition of faith, attested by John Calvin and others, will not so directly involve a contrast between faith and reason (or, in Thomas’s eschatology, faith, and sight) but will subsume such philosophical and eschatological polarities underneath a broader covenantal anthropology. The chapter will proceed through historical examination into Scriptural exegesis, beginning with a chronological account of faith’s definition in Augustine, Thomas, Calvin, several Reformation confessions, postReformation Reformed dogmatic theology, and, finally, Karl Barth. In each case, their Scriptural exegesis will be a primary concern, insofar as each ties their definition of faith to certain common texts. While I will not argue for the accuracy of the Reformed traditions’ Scriptural moorings at significant 69

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length, I will demonstrate the broad continuities within this tradition that are substantially rooted in the catholic thought of Augustine. Finally, theological exegesis of Hebrews 11 will conclude the chapter, demonstrating that faith involves a holistic, responsive covenantal posture that includes yet exceeds merely intellectual activity. In so doing, Thomas’s opposition between faith and sight will be contextualized and superseded, opening room for the claim that Christ exercised faith. Prior to the historical survey, two preliminary discussions require consideration. First, a Scriptural vignette will now serve as fodder for constructive criticism of Thomas’s influential definition of faith. By examining Jesus’s encounter with the disciple Thomas as recounted in Jn 20.26-29, the danger of equating faith strictly with intellectual activity will be demonstrated. Second, the problem of dogmatic location with regard to faith will be explained with particular regard to differentiating between that which justifies the ungodly and the faith that might be predicated of the godly Jesus.

I. Doubting Thomas and Belief’s Sight John 20 occupies a formative place within the canonical witness to faith in Jesus Christ, climaxing with John’s statement of intent (v. 31): ‘these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.’ Quite irrespective of source critical concerns about the place of John 21 within the Gospel, the statement of purpose and the preceding discussion of faith in Jn 20.25-30 necessitate the consideration of this passage as the core of John’s doctrine of faith.1 John’s thesis statement ties the apostolic witness to the Word’s miraculous invasion of human history for the sake of calling forth human belief in this Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God. The immediate occasion for this thesis on faith is Jesus’s post-resurrection appearance to the as-yet-doubting Thomas (Jn 20.25-29). Thomas has suffered a particularly rough reception history, typified by the title ‘doubting Thomas’ often affixed to him. Yet John 20 seems to keep such judgments in the periphery, precisely because Thomas himself recedes into the background.2 John mentions Thomas’s doubt and faith in order to

1

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For a survey of source critical debates surrounding John 21, see Raymond Brown, The Gospel according to John (XIII–XXI): Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB 29a; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), p. 1078. Thus John Calvin’s rather brutal denunciation of Thomas’s ‘unbelief’, ‘hardness’, ‘obstinancy’, and ‘wickedness’ probably underplays the role of historical revelation. See John Calvin, The Gospel according to St. John (11–21) and the First Epistle of John (ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance; trans. T. H. L. Parker; CC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), p. 209.

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comment on Christ’s response (v. 29): ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’ This episode is a narrative hinge, not between one act of John’s Gospel and another, but between the story of John’s Gospel and its envisioned reception history.3 While Thomas certainly comes in for criticism (v. 27; similar to Jn 4.48) regarding his overindulgent need for the empirical or miraculous to prop up his faith, the text never lingers on this weakness.4 Rather, Thomas’s failures serve to maximize grace by providing the fourth example of faith after Jesus’s resurrection. As Raymond Brown puts it: The Beloved Disciple comes to faith after having seen the burial wrappings but without having seen Jesus himself. Magdalene sees Jesus but does not recognize him until he calls her by name. The disciples see him and believe. Thomas also sees him and believes, but only after having been overinsistent on the marvelous aspect of the appearance.5 The pedagogy at play in John 20 requires the attribution of faith to each of these parties; thus faith is being attributed to those who see progressively more and more. Whereas the Beloved Disciple sees only burial garb, Thomas actually sees Jesus himself in close proximity, so that commands to ‘Put your finger here’ and ‘Reach out your hand and put it in my side’ are feasible (v. 27). Whether or not Thomas actually touched Jesus does not concern the Evangelist, for Jesus places Thomas’s faith in the line of those who have seen and thus believed (v. 29).6 Thomas sees and believes; thus a stark contrast between sight and faith cannot be maintained. According to Brown, ‘What is important, as both lines of vs. 29 attest, is that one must believe, whether that faith comes from seeing or not.’7 Contrary to the claims of Bultmann, faith and sight cannot be juxtaposed or mutually exclusive for v. 29 posits

3

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William Placher, Narratives of a Vulnerable God: Christ, Theology, and Scripture (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), pp. 98–99; Brown, The Gospel According to John, p. 1049. Perhaps Thomas’s unbelief is more owing to general skepticism about the resurrection (hinted at proleptically in Jn 11.16 and 14.5), rather than a fixation on miraculous signs; see Herman N. Ridderbos, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary (trans. John Vriend; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), p. 647. Either way, Thomas does certainly receive some criticism; cf. W. Bonney, Caused to Believe: The Doubting Thomas Story at the Climax of John’s Christological Narrative (BIS 62; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002), p. 172. Brown, The Gospel according to John, p. 1046. On Jesus’s interpretation of Thomas’s encounter as visual, see Brown, The Gospel according to John, p. 1049; cf. Calvin, The Gospel according to St. John, p. 209. Brown, The Gospel according to John, p. 1048.

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faith of both the generation that sees Jesus and those who later encounter Jesus through various mediations other than direct sight.8 As Origen claims there must be a ‘faith which comes through sight.’9 Perhaps a limitation of what Thomas’s sight entails, a modest affirmation of the limits of creaturely knowledge of the divine (similar to Luther’s Deus absconditus) with regard to historical sight among the first generation of Jesus’s disciples will allow for a distinction between sight of Jesus the risen man and faith in Jesus as Son of God and Messiah.10 That is, perhaps sight itself involves mediation and, therefore, vision of earthly signs can be juxtaposed with faith in heavenly truths; nevertheless, hardening such a distinction would be to remain in Lessing’s muddy ditch. Shy of engaging in full-blown apologetics or suggesting an epistemology for moving from historical accidents as signs to divine truths, I can note that John’s Gospel here evidences no such preoccupation.11 Rather, the question involves faith and sight regarding the same object: Jesus the Messiah and Son of God.12 Otherwise the blessing invoked by Jesus in v. 29 does not work: if the first generation was equally in need of mediatoral witness unto Jesus as are later generations, then no such tension would need allaying.13 Jesus’s attempt to even the playing field and assert the validity (and to some extent the superiority) of faith without sight would be entirely unnecessary. The existence of this transition from reporting the faith of those who saw

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Barth, CD III/2, p. 448; contra Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (ed. G. R. Beasley-Murray; trans. R. W. N. Hoare and J. K. Riches; Oxford: Blackwell, 1971; repr. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), pp. 695–96. Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of John (trans. Ronald E. Heine; FC 89; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1993), vol.10, pp. 298–306. Eberhard Jüngel, ‘Zum Begriff der Offenbarung’, in G. Besier (ed.), Glaube— Bekenntnis—Kirchenrecht: Festschrift für Vizepräsident i.R.D.theol. Hans Philipp Meyer zum 70. Geburtstag (Hannover: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1989), pp. 218–19; Jüngel, ‘The Revelation of the Hiddenness of God: A Contribution to the Protestant Understanding of the Hiddenness of Divine Action’, in J. B. Webster (ed.), Theological Essays II (trans. Arnold Neufeldt-Fast and J. B. Webster; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), pp. 128–30; Barth, CD III/2, p. 449. Ridderbos, The Gospel of John, pp. 15–16, 648. Calvin’s objection – that Thomas touched Jesus and was jarred to memory of all Jesus had taught him – fails to get around the identification of prior beliefs about Jesus with this object of sense perception. Calvin’s emphasis on the Word of God as that which Thomas believes rightly contextualizes the epistemic grasp of Christ’s resurrection by way of sight, providing categories for understanding and appropriating his vision (‘my Lord and my God’ understands the risen one properly, while ‘my Lord and my God’ appropriates this vision for one’s own good). Cf. Calvin, The Gospel according to St. John, pp. 211–12. If not, Ridderbos points out, then not only Thomas’s request but also every instance of revelatory signification would be equally suspect as a ground for faith (The Gospel of John, p. 649).

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the resurrected Christ to blessing those who will believe on the testimony of these points toward a common contrast that is being superseded: faith does not require the absence of sight, but oftentimes follows from it.

II. The Dogmatic Location of the Doctrine of Faith As will be noted throughout this chapter, the location within which theologians discuss the doctrine of faith varies from system to system. Whereas Thomas discusses faith as the head of the theological virtues in his treatise on the soul’s ascent unto God, Calvin speaks of faith as the way in which Christ applies his work to his people in Book III of Institutes. Later Reformed orthodox theologians tend to discuss faith within the ordo salutis, yet Karl Barth and Herman Bavinck also locate faith within their dogmatic prolegomena. Not only does the location vary, something which requires attention to the broader context of each dogmatic system, but also the location and definition of faith frequently preclude the possibility of my thesis by treating faith as necessarily redemptive. For faith, as so typically located, considers God from a position of sinfulness. Whether lodged within the ordo salutis or placed earlier in prolegomena, faith typically lies within a context of redemption. It is the way to return to God only after one has exited from God’s presence (see Thomas’s exitusreditus scheme); it involves the application of Christ and his benefits as knowledge of God the Redeemer (as in Calvin’s Institutes); it instrumentally links the elect with Christ for the sake of justification and all other benefits (Reformed orthodoxy); it gratefully acknowledges the presence of God in Christ in the midst of a needy world (Karl Barth). In each case, faith involves the appropriation or acknowledgment of God’s redemptive activity. Leaving aside until later the differences regarding covenantal causality (that is, whether faith is a condition of justification or merely a result), it deserves notice that all theologians discuss faith as the posture or activity exercised by sinners in need of redemption. Prior to investigation of varying definitions of faith, consider briefly a methodological danger. Christ’s exercise of any faith will undoubtedly be somewhat colored by his unique moral character – that is, Christians have classically maintained that Christ must be different from sinful humans to be salvifically significant. Thus, given traditional affirmation of his sinlessness, any faith he exercises cannot be classified as faith in or unto his own salvation. While Chapter 5 will discuss ways in which it is fitting to say that Christ was redeemed, this must be characterized as an affirmation analogical to the claim that Christ himself redeems the elect. That is, Christ cannot be redeemed in the same way in which he redeems others – tout court. Such would be to privilege the place of sin in the world as necessary and insurmountable or to subject Christ to a position within the order of nature, 73

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strictly speaking, and deny his graced status. Covenantal discussion of this, again, occurs in Chapters 5 and 6; for present purposes, we must exercise particular care in sifting through definitions of faith that typically apply only to those who believe for the sake of salvation or unto salvation. Many similarities may obtain between such faith and that exercised by Christ; however, Adam and Eve are the only persons, strictly speaking, to share the same covenantal situation as Christ: not requiring salvation.14 Thomas comments on the place of faith prior to the Fall, yet his eschatological theanthropology disallows the application of this protology to extend into his discussion of the humanity of Christ.15 Primarily this point leads to interpretative caution and minimized expectations, for exegetes and dogmaticians would not be expected to comment at length on a category inhabited by only three human beings. The typical focus, defining faith as necessarily redemptive, seems to make perfect sense; however, we must remember to differentiate between faith in general and faith in Jesus Christ unto salvation, a subset of the former category.

III. Augustine’s Inconsistencies and Eschatological Faith As we begin our historical survey, we must acknowledge that deciphering Augustine’s definition of anything can be a particularly daunting task for two reasons. First, the breadth of his corpus staggers and undoubtedly humbles the potential interpreter. Second, Augustine is one of those few theologians willing to change his mind in print. This malleable character results in his name being marshaled for contradictory causes (e.g., Protestant and Catholic, Calvinist, and Arminian/Libertarian). His doctrine of faith similarly shows fluidity which makes definition difficult, to say the least. Without engaging in a genetic study, I will highlight the two currents of definition that he sustains. One current defines faith in strictly epistemological terms which oppose the contemporaneous possession of knowledge and exercise of faith (Serm. 359a.3-4).16 The other current, however, sustains

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Two caveats: first, this similarity obviously ceases with the sin of Adam and Eve and their experience of death; second, Christ does not inhabit the same covenantal context as our primal ancestors in every way. The entrance of Christ into a fallen world and his assumption of (in some sense) fallen human nature differs from life in the primal garden. Nevertheless, their covenantal context parallels Christ’s in that neither situation demands personal salvation from sin. ST 2a2ae.2.7, reply. Augustine, Sermons (341–400): On Various Subjects (ed. John Rotelle; trans. Edmund Hill; WSA III/10; New York: New City, 1995), p. 210–11: ‘Considering that “faith is the conviction of things not seen”, when we do see, it will not be called faith. After all, you will be seeing, not believing’.

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my thesis that faith involves a more holistic human response and cannot be strictly exclusive of knowledge or sight. This current arises particularly in Augustine’s comments upon 1 Corinthians 13 and the continued exercise of faith in the eschatological age to come (Serm. 126.3).17 Michael Hanby has provided a masterful account of Augustine’s intricacies and developments which I will follow closely. Noting that Augustine typically discusses faith among the three theological virtues – alongside hope and love – Hanby proceeds to show the ‘interdependence of these three’ within the Bishop’s theology.18 Not only does love require and presuppose faith (Gal. 5.6), but faith presupposes a charitable disposition toward the beauty of one’s object: one’s assent must be compelled by some aesthetic allure.19 Hanby asserts that a faith-like quality continuously inheres in the blessed eternally, as the apostle Paul claims in 1 Cor. 13.13, such that Augustine moves beyond a merely intellectualist approach to defining faith. Hanby’s account contradicts the interpretation of Carol Harrison, who steadfastly asserts that Augustine’s definition of faith remains tied to temporal things.20 In fact, ‘Believing (credere) and beholding (videre), faith (fides) and understanding (intellectus), hope (spes) and vision (visio), therefore belong to the antithesis here (hic) and there (ibi) in Augustine’s thought – this life and the life to come; the former must precede the latter.’21 Not only does Harrison affirm that the former must precede the latter, but she proceeds to argue that this life must be annihilated or made obsolete by the life to come. The extent to which Harrison suggests this annihilation of the physical and temporal, as mere sacraments used by God to reach finite and sinful creatures until their perfection, leads to some systematic implications of great concern, however, in that Augustine’s faith/sight polarity extends also to the humanity of Christ. Augustine says that faith sees through a mirror (1 Cor. 13.12) and that (in Harrison’s words) ‘faith in things temporal (especially the word and works of Christ) leads to the truth of things eternal, because faith purifies man and prepares him for knowledge and

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Augustine, Sermons (94A–147A): On the New Testament (ed. John Rotelle; trans. Edmund Hill; WSA III/4; New York: New City, 1992), pp. 270–71: ‘Yes, of course you see something in order to believe something, and from what you can see to believe what you cannot see’. Hanby, ‘These Three Abide: Augustine and the Eschatological Non-Obsolescence of Faith’, p. 344. Augustine, Earlier Writings (ed. John Burleigh; LCC 6; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1953), I.14; Augustine, Enchiridion ad Laurentium de fide et spe et caritate (ed. E. Evans; CCSL 46; Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), I.5. Carol Harrison, Beauty and Revelation in the Theology of St. Augustine (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), p. 242. Harrison, Beauty and Revelation in the Theology of Augustine, p. 242.

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vision.’22 Augustine consistently speaks of knowledge and vision as identical: Sol. I.13, Ep. 147, Conf. XII.25.23 As Augustine claims that Scripture will no longer be necessary in the life to come, and Harrison ties the ‘word and works of Christ’ together as the objects through which faith apprehends God mediately, the perpetuity of the incarnation would seem to be undermined by Harrison’s argument.24 The strong claim that sacramental mediation or any other revelational use of created media for faith’s apprehension of the divine ceases, does not lead Augustine to reject the perpetuity of Christ’s embodiment.25 Such restraint, however, ought to question the import of Harrison’s bold thesis for a monolithic discussion of faith within Augustine’s broad corpus and lengthy career. Augustine’s denial of a strict indirect/direct revelational dichotomy in explicating the nature of eschatological change, observable in his avoidance of its extreme (though logically necessary) claim of denying the perpetuity of Christ’s embodiment, means that Jesus remains incarnate forever. This classic Christological affirmation, however, sharply contrasts with any broad dichotomy between immediate and mediate forms of revelational objectivity.26 That is, if Jesus’s humanity requires faith’s apprehension in this life, why not also in the life to come? Augustine does not articulate a complete answer to this objection, perhaps because he shifts to another account of the eschatological Christian life, one in which faith persists in its direction of hope and love even in the face of potent beatific vision. Harrison’s account of Augustine’s doctrine of faith misses this incarnational epistemology entirely and compounds this failure with an inadequate attention to the broader corpus. While Harrison’s texts are present, evidencing a general denial of faith’s persistence beyond this life, they do not suffice to limit Augustine’s definition of faith to a ‘suspension of the intellect’ eclipsed by eschatological sight. Harrison herself hints at broader aspects of faith: movement of will, desire, and impetus to love.27 Harrison also helpfully notes the divine grace which precedes and provides for faith’s activity at every step, particularly in Augustine’s anti-Pelagian writings.28 Augustine 22

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Harrison, Beauty and Revelation in the Theology of Augustine, p. 242 (see also pp. 268–69); see esp. Augustine, The Trinity (ed. John Rotelle; trans. Edmund Hill; WSA 5; New York: New City, 1991), pp. 169–70 (IV.iv.24). Hanby, ‘These Three Abide’, p. 351 fn. 34. Harrison, Beauty and Revelation, p. 265 (citing Augustine, Psa., 119.6). Augustine, C. Serm. Arian. II.9; Psa. 85.21; De Trin. I.10.21; 13.28; Tract. In Jo. 19.16; 21.13; Serm.225.2.2 (as found in Harrison, Beauty and Revelation, p. 214 fns.116–17). On the breadth of this dichotomy within Harrison’s account, see her Beauty and Revelation, pp. 211, 236–38, 267. Harrison, Beauty and Revelation in the Theology of Augustine, p. 245. Ibid., Beauty and Revelation, pp. 245, 257; see also R. P. Hardy, L’Actualité de revelation dans les Tractatus in Johannem (Paris: Beauchesne, 1974), p. 297f.; Michael Hanby, Augustine and Modernity (RO; London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 55–71, 88–105.

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particularly emphasized the divine fount of all faith and love in exegetical rumination on Rom. 5.5, wherein the Holy Spirit works love, and Gal. 5.6, where faith works love: the Holy Spirit generates faith which in turn works itself out in love.29 Hanby not only acknowledges this strand in Augustine’s thought, but he also highlights the existence of another line of argument within the Augustinian corpus: affirmation of the ‘eschatological non-obsolescence of faith.’ Particularly by attending to Augustine’s Soliloquies, Hanby notes the tie between Augustine’s emphasis on desire and the enduring necessity of faith in the Christian life. He goes on to show where Augustine locates the tie between desire, aporia or distance, and faith’s grasp even within the intra-Trinitarian relations of Lover, Beloved, and Love.30 The distance provided between the divine processions – begetting and spiration – demonstrates ‘the paradigmatic form of the consent which makes faith the form of every action: the perfect coincidence of evidence and authority and a perfect, ceaseless, mutual self-offering which is not coercive, self-negating, or arbitrary, but is rather constitutive of a divine life in which utterance and response, gift and reciprocity are one.’31 Citing Augustine’s account of the superabundant life of the Trinity, Hanby defines faith in aesthetic terms that move beyond the seesaw of lack and possession to the dynamics of desire and communion. Being true within the life of the Godhead, the coinherence of faith, hope, and love proceeds eternally as dynamic play in which knowledge begets desire and self-surrender and so on.32 The beatific vision, then, ushers creatures into such mediated union that ‘the faith by which we believe will have a greater reality for us than the appearance of material things which we see with our bodily eyes.’33 Augustine at times played faith and sight against one another, hinting at a definition of faith strictly limited by possession of any actual knowledge. Yet Augustine also suggests the coinherence of faith, hope, and love, such that the three theological virtues must all abide in the life to come. While I have not surveyed Augustine’s every reference to faith in search of a

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A.-M. La Bonnardière, ‘Le verset paulinien Rom. 5:5 dans l’oeuvre de s. Augustin’, in Augustin Magister (Paris: International Augustinian Congress, 1954), vol. 2, pp. 657– 65; I. Bochet, Saint Augustin et le désir de Dieu (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1982), p. 283. Hanby, ‘These Three Abide’, pp. 355–60. Hanby, ‘These Three Abide’, p. 358. Augustine, Enchiridion, p. 8 (cited in Hanby, ‘These Three Abide’, p. 360, where Hanby argues that Augustine would favor the reversability of the terms in Gal. 5.6: namely, love also works faith as faith works love, in fn. 63). Augustine, De Civ. Dei, XXII.29 (cited and translated by Hanby, ‘These Three Abide’, p. 352); for another rendering, see Augustine, The City of God (trans. Henry Bettenson; New York: Penguin, 1972), p. 1091.

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comprehensive definition, nevertheless my comments have suggested that Augustine broadens the definition beyond the ‘suspension of the intellect.’ In Augustine’s terms, faith extends beyond the merely intellectual to include aesthetic and volitional characteristics, particularly due to its relationship with love. In other words, faith represents volitional openness, elicited by the enchantment of divine truth, producing all manner of human actions. Such breadth, substantially denied by Thomas Aquinas, will be reemphasized in the Reformed tradition; though Augustine never uses the terminology of fiducia, he suggests a holistic definition of eschatologically non-obsolescent faith which culminates in the use of such a characterization.

IV. Thomas on Faith Thomas Aquinas considered the doctrine of faith in many texts, yet my comments (as in Chapter 2) will primarily focus on his Summa Theologiae. In this text, Thomas locates discussion of faith’s definition in a manner similar to Augustine, within his account of the three theological virtues. Thomas sandwiches his account of the Christian life – beatitude, sin, grace, law, virtues, orders – between God and humanity in the prima pars and Christology (inclusive of ecclesiology) in the tertia pars. Thomas offers a definition of faith which seems continuous with the intellectual strand in Augustine’s theology: ‘Now to believe is an act of mind assenting to the divine truth by virtue of the command of the will as this is moved by God through grace.’34 As with Augustine, Thomas has characterized faith as a mental act properly seated in the intellect and has further described this act as one of assent (assentientis). Likewise, Thomas’s emphasis upon the gracious divine roots of human faith parallels Augustine’s commitment to opposing Pelagian naturalism.35 Thomas’s adherence to free will (libero arbitrio) as the controlling facility, exercising its direction over the mind’s assent, in no way contradicts the pervasive provision of divine grace (a Deo motae per gratium).36 Whereas Augustine lingered over Rom. 5.5 and Gal. 5.6, Thomas privileged Heb. 11.1-3 in his theology of faith. ‘Anyone interested in reducing the text [Heb. 11.1] to definitional form can say that faith is that habit of mind whereby eternal life begins in us and which brings the mind to assent to things that appear not.’37 By tying faith to ‘eternal life’ Thomas understands

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ST 2a2ae.2.9, reply. Jenkins, Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas, pp. 163–75. ST 2a2ae.2.9, reply. ST 2a2ae.4.1, reply.

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the ‘substance of things hoped for’ to distinguish the virtue of faith from secular faith: ‘The substance of things hoped for draws the line between the virtue of faith and faith taken in its commonplace meaning, which does not have reference to our hope for blessedness.’38 The will pursues such hope; thereby such ‘belief thus issues from both mind and will.’39 This differentiates Credere in Deum (fides salvifica) from Credere Deo (fides historica) which the demons evidence throughout the Scriptures: belief must be directed to God, the first truth, as one’s own benefactor (Heb. 11.6).40 If Thomas’s definition seems to privilege volitional discretion in leading cognition (cognitio) unto the mind’s assent (assensus), his discussions of mind and will further complicate matters. The mind feeds the will, and the will’s influence upon the mind continues the interplay of these faculties: ‘the end itself, in turn, must first be present in the mind before it is present in the will, since the will responds only to what the mind apprehends.’41 Yet ‘the mind also must be rightly disposed to yield to the will’s command,’ so the mind encounters an object, the will responds and moves the mind unto belief.42 Greater complications enter when the mind’s cognition relates to relatively peripheral or basic belief, only to be followed by the mind’s assent under the will’s command unto more complex beliefs: insofar as beliefs in complex conceptual fashion develop in via, the encircling activities of human faculties progress such that the same truth does not reemerge cyclically. Rather, a linear progression toward complexity (as a valid, finite representation of metaphysical simplicity – God’s ontological status) involves mutating mental representations of divine truth.43 In this vein, Thomas comments on John 20 and Thomas’s confession of Jesus’s divinity upon seeing him: ‘Thomas saw one thing and believed something else. He saw a man; he believed him to be God and bore witness to this, saying, “My Lord and my God.” ’44 Thomas then exegetes Rom. 10.14 by similarly distinguishing between sensory prompts and divine truths, in this case noting the propositional nature of words heard as distinct from the reality to which they refer: ‘The hearing is of the words expressing the things

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ST 2a2ae.4.1, reply. ST 2a2ae.4.2, reply; see also 2a2ae.4.1, reply. On the demons’ faith which lacks the ‘will’s own relationship to the good’, see ST 2a2ae.5.2, reply. ST 2a2ae.4.7, reply. ST 2a2ae.4.2, ad.2; see also 2a2ae.2.10, reply. Jenkins emphasizes the supernatural nature of external prompts at the point in which ‘secular faith’ converts to Credere in Deum or fides salvifica immediately upon awareness of authoritative, divine address (Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas, pp. 196–97). ST 2a2ae.1.4, ad.1.

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of faith, not of the realities that faith regards. It does not follow, therefore, that these realities are things seen.’45 Thomas’s definition of faith implies adherence to conceptual propositions for the sake of personal knowledge, knowledge of and about a person qua person. This faith, then, assents to the ‘first truth’ (God’s own self) as well as all other truths: ‘[e]ven so, the assent of faith terminates in such things only in so far as they have some reference to God, i.e., as they are the workings of God that help man in his striving toward joyous rest in God.’46 This propositional nature of human knowledge terminates amidst the personal encounter found in the beatific vision: ‘In heaven there will be vision of the first truth as he is in himself; When he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Then, that vision will not take the form of a proposition, but of a simple intuition.’47 Propositions and sensory mediation will give way in the eschatological knowledge of God. Faith is, therefore, intrinsically imperfect as a form of knowledge.48 In this life, as well, Thomas affirms the dichotomy between faith and sight/ reason. Considering Heb. 11.1 as a stand-alone authoritative text in answer to the question ‘whether the object of faith can be something seen,’ Thomas goes on to assert strongly that ‘[n]ow things are said to be seen when they themselves cause the mind or the senses to know them. Clearly, then, no belief or opinion can have as objects things seen, whether by sense or intellect.’49 The eschatological contrast, then, involves an epistemological contrast: faith and sight. Thomas does affirm the apprehension of certain reasonable tenets of scientia by the exercise of faith; nevertheless, this fideist approach to knowledge never becomes normative. Such an approach to affirming basic theological principles – God as one and spiritual, for example – arises only due to the frailty and life situations of needy humans. Faith appropriately directed at such truths as can be typically apprehended by means of reason can owe to the need for some to attain knowledge in a speedy fashion, for a greater mass of people to attain unto such truths, and to render greater certitude to the scientifically ignorant.50 In such situations, Thomas affirms the appropriateness of ‘implicit faith’ (fidem implicitam) wherein the laity assent to the

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ST 2a2ae.1.4, ad.4. ST 2a2ae.1.1, reply; see also 2a2ae.1.2, reply; 2a2ae.1.6, reply. ST 2a2ae.1.2, ad.3. ST 1a2ae.67.3. ST 2a2ae.1.4, sed contra and reply. Thomas notes the necessity of moving from faith unto understanding – eschatologically – as encapsulated in the classic phrase fides quarens intellectum, see ST 2a2ae.1.5, ad.1. ST 2a2ae.2.4, reply.

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teaching of their ecclesiastical superiors instrumentally in their primary assent unto divine revelation.51 As mentioned above, Thomas acknowledged the place of faith prior to the entrance of sin and the progress of redemption. ‘Before the state of sin the man had an explicit faith in Christ’s Incarnation as this has as its purpose final glorification, but not as its purpose is the deliverance of men from sin through the Passion and resurrection.’52 Thomas clarifies that protological faith assents to a vague eschatological promise of God – glorification – apart from the specificities revealed in the covenantal history of Israel and the church.53 His hat tipped to redemptive history, however, Thomas affirms the protological knowledge of the Incarnation, albeit apart from the ‘deliverance of men from sin through the Passion and resurrection.’54 Thomas can, therefore, define faith apart from the context of redemption; yet Thomas’s abstraction of faith from its Pauline and redemptive moorings does not involve abstraction from assent to the truths of the Incarnation. In this vein, Thomas leaves very little conceptual room for speaking of the Son’s faith in the Father and Spirit. Thomas makes two further distinctions within his doctrine of faith which impinge on consideration of its definition: between the inner and outer act of faith, and between formed and unformed faith. The acts of faith are twofold – assent and confession. Assent, the inner act, has already been discussed at length. Confession (confessio) involves the fruition of faith’s own act, which Thomas finds attested in 2 Thess. 1.11.55 Activities ‘that in their very kind bear upon the ends of some virtue are properly acts of that virtue,’ with the ‘kind’ (speciem) corresponding to its intended objective. Thomas clarifies the link between faith’s objective as assent or confession: ‘the aim of outward speech is to indicate what is conceived in one’s heart. Just as inner thinking on the things of faith, then, is as such the act of faith, so too is outwardly confessing them.’56 The outer act of faith, then, involves the public manifestation of the inner act of faith, such

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ST 2a2ae.2.6, ad.3. Yet such ‘implicit faith’ ought not be widespread for all sanctified persons receive the ‘gift of understanding’ – a ‘certain intimate knowing’ and ‘supernatural light to penetrate further and know things for which natural light is not enough’ (2a2ae.8.2, reply; 8.4, reply; 8.8, ad.1). ST 2a2ae.2.7, reply; see also 2a2ae.5.1, reply. Thomas distinguishes between faith’s formal object and material object to clarify the discontinuity and continuity, respectively, between postlapsarian and prelapsarian faith (ST 2a2ae.5.1, reply). Note the seeming tension between this claim and Thomas’s reticence elsewhere to affirm the (later Scotist) claim that the Incarnation would occur apart from the existence of sin and need for redemption; see, e.g., ST 3a.1.3, reply. ST 2a2ae.3.1, sed contra. ST 2a2ae.3.1, reply.

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that the distinction characterizes the patent nature of faith or, otherwise put, a quantitative difference between timid faith and faith gone public in speech. Thomas then concludes this clarification by noting that, according to Rom. 10.16, outward confession of faith is ‘necessary for salvation’ (de necessitate salutis) whenever God’s honor requires such public witness.57 The distinction between formed and unformed faith involves a qualitative distinction insofar as formed faith requires faith to lead beyond its own ‘kind’ (speciem). As with Augustine, Thomas understands Gal. 5.6 to teach an ordo whereby the assent of faith precedes charity (although Augustine’s complexity was noted above); however, Thomas distinguishes between the mutual inherence of faith and love and the categories of ‘formed’ and ‘unformed’ faith. These two types of faith are ‘not two different habits,’ for both characterize versions of willful assent of the intellect.58 Nevertheless these two types of faith are differentiated in so far as one supersedes the other by fostering the cultivation of another virtuous habit: charity.59 Whereas the distinction is internal to the virtue of faith, the grounds for the distinction are ascertained by the evidence of another virtue.60 In this respect, Thomas articulates an epistemic principle similar to the ‘practical syllogism’ of Puritan and Continental Reformed theology, whereby saving faith (fides salvifica, also Credere in Deum) evidences itself by fostering obedience (acts distinct from faith itself). We can ascertain Thomas’s definition of faith from a later comment in his discussion of this virtue: ‘faith is an act of the intellect as it assents to divine truth at the command of the will as moved by God through grace.’61 Nevertheless this definition suffers in one way: faith defined as such may still not be fides formata and fides salvifica. Thus, the definition must be extended by adding one qualifying phrase, ‘faith is an act of the intellect’ that fuels the exercise of charity. Only with such a causal qualification can faith be defined strictly as ‘formed faith’ and, therefore, ‘saving faith.’ Whereas Thomas’s definition of faith remains Augustinian, albeit with greater sophistication, the Protestant Reformers will question its adequacy for interpreting properly New Testament texts which emphasize salvation by faith alone and in articulating an eschatologically coherent breadth of definition.

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ST 2a2ae.3.2, reply. ST 2a2ae.4.4, reply. ST 2a2ae.4.5, reply. Thomas here identifies formed faith as existing when ‘the intellect infallibly focuses (sic) upon its proper good, truth,’ and ‘belief be directed unfailingly to the ultimate end, which is the motive of the will’s embracing the truth.’ The ‘ultimate end’ involves several layers of application: from charity to grace, eventually to beatitude. See also 2a2ae.4.5, ad.3. See Marie-Dominique Chenu, Das Werk des Hl. Thomas von Aquin (2nd ed.; Graz: Styria, 1982), vol. 2, p. 111. ST 2a2ae.4.4, ad.4; see also 2a2ae.4.7, ad.3. ST 2a2ae 2.9, reply (emphases mine).

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V. John Calvin on Faith Substantial ecclesial, philosophical, and polemical changes occurred between the publication of Thomas’s Summa Theologiae and the entry of John Calvin into the arena of the European Reformations.62 Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion covers the doctrine of faith at some length, subsuming it under the banner of Book III, ‘The Way in Which We Receive the Grace of Christ: What Benefits Come to Us from It, and What Effects Follow.’63 Calvin’s polemical discussions range over many of Thomas’s concerns – distinctions between formed and unformed faith, implicit and explicit faith – though the reader must exercise great caution in noting the substantial redactions that brought the Thomist tradition into Calvin’s day. Nevertheless, Calvin does substantially differ with Thomas about the doctrine of faith, particularly the definition of faith in its relationship to other virtues. The entirety of Book III discusses the benefits of Christ and their appropriation by Christians, in terms of atonement and the Christian life. Calvin immediately acknowledges the necessity of applying salvation to sinners, for ‘as long as Christ remains outside of us, and we are separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us.’64 This union of adopted child with firstborn Son occurs only by faith, thereby leading to discussion of faith in Chapter 2. Calvin prefaces his doctrine of faith with a chapter on the relationship between the eternal Word and the Holy Spirit, wherein he articulates a distinctly Augustinian account of divine revelation that privileges the Triune God’s initiative in uniting the spiritually dead with the risen Lord by means of the life-giving Spirit. As with Thomas, the exercise of faith remains a possibility only for those divinely elected to receive vivifying grace.65

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David Steinmetz, Calvin in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 141– 56; Richard A. Muller, ‘Scholasticism in Calvin: A Question of Relation and Disjunction’, in The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition (OSHT; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 39–58; Francois Wendel, Calvin: The Origins and Development of His Religious Thought (trans. Philip Mairet; London: Collins, 1974), pp. 17ff. Calvin, Institutes, title of Book III. Calvin, Institutes, III.i.1. Calvin, Institutes, III.i.1; see also III.i.4, where 2 Thess. 2.13 underlines Calvin’s doctrine of predestination unto faith. This is not to say that Calvin and Thomas agree entirely regarding the doctrine of grace. They certainly do not. Nevertheless they both articulate Augustinian accounts. These differ regarding the anthropological effects of sin, and, therefore, the extent to which grace is needed in vivifying sinners. Nevertheless, Thomas’s nature/grace structure resides within a broader metaphysics of participation which renders it de facto similar to Calvin’s sin/grace paradigm, on which see Reinhard Hütter, ‘The Directedness of Reasoning and the Metaphysics of Creation’, in Griffiths and Hütter (eds.), Reason and the Reasons of Faith, pp. 184–89.

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Calvin affirms the need for care in defining faith insofar as ‘most people, when they hear this term, understand nothing deeper than a common assent to the gospel history.’66 By this assessment of contemporary theologizing, Calvin does not mean to diminish faith as an intellectual activity;67 to the contrary, his most vehement polemic in this chapter involves condemnation of the Thomist doctrine of ‘implicit faith.’ Calvin surprisingly grants every statement Thomas makes regarding the persistence of implicit belief in this life; however, he refuses to allow such uncertainty to reshape one’s definition of faith. Whereas Thomas inserts implicit belief in that which remains unknown into faith itself, Calvin refuses to ‘label ignorance tempered by humility “faith!” ’68 As to Calvin’s exact definition of faith: ‘Now we shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.’69 Whereas Calvin admittedly finds several uses of the term in Scripture – as sound doctrine, related to a particular manifestation of God’s promise (‘miracle faith’), power to work miracles (1 Cor. 13.2), or the content of preaching – the theological definition must supersede these Scriptural concepts; therefore, Calvin’s discussion of faith removes itself from word study and strictly exegetical discussions.70 Calvin later notes the twofold emphasis in his definition: the Holy Spirit must make the ‘mind to be illumined’ and the ‘heart . . . strengthened.’71 Particularly noteworthy is Calvin’s submersion of assurance within his doctrine of faith, seen in the phrases ‘firm and certain knowledge benevolence toward us.’72 A bite-size restatement of his definition highlights this as

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Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.1. Richard A. Muller, ‘Fides and Cognitio in Relation to the Problem of Intellect and Will in the Theology of John Calvin’, in The Unaccommodated Calvin, pp. 159–61; cf. Edward A. Dowey, The Knowledge of God in Calvin’s Theology (3rd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 24f. Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.3, following his admission that ‘most things are now implied for us, and will be so until . . . we come nearer to the presence of God’. Calvin, Insitutes, III.ii.7. Calvin never abandons this definition, according to Barbara Pitkin, What Pure Eyes Could See: Calvin’s Doctrine of Faith in Its Exegetical Context (OSHT; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 29. Pitkin’s study ably recounts Calvin’s doctrine of faith as found in his commentaries, which lack the traditional loci discussions found only in the Institutes; see Richard A. Muller, ‘Fontes argumentorum and capita doctrinae: Method and Argument in Calvin’s Construction of loci and disputations’, in The Unaccommodated Calvin, pp. 140–58. Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.33; see also III.ii.36, where these two emphases are explicitly linked to the two faculties: brain and heart. Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.7.

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well: ‘faith as knowledge of divine benevolence toward us and a sure persuasion of its truth.’73 While Calvin continues to affirm the intellectual nature of faith as knowledge, he redefines knowledge as consisting in assurance and certainty of God’s good will toward oneself.74 Mark Dever has carefully noted the contextual limits of this claim: Calvin here disputes a Catholic spirituality that typically kept any assurance at arm’s length from the laity, but in so doing he does not strictly identify faith and subjective assurance.75 In this regard, he highlights the role of the conscience in appropriating the divine promises in Christ to oneself, noting that this assurance provides the mettle for fighting the devil’s temptations.76 Calvin’s emphasis on assurance within faith itself, however, does not flow from naïvete about the daily doubts and weaknesses of the inner life. Calvin affirms that ‘believers are in perpetual conflict with their own unbelief,’ highlighted by King David’s struggles as recorded in 2 Samuel and the Psalms.77 Yet believers eventually prove victorious over temptation, however prolonged the battle may be. Most importantly, parallel to Calvin’s realism and dogged insistence on conceptual clarity with respect to so-called implicit faith, Calvin absolutely refuses to redefine faith so as to include its lack. That is, doubts and weaknesses – even lack of assurance – remain in believers as unbelief.78 Calvin locates this unbelief technically outside the believer’s heart, yet internal to the believer.79 Calvin grounds this assurance primarily

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Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.12. Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.14: ‘Knowledge of faith consists in assurance rather than comprehension’. Mark E. Dever, ‘Calvin, Westminster, and Assurance’, in J. Ligon Duncan (ed.), The Westminster Confession into the 21st Century: Essays in Remembrance of the 350th Anniversary of the Westminster Assembly (Ross-shire, UK: Mentor, 2003), vol. 1, pp. 315–20. Dever helpfully cites texts in Calvin’s sermons where ‘degrees of assurance’ are to be found by believers, reflecting a distinction between faith itself and subjective assurance; see, e.g., John Calvin, Sermons on 2 Samuel (trans. Douglas Kelly; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1992), pp. 199–201. Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.16: ‘No man is a believer, I say, except him who, leaning upon the assurance of his salvation, confidently triumphs over the devil and death’. On Calvin’s development of the conscience in providing assurance, see Randall C. Zachman, The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), pp. 220–23. Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.17. Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.18; see Victor A. Shepherd, The Nature and Function of Faith in the Theology of John Calvin (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1983), pp. 24–28. Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.21. R. T. Kendall fails to capture Calvin’s doctrine of faith insofar as he argues that ‘Calvin consistently urges men not to look to themselves’ and will never ‘urge men to make their calling and election sure to themselves’ (Calvin and English Calvinism until 1649, pp. 24–25). As will be noted especially in Chapter 5, Kendall’s argument for substantial discontinuity between the supposedly intellectualist Calvin and the allegedly voluntarist Calvinists cannot be plausibly maintained; cf.

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in the Word of God as it promises eternal life and only secondarily in one’s manifest evidences of renewal.80 Calvin carefully distinguishes between faith and love and, in so doing, obliterates the Thomist distinction between formed and unformed faith.81 Likewise, Calvin distinguishes between faith and hope, as well as faith and repentance.82 His argument in both cases presses traditional virtue theory and Scriptural verbiage to conceptual distinction without separation: saving faith is distinct, though never separate from, love and hope. Calvin goes one step further, giving faith irreversible initial causality with regard to love, hope, and repentance.83 Calvin’s disagreements with Thomas and the medieval traditions about the doctrine of justification, particularly regarding its instrumental ground, follow from this terminological shift. In short, Calvin’s affirmation of sola fide requires the conceptual distinction between faith and works that follow from it (primarily love). Whereas Thomas’s causal submersion of love within faith itself, by requiring ‘formed faith’ as the instrumental cause of justification, privileges love in justification, Calvin’s denial of the very distinction between formed and unformed faith emphasizes the singularity of faith as the instrument for union with Christ.84 Randall Zachman finds Calvin’s affirmation ‘that the faith of believers must be confirmed by the testimony of a good conscience that grows out of sanctification by Christ and the Holy Spirit’ to be ‘inherently unstable,’ yet Paul Helm has recently clarified the analytical distinction between foundations and confirmations of assurance, showing its deep roots within the Christian tradition prior to any modern introspection.85 As we saw that Thomas affirmed a similar ‘reflex act’ (which the Reformed orthodox will approve), so Calvin argues from the necessary tie between faith and

Richard A. Muller, ‘Calvin and the “Calvinists”: Assessing Continuities and Discontinuities between the Reformation and Orthodoxy (Parts 1 and 2)’, in After Calvin, pp. 63–102. 80 81

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Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.28; xiv.18. Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.8: ‘no one can duly know him without at the same time apprehending the sanctification of the Spirit’. Calvin’s affirmation of a necessary link between faith and sanctification rests upon the extensive nature of the Holy Spirit’s work, as promised by Christ, rather than upon any naturalistic optimism. Calvin goes on to call ‘unformed faith’ an illusion or temporary faith in Institutes, III.ii.10. On hope, see Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.42; on repentance, see Calvin, Institutes, III.iii.1, 5. Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.41: ‘It is faith alone that first engenders love in us’, as well as Institutes, III.ii.42: ‘it [faith] engenders and brings forth hope from itself’. Nevertheless, Calvin here affirms subsequent revitalization of faith by means of hope’s encouragement: ‘Hope refreshes faith’. Calvin, Institutes, III.i.1. Zachman, The Assurance of Faith, p. 246; cf. Paul Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 416.

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love for the conscience’s testimony as an integral, though subsidiary and mediate, ground of assurance within faith. The eschatological obsolescence of faith does arise in Calvin’s exposition; nevertheless such limitations remain quite marginal in his doctrine. In this vein, Calvin follows Thomas in interpreting Heb. 11.1 by means of a contrast between present things and absent possessions fit to be embraced by faith: ‘Paul speaks as if to say that faith is an evidence of things not appearing, a seeing of things not seen, a clearness of things obscure, a presence of things absent, a showing forth of things hidden.’86 Preaching, vital to the provision of faith’s object in this life, will pass away, according to Calvin’s exegesis of 1 Cor. 13.10 and Rom. 4.14, which Calvin links to other such eschatological prophecies as found in 1 Cor. 13.13 and 2 Cor. 5.6-7.87 Regarding the confession of Thomas upon seeing Christ in John 20, Pitkin notes that Calvin sharply distances Thomas’s faith from sensory perception; rather, sight jogs Thomas’s memory so that he remembers the doctrines of Christ which he almost forgot.88 As Pitkin puts it, ‘[F]aith is portrayed as a kind of perception but is definitely not to be confused with physical sight. Faith is not sight but comes through hearing.’89 Finally, then, Calvin’s doctrine of faith can be seen as a critical extension of Augustinian theology, in that the Reformer reasserts some of the least emphasized aspects of Augustine’s theology of faith while also heightening the intellectual activity prerequisite and intrinsic to faith under the category of fiducia.90 The dismissal of implicit faith followed from Calvin’s emphasis upon the specificity of faith’s object – the Word of God, particularly as it communicates the promises of God in Christ.91 Since faith necessarily arises by the same Spirit who also works love and hope, assurance integral to such faith can be stoked by a ‘reflex act’ which testifies in good conscience to one’s union with Christ; nevertheless, Calvin maintains the merely instrumental role of faith in justification, insofar as its efficacy resides wholly in its link with Christ’s benefits.92 Faith involves assured knowledge, involving 86

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Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.41. Calvin retracts his earlier claims that Heb. 11.1 is a full definition of faith and notes that Hebrews rarely discusses the object of faith (an issue of rising importance for Calvin with his law-gospel hermeneutic); see Pitkin, What Pure Eyes Could See, pp. 15, 71–76. Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.13. Pitkin, What Pure Eyes Could See, p. 16, 94. Pitkin, What Pure Eyes Could See, p. 68. Muller, ‘Fides and Cognitio in Relation to the Problem of Intellect and Will in the Theology of John Calvin’, in The Unaccommodated Calvin, pp. 172–73. Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.6-7, 29. See C. Graafland, ‘Hat Calvin einen Ordo salutis gelehrt?’ in Wilhelm E. Neuser (ed.), Calvinus Ecclesiae Genevensis Custos: Die Referate des Internationalen Kongresses für Calvinforschung Vom 6. bis 9. September 1982 in Genf (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1984), pp. 232–33. Calvin, Institutes, III.ii.30.

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both heart and mind, convinced that God’s promises are for one’s benefit and certain to succeed. Inherent within such faith are movements of affection and appropriation foreign to Thomas’s account, which take up the holistic suggestions in Augustine’s eschatology and refashion them into the theological category of fiducia. Outside the context of redemption, then, faith would involve receptive openness to the promises of God; however, Calvin never so much as hints at faith outside the post-lapsarian economy.

VI. Reformed Confessions and Reformed Orthodoxy on Faith Other Reformation and post-Reformation sources reflect continuity with Calvin’s primary emphasis combined with discontinuities arising from shifting contexts and exegetical concerns. Reformed orthodoxy consistently upheld what can be termed an holistic definition of faith – integrating mind and will (or heart) – and, in so doing, moved faith away from a strict eschatological contrast as in Thomas. Nonetheless, faith continued to be contrasted with works, a contrast tied to the prevalent law/grace distinction in Reformed and Lutheran hermeneutics. In this vein, faith remains related specifically to the promises from God found in the Word of God (reflecting a law/gospel hermeneutic that finds no solace in the divine command). The Reformed orthodox extend Calvin’s argument by strenuously and consistently emphasizing the solely instrumental value of faith for justification. That is, faith only justifies insofar as it has been divinely mandated as the activity by which the ground of justification – an alien righteousness and vicarious sin-bearer – may be received. Early Reformation confessions contain the broad definition of faith which, in contrast to medieval Catholic theology, will characterize later Reformed confessions and doctrine. The First Helvetic Confession (1536) defines saving faith as a ‘sure, firm foundation for and a laying hold of all these things for which one hopes from God, and from which love and subsequently all virtues and the fruits of good works are brought forth.’ Faith here does far more than merely assent to truth data; rather it is ‘sure’ and ‘firm’ and ‘laying hold’ of one’s ‘hopes from God’; nevertheless faith itself performs a merely instrumental role in salvation for ‘it does not take comfort in them [the works that issue from faith] but in the mercy of God.’93 The Geneva Confession of 1536 similarly speaks of faith as a receptive and 93

First Helvetic Confession (1536), 13 (cited in Arthur C. Cochrane [ed.], Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003], p. 104). Hereafter Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century. See also the Belgic Confession of Faith (1561), xxii (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 204).

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resting activity wherein a promised, alien righteousness becomes one’s own. The Genevan Confession speaks in Calvin’s tone, including a ‘certain confidence and assurance of heart’ within faith’s definition and highlighting the distinct object of faith: the ‘promises of the Gospel . . . offered to us by the Father and described to us by the Word of God.’94 The inclusion of assurance within faith’s definition continued in other Reformed confessions of the sixteenth century. The Confession of the English Congregation of Geneva (1556), written by Marian exiles and later influential in the reform of the Scottish church, noted that ‘it is not sufficient to believe . . . except we do apply the same benefits to ourselves who are God’s elect.’95 The French Confession of Faith (1559) characterizes justification as ‘done inasmuch as we appropriate to our use the promises of life which are given to us through him, and feel their effect when we accept them, being assured that we are established by the Word of God and shall not be deceived.’96 Appropriation (or its theological synonym, apprehension) becomes a common description of faith’s activity, though this operates at a second-order analytical level and cannot exclude other psychological and intellectual depictions (intellectual assent, fiducial trust, etc.).97 Failure to note the first- and second-order nature of terms attached to the definition of faith can lead to great confusion, particularly when such terms cross semantic realms in various linguistic contexts (i.e., apprehension can be a first-order term of which one is self-aware in crime-fighting, yet apprehension operates in Reformed orthodox theology as a second-order depiction of what one’s faith does contextually). The Scots Confession of 1560 deserves comment for two reasons. First, it helpfully summarizes so much of Reformation thought regarding the doctrine of faith. Second, Karl Barth will later argue that the difference between the Scots Confession and, say, the Westminster Confession represents a chasm which must be crossed in order to proceed in constructive theology. The Scots Confession devotes little space to the topic of faith per se, including only a short comment at the tail end of its article on original sin. Saving faith is depicted here as ‘an assured faith in the promise of God revealed to us in this word; by this faith we grasp Christ Jesus with the graces and

94

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Geneva Confession of 1536, 11 (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 123). Confession of the English Congregation of Geneva (1556), 111 (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 134). French Confession of Faith (1559), xx (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 151). Belgic Confession of Faith (1561), xxii (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 203); Second Helvetic Confession (1566), xvi (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 257); French Confession of Faith (1559), xx (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 151).

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blessings promised in him.’98 The definition includes the hermeneutical specificity found in most sixteenth-century Reformed confessions, noting faith’s object as the ‘promise of God revealed to us in this word’ as opposed to the whole word. Likewise, faith’s importance comes from its grasp of something outside oneself: ‘Christ Jesus’ who brings all ‘graces and blessings promised in him.’ Faith, then, is tied to the gospel found in Scripture and efficacious instrumentally (rather than intrinsically). The Scots Confession also includes the notion of ‘assurance’ within its definition, although the manner of this assurance eludes definition: is one assured of the veracity of God’s promises or is one assured that one does grasp Jesus Christ, or is one assured of both at once? The vague nature of faith’s description as assurance characterizes Calvin’s own writings and will be clarified only later.99 At this point the Scots Confession articulates the consistency with which the Reformed confessions from both the Continent and in the British Isles use language of assurance to define faith, albeit with only vague hints at what such assurance entails. The contrast as well as the tie between faith and works receives explanation in the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), where the relationship between faith and love is depicted as a one-way street. Citing 1 Tim. 1.5, it confesses that love flows from faith (and never the reverse).100 Nevertheless faith – true and saving faith – always leads to and grounds the activities of love and all virtues; the Confession merely differentiates between what cannot be separated. This differentiation remains of utmost importance precisely because of faith’s instrumental efficacy, itself owing to God’s command.101 Since God has given an instrumental role in justification solely to faith, the nature of faith itself – distinct from accompaniments – deserves careful delineation. This Second Helvetic Confession promotes analytical care in the service of covenantal theology, not in an effort to suggest ‘easy believism.’ Thus the Confession presents an holistic definition similar to the other Reformation confessions: ‘Christian faith is not an opinion or human conviction, but a most firm trust and a clear and steadfast assent of the mind, and then a most certain apprehension of the truth of God presented in the

98

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Scots Confession of 1560, 11 (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 167). Perhaps an exception to this vague use of assurance is the statement that faith is ‘being assured that we are established by the Word of God and shall not be deceived’ in the French Confession of Faith (1559), xx (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 151). Second Helvetic Confession (1566), xv (cited in Reformed Confessions in the Sixteenth Century, p. 257). Second Helvetic Confessions (1566), xv (cited in Reformed Confessions in the Sixteenth Century, p. 256).

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Scriptures and in the Apostles’ Creed, and this also of God himself, the greatest good, and especially of God’s promise and of Christ.’102 This twofold emphasis on trust and assent, both terminating in the instrumental apprehension of Christ and his benefits promised in the gospel, consistently parallels the definition offered in the Heidelberg Catechism, where faith ‘is not only a certain knowledge . . . but also a wholehearted trust.’103 Even this twofold faith, willful assent and trust that God’s promises apply to oneself, serves only an instrumental purpose.104 As with Thomas and the Second Helvetic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism also directly connects faith in Christ with faith in the promises found in Scripture and articulated in the Apostles’ Creed.105 The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) and catechisms (WSC and WLC) evince a nuance gleaned from the rigors of scholastic study and a multi-generational delicacy wrought by Reformation thought. The WCF devotes an entire chapter to the subject of saving faith, noting its creation by the Holy Spirit through the ordinary means of grace (Word, sacraments, and prayer) before strictly defining faith itself. This order reflects the various concerns at play and their varying importance: the role of grace in enlivening the sinner precedes any later distinction between the activity of faith and other virtues or works. Distinctions do arise, however, as the WCF explains the activity of faith in terms of when one ‘believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word . . . acteth differently . . . But the principal acts of saving faith are, accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone . . .’106 Recognizing these descriptions as either first- or second-order classifications of saving faith involves much difficulty and requires turning one’s attention to the elucidating comments offered in the catechisms. The WSC defines ‘faith in Jesus Christ’ as a ‘saving grace whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the gospel.’ Nothing distinctive arises in this statement, however, as the WLC helpfully clarifies the topic of assurance and faith. ‘Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner, by the Spirit and the Word of God, whereby he . . . not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness therein held forth.’107 Furthermore, the WLC emphasizes the instrumental character of faith in justification (Q.73) by differentiating, first, between faith and virtues

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Second Helvetic Confessions (1566), xvi (cited in Reformed Confessions in the Sixteenth Century, p. 257). Heidelberg Catechism, q.21 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 61). Heidelberg Catechism, q.61 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 68). Heidelberg Catechism, q.22 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 62). Westminster Confession of Faith, xvi.2 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 189). Westminster Larger Catechism, q.72 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 259).

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which flow from it, and, only secondarily, between faith’s righteousness (evident but imperfect and, therefore, unfit to justify) and the alien righteousness apprehended by faith.108 Most innovatively, the WLC differentiates between assurance and faith properly speaking (Q.81). Assurance may and does follow from faith, but is not essential to faith itself and will at times be tested, though never so as to overwhelm faith in the elect.109 Such distinction without separation creatively moves beyond Calvin not in its conceptual judgment, but in its systemic clarity.110 Paul Helm has helpfully noted the importance of the ‘reflex act’ within Reformed orthodoxy, even within Calvin’s own thought. Against the charges of Barth and others, grounding assurance of faith in both objective and subjective evidences neither differentiates Puritans from their Continental counterparts, nor involves the substitution of one’s own faith for Christ’s work as the ground of justification. That this is not a ‘bait and switch’ derives from the constant emphasis devoted to faith’s merely instrumental role from Calvin to Westminster and into Turretin, combined with the simultaneous affirmation that faith is never separate from love and other virtues (though it remains analytically distinct).111 The WLC follows Calvin’s more precise statements whereby faith terminates solely in Christ’s objective work and only leads to assurance grounded in this work extra nos as well as subjective evidences attained in the ‘reflex act.’ Such discussion of faith and assurance, while materially tangential to the thesis of this chapter, has been used by Kendall and others to assert a fundamental discontinuity between Calvin and his ecclesiastical successors (Beza, the federal theologians, and the Puritans). Thus, since this chapter asserts that the traditional Reformed doctrine of faith allows room for the claim that Christ exercised faith, the fundamental coherence of the Reformed tradition on this formal level requires at least modest defense (though without comprehensive demonstration of its Scriptural roots and broader coherence). Francis Turretin clarifies the relationship between faith and knowledge with precision lacking in either Calvin or the early Reformed confessions. After noting that faith involves two faculties (mind and will), he asks whether faith itself involves knowledge and answers ‘that faith includes knowledge in its conception, not that faith is absolutely the same as

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Westminster Larger Catechism, q.73 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 259). Westminster Larger Catechism, q.81 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 261). In substantial agreement, then, with Mark A. Dever, ‘Calvin, Westminster, and Assurance’, in Duncan (ed.), The Westminster Confession into the Twenty-First Century, pp. 303–41; contra R. T. Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649, p. 212. Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas, p. 416. Francis Turretin calls the ‘reflex act’ part of faith, yet he then notes that this reflex tends toward ‘consolation and confidence’ leading in fact to a seventh act necessary but distinct from faith itself (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 563).

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knowledge, or that to believe is the same as to understand . . . but that since knowledge is the genus of all habits, while faith by his own confession is an intellectual habit, faith also ought necessarily to include knowledge.’112 Construing the Catholic affirmation of ‘implicit faith’ as a denial of faith’s requirement of knowledge – an exaggeration in principle, though not necessarily in practice – Turretin refines the traditional reading of Heb. 11.1 so that ‘faith does not exclude all knowledge, but only that which is founded upon scientific means.’113 That is, faith can only be defined against knowledge insofar as knowledge may follow from another authority than the Word of God; Turretin does not posit a dichotomy between faith and science in terms of inquiry and manner but in terms of material sources: faith only looks to the promises of the Word. Not only is the dichotomy chastened with a precision hitherto lacking, but Turretin also links the question of infant baptism to the doctrine of faith in a manner which highlights the necessity of knowledge for the possibility of faith. Contrary to Lutheran claims, infants cannot exercise faith according to Turretin precisely because they lack knowledge and, therefore, cannot exercise volitional and intellectual belief.114 Looking to the extreme case of infants, the place of knowledge as a prerequisite for faith emerges; more importantly for my purposes, any competition between knowledge and faith narrows to a distinction between intellectual sources rather than dispositions. Heinrich Heppe’s magisterial sourcebook helpfully tracks the Reformed doctrine of faith and can be used to highlight commonalities. The doctrine of faith arises within the ordo salutis under the topic of ‘Calling’ and, therefore, clarifies the human activities inherent in this divine call.115 While fides propria includes three elements (notitia, assensus, and fiducia), fiducia alone comprises the ‘essence of fides,’ bringing the mind’s activity to volitional completion in the act of trust.116 This trust ‘rests essentially upon the Gospel’ hermeneutically defined in contrast to the divine command.117 Heppe notes that a later group of dogmaticians (e.g., Peter van Mastricht) narrowed the definition of faith to exclude fiducia; however, ‘the majority of dogmaticians hold to the proposition, that “fiducial assent is the form of faith.” ’118 By making fiducial assent the essence of faith, the Reformed theologians distinguish faith from the reflex act of assurance, on the one hand, and faith’s

112 113 114 115 116

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Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 565. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 567. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 585. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 527–42. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, p. 532. ‘Implicit faith’ represents a confusion of categories, for, though faith is essentially trust, it cannot arise without logically beginning with notitia and assensus to the Gospel promises. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 532, 536. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, p. 533.

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necessary consequence termed love, on the other.119 The distinction between faith and love continually involves an underlying concern to maintain the sole instrumental role in justification as divinely appointed to faith, though such faith always organically leads to works of obedience and love.120 Finally then, Heppe also highlights a developed analytical reading of Hebrews 11 and 1 Cor. 13.8-10 regarding the relationship between faith and knowledge.121 Citing Bucanus on the likelihood of faith ceasing at some point, he writes, ‘As regards the object, Christ, as he is offered in the word and sacraments, faith will disappear when we have Christ in heaven (1 Cor. 13.8-10).’122 The qualifications inserted into the standard reading of 1 Corinthians 13 by Bucanus relate specifically to the ground of faith, as seen above in Turretin. In this case, Bucanus follows Calvin in noting the merely transient need for the instrumental ministry of word and sacrament. Regarding a more eschatologically chastened faith, however, Bucanus states that ‘if we are speaking of Christ absolutely, without the wrappings of word and sacrament, then faith in him, or, if you prefer, the actual thing called by that name, i.e., knowledge and grasp of Christ, is never likely to cease at any time, but will be at the height of perfection in heaven . . . Actual knowledge, I say, will not be abolished, it will indeed be perfected.’123 Faith represents a human response to Christ that requires knowledge, rather than excluding or competing with it; only at a secondary level can faith and knowledge be juxtaposed: when comparing various forms of mediation (e.g., science, sacrament, Scripture, or sight). Whereas faith as mediated through Scripture will eventually pass away, faith directed immediately to God’s promises in Christ will never fade. The developments of postReformation Reformed orthodoxy extend Augustine’s suggestions and Calvin’s use of the term fiducia to include, rather than oppose, epistemology within the doctrine of faith.

119 120

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Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 535–36. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 554–55, 561. Two points are highlighted in this vein: faith alone is the instrument of justification; and faith alone is the instrument of justification. Parallel development occurs in the dogmatics of Lutheran Orthodoxy, according to Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (trans. Charles Hay and Henry Jacobs; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 3rd rev. ed., 1961), pp. 410–11. Willhelm Bucanus, Institutiones Theologicae seu Locorum Communium Christianae Religionis, xxix.28 (cited in Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, p. 537). Bucanus, Institutiones Theologicae, xxix.28 (cited in Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, p. 537).

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VII. Karl Barth on Faith Karl Barth’s doctrine of faith reinterprets the Reformed tradition within a dogmatic project attuned to the ills of religious liberalism and the privatism of pietism. Whereas Douglas Harink has recently argued that Barth substantially disavowed the magisterial Reformation tradition regarding faith, Barth’s reformulation actually extends the broad Reformed consensus into a new era with an eye to new cultural temptations.124 Barth’s emphasis on divine objectivity and the primacy of acknowledgment within faith’s definition faithfully rearticulates the orthodox commitment to notitia as the logical first step in faith (contra pietism) and the merely instrumental nature of faith within the covenant (contra liberalism).125 The relationship between intellectual activity and faith appears throughout Barth’s Church Dogmatics as he navigates between the anti-intellectualism of both pietism and liberal religion and the tendency to over-emphasize the instrumental (or secondary) objects of faithful cognition apart from their ministration of faith’s primary object: the God who chooses to speak in such instruments.126 Barth consistently emphasizes the nature of faith as knowledge (kennen), even as it is acknowledgment, recognition, and confession.127 ‘At its root it is indeed an obedient acceptance,’ though it is ‘much more . . . than notitia’ and ‘much more than assensus.’128 Faith’s embrace of divine objectivity extends beyond the propositional accounts of God to God’s own person. In fact, faith properly relates only to Jesus himself.129 Faith’s relation to this divine person in all his effulgent glory (wherein ‘His form is inexhaustibly rich’) grounds Barth’s logical

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Douglas Harink, Paul among the Postliberals, pp. 52–56. Harink fails to reflect accurately Barth’s relationship to the Reformation confessions and the dogmatics of Reformed orthodoxy insofar as he identifies the instrumental nature of faith with the liberal identification of faith as Abelardian religion; in this vein, see the criticisms of Harink in Bruce McCormack, ‘Justitia aliena: Karl Barth in Conversation with the Evangelical Doctrine of Imputed Righteousness’, in Bruce L. McCormack (ed.), Justification in Perspective: Historical Developments and Contemporary Challenges (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), pp. 176–77, 195–96. Harink also fails to heed the warning that we ‘beware of presenting Barth as trapped within a competitive picture: either God’s action or ours, either grace or history’, from John Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology: Human Action in Barth’s Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 37. On the ec-centric and instrumental nature of faith, see Barth, CD IV/1, pp. 741, 743, 751. For Barth’s criticism of Schleiermacher and liberal religious studies (as a humanistic discipline), see Barth, CD IV/1, p. 741. Barth, CD IV/1, p. 758. Barth, CD IV/1, pp. 759–60. Barth, CD IV/1, p. 760; III/3, pp. 18, 26, 32–33, 248; II/1, p. 17.

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reprioritization of assensus over notitia.130 Faith for fallen and limited humans involves reception of the Word of God precisely as God’s own words, an ethical-aesthetic judgment involving assent.131 The Christian, then, is distinguished from the non-Christian by what the believer sees and how such things are seen (as in God’s free and loving authority).132 The petitions of the Lord’s Prayer request the hallowing of God’s name objectively in revelation and subjectively in human acknowledgment and appropriation; thus Barth reads the request ‘hallowed be your name’ epistemologically (though not subjectively except by way of derivation).133 Faith cannot be simply knowledge, however, for Barth oftentimes characterizes this activity as trust. ‘Faith is trust placed in the divine faithfulness.’134 Barth elsewhere criticizes the Heidelberg Catechism’s inclusion of trust within its definition of faith (Q.21) and counters with treatment of faith as knowledge with ‘man’s orientation to God as an object.’135 Though Barth often characterizes human correspondence to divine objectivity in a way that runs counter to the liberal project of treating religion as an universal human phenomenon, he elsewhere includes even choice and decision within the act of faith (albeit when not in direct polemics against pietism).136 Barth also redefines knowledge so as to be ‘hearing and receiving of the Word of God,’ thereby including what Reformed orthodoxy would term appropriation, assent, and fiducia.137 Faith necessarily brings with it prayer and obedient works, albeit without merging with or turning into such virtuous acts. However, the Holy Spirit ushers faith only into those whom God will also sustain in prayerful lives of loving obedience.138 Barth suggests that prayer is the ‘primary thing in faith as well as in obedience,’ a suggestion that vocal, dependent acknowledgment brings faith’s own act of confession to logical fulfillment.139 Contrary to Harink’s simplistic rendering, the Reformational distinction between faith

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135 136 137 138 139

Barth, CD IV/1, pp. 763, 765. Barth, CD II/1, pp. 17, 53; III/3, pp. 15, 246. Barth, CD III/3, pp. 241–43. John Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 193–98. Barth, CD II/1, pp. 460–61; cf. the subordination of trust under knowledge and occasional hints at the exclusion of assensus and emotion from faith in CD II/1, pp. 12–13; IV/1, p. 765. Barth, CD II/1, p. 13. Barth, CD II/1, pp. 385–86. Barth, CD III/3, p. 15. Barth, CD III/3, pp. 251–52, 262. Barth, CD III/3, pp. 265, 283; IV/1, pp. 776–77. On ‘Barth’s use of prayer as fundamental to the characterization of Christian ethics’, see Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology, pp. 93, 160, 175–76.

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and human obedience continues in Barth’s own work primarily insofar as Barth highlights the reflective nature of faith, along with the analytical and exegetical distinctions between such biblical terms as faith, works, and love.140 Barth asserts that faith retains ‘primacy in order’ within the analytical enterprise of theological ontology, even if not discerned as such within the temporal drama of human life.141 John Webster finds that ‘the rooting of good works in faith entails liberation from the burden of selfrealization and release for the joyful, confident task of thanksgiving to God and service of neighbour.’142 Notwithstanding Barth’s opposition to an ordo salutis, he nevertheless posits faith as the ‘logical beginning’ of the Christian life.143 Works must not encroach upon that to which all human activity points, the gift of freedom in Christ.144 What of eschatological faith in Barth’s theology? ‘It is to be noted that faith also abides, even though in the coming great change it is to be taken up into sight,’ referring to 1 Corinthians 13 and 2 Cor. 5.7.145 Barth notes the eschatological primacy – distinct from the salvific primacy of faith for justification – of love with regard to faith and hope.146 Barth elsewhere links 1 Corinthians 13 and 2 Cor. 5.7 as characterizing the ‘secondary objectivity’ of God and, therefore, seems to imply that the eschatological change that God sustains involves only a progression to God’s ‘direct objectivity.’147 Since Barth hints at faith’s exercise among eschatologically redeemed people, his doctrine of faith necessarily extends its definition beyond the strictly cognitive. Barth’s doctrine of faith substantially continues the Reformed and Augustinian tradition of defining faith in an holistic manner, culminating in an eschatologically affixed exercise of faith amidst and owing in part to deepened knowledge.

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Barth, CD IV/2, p. 538; cf. the few comments in the CD which appear to support Harink’s equation of faith and obedience, although actually without confusing the two analytically, in CD II/1, p. 385. Barth, CD III/3, p. 246. Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology, p. 165. William Stacy Johnson, The Mystery of God: Karl Barth and the Postmodern Foundations of Theology (CSRT; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), pp. 179–80; McCormack, ‘Justitia Aliena’, pp. 179–83. Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology, p. 145. Barth at times extends this divine/human dialectic to deny the existence of degrees of faith; see his Theology of the Reformed Confessions (trans. Darrell L. Guder and Judith J. Guder; CSRT; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), p. 142. Barth, CD IV/2, p. 840. Barth, CD IV/2, p. 840. Barth, CD II/1, p. 53.

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VIII. Faith and Works: A Reformational Distinction The Reformed confessions and dogmatic tradition emphasize the holistic nature of faith, particularly by highlighting the essential role of trust in bringing knowing assent to its formed apogee. Nevertheless, a stringent rebuke must be cast against any who would extend the definition of faith so as to include all other virtues. For example, Augustine’s dual manner of interpreting Gal. 5.6 cannot fit within the Reformational insistence on sola fide, strictly speaking, for love cannot precede faith itself. That said, faith involves a logic of appropriation related to that which is viewed as inherently pleasing (Heb. 11.6). The promise of the gospel passes from notice to assent, ultimately to trusting application as the mind and will coinherently attach one’s identity to this beneficial message pro me.148 This shift in identity will certainly lead to acts of love and works of obedience, for the ‘faith which alone justifies is never alone.’ Nevertheless analytical care and a covenantal understanding of justification require the maintenance of a distinction between faith and its fruits. Without such a distinction, two errors arise. First, the Scriptural commands and observations that seem to relate faith and works, or faith and any one particular virtue, appear redundant or even at times syntactically and logically nonsensical (e.g., Rom. 4.4, Eph. 2.7-10).149 Recent tendencies to read the Pauline phrase ‘the obedience of faith’ as a paradigmatic equation of faith and obedience fail to note the analytical distinctions made within the Pauline corpus that necessitate against such a confusion of terms.150 While Paul certainly cares for the propagation of faithful obedience, such a hortatory concern in no way obfuscates the distinction between faith and its virtuous fruits.151 Paul’s moral theology roots obedience in the logic of faith: dependence upon God’s promise in Christ frees one in the Spirit to love God and neighbor. Such faith-formed love may take the shape of graciously sacrificing one’s prerogative with regard to dietary practice or, in our context, ecumenical relations spanning generational, ethnic, or social divides (Rom. 14.23).152

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Extending faith to include assurance involves terminological confusion which the later Reformed orthodox theologians wisely shirked; cf. Eberhard Jüngel, Justification: The Heart of the Christian Faith: A Theological Study with an Ecumenical Purpose (trans. Jeffrey F. Cayzer; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001), pp. 242–44. Jüngel, Justification, p. 180; James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), pp. 377, 635–41. This confusion plagues the argument of Douglas Harink, Paul among the Postliberals, pp. 35, 40, 42. Jüngel has charged Rudolf Bultmann with a similar tendency to confuse that which Paul distinguishes (Justification, pp. 239–40). Avery Dulles, The Assurance of Things Hoped For: A Theology of Christian Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 200. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, p. 635.

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That the law – God’s command – may only be fulfilled by faith’s appropriation of divine moral guidance in gratitude and confident expectation, thus becoming a ‘law of faith’ (Rom. 3.27; 9.32), in no way nullifies the analytical difference between faith and obedience.153 Second, faith alone has been divinely appointed for the role of instrument in justification, whereby the faithful are justified by their union with Christ resulting in acts of positive and negative imputation. To maintain clarity regarding the human response which alone appropriates the material ground of justification – Christ’s death for sin and his perfect life for righteousness – the definition of faith must be strictly circumscribed. In this vein, recent Pauline studies often focus on faith itself as the material, positive ground for justification, thereby attributing a value to faith which exceeds the merely instrumental and, thereby, ec-centric character described throughout the Reformed tradition’s exegesis of Paul.154 Yet Jüngel’s dictum must be heeded: ‘Faith – as it depends upon God in Christ, as it makes human beings into persons who welcome and receive themselves as a gift and thus irrevocably become accepted – that faith is our grateful Yes and Amen, which has come into being in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1.19f.). There can be no additions made to this Amen.’155 No so-called ‘neonomian’ attempts to base justification upon the dual foundation of divine forgiveness of sins and human imperfect-yet-persevering faithfulness will pacify the divine mandate for perfect obedience.156 Faith, therefore, cannot be the full plea of sinners 153

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Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, pp. 639–41; cf. Moo, Romans, p. 249. On reading the ‘law’ here as divine moral guidance inclusive of, but not circumscribed by the Mosaic Law, see Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, p. 641 fn.76. This misleading tendency appears, e.g., in Christian Strecker, ‘Fides—Pistis—Glaube: Kontexte und Konturen einer Theologie der “Annahme” bei Paulus’, in Michael Bachmann (ed.), Lutherische und Neue Paulusperspektive: Beiträge zu einem Schlüsselproblem der gegenwärtigen exegetischen Diskussion (WUNT 182; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), p. 249; Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, p. 377; Robert W. Gundry, ‘The Non-Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness’, in Mark A. Husbands and Daniel J. Treier (eds.), Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2004), pp. 25, 43–44; Harink, Paul among the Postliberals, p. 35. Discussion of the so-called ‘new perspectives’ on Paul will arise in Chapters 5 and 6, particularly as these conversations in the New Testament guild are shaped by a refusal to acknowledge a continuing demand for perfect faithfulness required in the Edenic covenant. This failure also affects Old Testament accounts of faith’s role in salvation, as in Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Faithfulness in Action (OBT; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), pp. 97, 100 fn.11. The term ‘ec-centric’ translates Barth’s Ekzentrisch according to Johnson, The Mystery of God, p. 176. Jüngel, Justification, p. 251. On neonomianism, see Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, pp. 532–34; James Buchanan, The Doctrine of Justification: An Outline of Its History in the Church and of its Exposition from Scripture (London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1961), pp. 190–92, 216–17.

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regarding positive fulfillment of God’s law but must, rather, unite the needy to Christ’s own law-keeping in an instrumental fashion. Although I am speaking of Christ’s own faith, which is not unto his justification from sin like that of everyone else’s, maintaining conceptual and terminological consistency within the broader dogmatic context requires attention to issues which arise under the ordo salutis.157 The second concern – the human instrument by which the great exchange commences – requires the first concern – terminological clarity regarding faith, particularly as distinguished from its necessary accompaniments. Jesus’s faith must be distinguished from his obedience insofar as faith and obedience require general dogmatic delineation in separate veins for important soteriological reasons.

IX. Hebrews 11 and a Definition of Faith The relationship between Heb. 11.1-3 (as well as the litany of narratives within the succeeding chapter) and the definition of faith deserves mention, particularly in light of the eschatological horizons of human knowledge and faith hinted at in 1 Corinthians 13. Faith refers to abstract concepts – God’s existence and reward to a covenant people (Heb. 11.6) – only insofar as faith terminates in a person-toperson encounter. ‘Faith, after all, is not belief of propositions of truth respecting the Saviour, however essential an ingredient of faith such belief is. Faith is trust in a person.’158 The instrumental nature of discrete theological propositions, as affirmed by Calvin, Turretin, the Reformed Confessions, Barth, and Murray, involves personal encounter with distinct promises and, therefore, suggests the broad use of covenantal categories within the Reformed tradition to embody not only the divine-human economy, but even the intra-Trinitarian relationships. Luke Timothy Johnson has suggestively noted that Joshua does not appear in the theological history of Hebrews 11 insofar as Jewish interpreters thought Joshua failed to discern the reality underneath the symbols of land and prosperity.159 If Johnson is right about the criteria for inclusion within this esteemed list of saints, involving trust in a promise beyond the physical, then the promise must be considered in a primarily personal manner and fixation upon the sign reveals a lack of faith. Likewise, the tendency to translate hypostasis in Heb. 11.1 as

157 158

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Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, pp. 532–34. John Murray, Redemption – Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), p. 111. Luke Timothy Johnson, Hebrews: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), p. 303; see also Origen, Contra Celsus VII.18 (trans. Henry Chadwick; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), p. 409.

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substantia in no way removes the concrete promise – an object of faith – from the realm of divine action and, thereby, renders propositions of merely secondary significance.160 The exact character of faith’s content as described in Hebrews 11 can extend to faith in Christ unto justification from sin or be delimited, as in my consideration, to divine promises made within the intra-Trinitarian fellowship and applicable to Jesus’s own life, suffering, and resurrection. Heb. 11.6 characterizes the faith that pleases God as including belief in God’s existence and promise ‘to reward those who earnestly seek him.’ The latter proposition would be appropriated by Jesus, as evidenced by his Gethsemane prayer and willingness to cede his own glory in pursuit of divine victory on the other side of the tomb. The material content of faith in Hebrews expands to include Christological reference since the divine reward mentioned as an object in Heb. 11.6 finds elucidation in the lengthy argument for Christ’s superiority to various ‘old covenant’ mediations: that is, Christ becomes the reward.161 This faith which receives divine reward cannot be strictly cranial, insofar as Hebrews demonstrates terminological flexibility aimed at highlighting the active nature of faith. God rewards ‘those who earnestly seek him’ (Heb. 11.6, TNIV), an eschatological claim in which faith has been replaced by the metaphorical use of the active verb ‘seek’ or ‘search.’ While faith is formally an intellectual act in the tradition of Augustine and emphatically so in Thomas, the path to knowledge through concrete signs and promises involves an aesthetic interest and willful assent. It can best be termed as knowing trust or, in classic Reformed terms, fiducia which has arisen from notitia and assensus.162 Hebrews 11 manifests the analytical distinction between faith and obedience without minimizing the coexistence of these two divine gifts within the conduct of the elect. Heb. 11.1 describes faith in terms of surety and certainty, properly internal dispositions and mental-volitional acts. Heb. 11.2 clarifies that this faith – characterized in v. 1 as an internal reality – led to the commendation of so many ancients drawn from the Israelite history (11.4– 12.3). That v. 2 relates directly to v. 1 demonstrates a conceptual link

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Romanus Cessario, Christian Faith and The Theological Life (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), pp. 131–32 fn.16. ‘Secondary significance’ refers to ontological status; while propositions proceed from God, they constitute the primary instance of epistemic engagement with God. cf. Lindars, The Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews, p. 109; Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), pp. 313–14. For contemporary Roman Catholic accounts of faith amenable to these emphases, see Cessario, Christian Faith and the Theological Life, pp. 133–34, 139; Dulles, The Assurance of Things Hoped For, p. 187 (cf. p. 200).

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between internal activity and outward demonstration or, in Pauline terms, faith itself and the law as performed by faith (Gal. 5.6).163 Hebrews demonstrates hermeneutical freedom in explaining ancient narratives of obedience and inferring the existence of faith from the demonstration of its fruit. For example, Noah obeyed God (Gen 6.22; 7.5), yet Hebrews characterizes Noah as a person who feared and believed God’s promise (Heb. 11.7).164 The various acts of obedience retold in Heb. 11.3-31 attach a finite verb to the dative form pistei, so as to highlight the manner of these actions: that is, activities ‘acting on the basis of faith.’165 While narratives of faith and obedience recount their coinherence, Graham Hughes helpfully warns against hermeneutical naïveté: Because the believing-maintenance of their ‘confession of hope’ (10.23; cf. 3.6 and 4.14) is, in the last analysis, the measure of their estimation of God’s dependability (11.11: ‘By faith . . . since she reckoned him to be faithful who had promised’ is especially clear and should be regarded as definitive rather than exceptional), words such as ‘perseverance’ (πομον) or ‘steadfastness’ (πστασι) should not too quickly be taken as clear indices ‘of the transformation of faith into behaviour.’ Because such ‘behaviour’ stands itself as an index of responsiveness to God and to his promise-quality Word.166 The Epistle to the Hebrews clarifies the distinction between faith and the works necessarily performed on its basis by those persevering unto salvation (Heb. 10.39), without obfuscating the distinction between faith and its results.

X. Jesus and Faith Apart from Justification for the Ungodly Far from presenting an exegetical argument for the adequacy of the Reformed doctrine of faith, I have articulated the substance of that doctrine, 163

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Johnson, Hebrews, pp. 279, 295–96; Cynthia Long Westfall, A Discourse Analysis of the Letter to the Hebrews: The Relationship between Form and Meaning (LNTS 297; London: T&T Clark, 2005), p. 248. Johnson, Hebrews, p. 285. Westfall, Discourse Analysis of the Letter to the Hebrews, p. 249; Lindars, Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews, p. 111. Graham Hughes, Hebrews and Hermeneutics: The Epistle to the Hebrews as a New Testament Example of Biblical Interpretation (SNTSMS 36; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 79 (also p. 139); cf. Erich Grässer, Der Glaube im Hebräerbrief (Marburg: Elwert, 1965), p. 102.

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shown its broad internal continuity, and exposed its roots in Augustine’s suggestions regarding the eschatological non-obsolescence of faith and its holistic essence. I have then shown that the so-called definition of faith in Heb. 11.1-3 cannot be profitably exegeted after the fashion of Thomas Aquinas, given the broader discussion of faith in Hebrews and the New Testament. In so doing, I have shown that faith instrumentally appropriates divine promises for one’s own good, typically tied to the justification of the ungodly by union with Christ, resulting in imputation of sin to the Messiah, and the imputation of righteousness to the believer.167 This receptive faith involves both mind and will, intellect and aesthetic taste; it is knowing trust or intellectual fiducia. With regard to Jesus, the subject of this study, the definition of faith within the Reformed tradition and as clarified in this chapter provides the content for a broader claim: faith may be predicated of Jesus. Such faith cannot be strictly identical to the faith sinners place in him for justification, insofar as Jesus is neither a sinner nor in need of justification by means of another’s representation. Given these covenantal differences, the faith of Jesus will best be considered alongside that faith exercised in the pre-lapsarian situation. That the divine command in the garden entailed trust in God’s own provision and an ec-centric definition of humanity can be seen clearly from the Genesis account. While the Edenic narrative lacks explicit mention of faith, the requirement of faith can be inferred from the command and curse as Hebrews similarly inferred faith’s causal priority to obedience from the Noahic account of Genesis. Following the same method, then, Jesus’s obedience as recorded in the Gospels and discussed in Romans 5 can be analytically related to faith as well. Only apart from the conceptual coherence of Jesus’s exercise of faith could such dogmatic exegesis fail to prove convincing at the hermeneutical level. This chapter has demonstrated the coherence of claiming that even a possessor of the beatific vision might exercise faith. Such eschatological fittingness attributed to faith follows from nuanced exegesis of 1 Cor. 13.8f. and Heb. 11.1-3, as well as broadening the definition of faith to include aspects of volition, desire, and trust. Given that faith requires knowledge, the possession of extensive knowledge only enhances and in no way truly excludes the exercise of faith. As Avery Dulles puts it, ‘The increase of knowledge does not lead them out of faith, but enables them to grow in that faith . . . Reason operates not only in the approach to faith but also in the act of faith . . . The movement from simple faith to deeper understanding is not a

167

That the Epistle to the Hebrews characterizes faith as receptive in much the same way as the Pauline corpus cannot be demonstrated here; cf. Lindars, Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews, pp. 109–10.

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withdrawal from faith but a growth in faith.’168 While the manner of faith’s fruition no doubt differs when considering eschatologically fulfilled agents, the shift from secondary to direct objectivity only heightens faith when considered morally and epistemically. Thomas noted the precedent for this type of eschatological increase in faith in his comment on Heb. 5.11-14, limiting the increase of faith’s knowledge to groups of people under the ‘old covenant’ and ‘new covenant.’169 Dulles goes further to note that a ‘similar increase in knowledge of the contents of faith can occur in the case of individual Christians’ and deepen faith.170 His insight about the maturation of faith by means of knowledge’s nutrition highlights the manner in which fides quarens intellectum characterizes not only the scholarly task of the Christian, but also the discipleship of all the faithful. Thus, even if Jesus possessed the beatific vision during his earthly life and ministry (perpetually or at certain points of maturity), he may also have exercised faith simultaneously. The coinherence of faith and knowledge more broadly appears in general epistemology, particularly given certain criticisms of modern objective theories of knowledge.171 The place of assent and trust has been affirmed within the secular epistemological task by voices as ancient as Cyril of Jerusalem, who claimed that ‘by faith therefore most of men’s affairs are held together: and not among us only has there been this belief, but also, as I have said, among those are outside the church. For if they receive not the Scriptures but bring forward certain doctrines of their own, even these they accept by faith.’172 More recently, Garrett Green has creatively suggested that the ‘paradigmatic imagination’ by which humans order their conceptual worlds constitutes the imago Dei and, therefore, universally shapes human thought.173 While semantically and anthropologically related to these broader epistemological discussions – provocative and helpful in their own right – the Christian doctrine involves distinct faith in a particular object which has been divinely mandated as the human response through which Christ and his benefits will be received. Given the Bible’s emphasis on faith’s content (Heb. 11.6; Rom. 10.9-14), the humanistic approach to faith as

168 169 170 171

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Dulles, The Assurance of Things Hoped For, pp. 219, 221. ST 2a2ae.5.4, reply. Dulles, The Assurance of Things Hoped For, p. 244. For a salient survey of recent objections to epistemological objectivity see William Placher, Unapologetic Theology: A Christian Voice in a Pluralistic Conversation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1989). Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures (ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; trans. C. G. Browne and J. G. Swallow; NPNF 2:7; n.p.: Christian Literature Publications, 1894; repr. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999), p. 29 (5.iii). Garrett Green, Imagining God: Theology and the Religious Imagination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989); John McIntyre, Faith, Theology, and Imagination (Edinburgh: Handsel, 1987), pp. 19–39.

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Glaubenslehre cannot be equated with a Christian doctrine of faith that remains yoked to the regula fidei or other epistemological criterion.174 Rather, faith must be situated within a broader theological context as Scripturally and confessionally mediated. I argued in Chapter 2 that Jesus did not possess the beatific vision, thereby providing room for the claim that he embraced certain knowledge by way of faith (rather than direct intellectual appropriation). I have here argued that, whatever the merits of my first argument, Jesus still may have exercised faith insofar as it exceeds mere intellectual knowledge or assent. Given that faith involves holistic confidence – knowing trust – Jesus may coherently be called faithful, whether he was all-knowing or not. My next chapter will address the remaining questions which pertain to the coherence of the claim that Christ exercised faith: the metaphysical understanding of the Incarnation as characterized in Chalcedonian and Reformed terms.

174

Karl Barth, The Theology of Schleiermacher (ed. Dietrich Ritschl; trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 243; Dulles, The Assurance of Things Hoped For, p. 187; Abraham, ‘Faith, Assurance, and Conviction’, p. 73. That such humanistic approaches pervade American evangelical, as well as liberal, churches has been shown by Alan Wolfe, The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith (New York: Free, 2003), pp. 67, 87.

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4 metaphysics of the incarnation

Having demonstrated the coherence of Christ’s human knowledge and his exercise of faith in Chapters 2 and 3, I will now sketch the metaphysical context for the claim that the divine Christ exercised human faith during his earthly life. I will therefore focus attention upon the doctrine of divine transcendence as a vital prerequisite for a Chalcedonian two-natures Christology in a radically Reformed vein. Questions of theological ontology relate directly to the practice of dogmatic exegesis and creedal-confessional formulation, so discussion of Exodus 3 will lead to considering dogmatic claims and, finally, to relatively contemporary concerns within the context of Reformed constructive theology. I will conclude the chapter by affirming that Christ assumed a fallen human nature, yet Jesus remains sinless, and there are merits (along with limitations) to a type of Spirit-Christology. Knowledge of the triune God involves considering that which happened in the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth, for this Son makes known the Father (Jn 1.18). Nevertheless, this requires awareness of the pedagogical tradition and covenantal relationship within which his life takes its course. That is, to say that Christ is God requires some awareness of the term ‘God’ prior to predicating this term of Jesus.1 To claim this narrative primacy is not to affirm the necessity of a natural theology by which revelational data may

1

Placher, Domestication of Transcendence, xi; I. U. Dalferth, ‘Christian Discourse and the Paradigmatic Christian Experience: An Essay in Hermeneutics’, in Stephen Sykes and Derek Holmes (ed.), New Studies in Theology 1 (London: Duckworth, 1980), p. 63; Jan Rohls, ‘Ist Gott notwendig?’ NZSTh 22 (1980), p. 295; pace Karl Rahner, The Trinity (MCT; trans. Joseph Donceel; New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), pp. 45–46.

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then be assessed for coherence and plausibility.2 Rather, such is to follow the contours of the biblical canon and pay due attention to Jesus’s historical context as rendered by the Scriptural texts themselves. John Calvin termed the Old Covenant an ‘introduction to the better hope that is manifested in the gospel,’ and such an introduction surely should be applied theologically as well as soteriologically.3 Thus, the primacy of the doctrine of God proper to Christology itself privileges neither philosophical theology nor historical Jesus study per se. Such primacy instead suggests that the Incarnation is best considered within the covenantal relationship between yhwh and Israel.4 The union of Lord and Servant in the person of Jesus presupposes revelation of the identity of this elect people’s Messiah and the Name of her sovereign.

I. Divine and Human Action (Exodus 3): Transcendence and Analogy Moses must announce the divine vindication of Israel to the hegemonic ruler of the Egyptians, and this mediatorial role required knowledge of God sufficient to convince even the Israelites that Moses indeed spoke for their divine Lord (Exod. 3.13). Moses seeks a name, therefore, by which he might identify the God who has sent him to represent the Israelites. Moses’s request represents that of all human mediation, as Christopher Seitz states, ‘[W]hat is at stake is whether we are entitled to call God anything at all. The proper question is whether we have any language that God will recognize as his own, such that he will know himself to be called upon, and no other, and within his own counsel then be in a position to respond, or to turn a deaf ear.’5 The tasks of identification and proclamation of God’s life and being require a divine mandate.

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4 5

pace Paul C. McGlasson, Invitation to Dogmatic Theology: A Canonical Approach (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006), pp. 183–84; Colin E. Gunton, Act and Being: Towards a Theology of the Divine Attributes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p. 155. Gunton’s criticism of negative theology and analogy fails to note the distinctly Scriptural roots of metaphysical attributes and the linguistic limits necessitated by the theological ontology intrinsic to Exodus 3 and Isaiah, pp. 40–48. Calvin, Institutes, II.xi.4. As noted in Chapter 2, Calvin emphasizes the pedagogical dynamism involved in the lengthy Old Covenant era in which the faithful were prepared for the delayed fullness of the Gospel in Christ (see also II.xi.5). Calvin breaks new ground in discussing the mediation of Christ in an overwhelmingly historical context, according to Stephen Edmondson (Calvin’s Christology [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004], pp. 46–48). Horton, Lord and Servant, p. 135. Christopher R. Seitz, Word Without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 252 (emphasis in original).

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The divine answer famously returns: ‘i am who i am’ (Exod.3.14). With this response, God has identified Godself with creaturely naming by, in fact, answering Moses’s request.6 Yet God has not answered Moses in any straightforward fashion which would allow him or any other to possess God’s identity as such. The divine name involves a limitation of human speech about the divine life: God is what only God is (sui generis; cf. Isa. 46.5-10). Rather than resorting to simile or metaphor, God is Godself and can be likened to nothing else: ‘[t]he name of the God of Israel was Yahweh. It had no definition, as the names of other gods did . . . a way of expressing the freedom of the subject, in order to emphasize the human inability to know God’s “being.” ’7 Lest this apophatic warning lead Moses into the abyss of doubt and anxiety, yhwh then identifies Godself with a particular narrative: ‘The lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ (Exod. 3.15).8 Thus, Moses’s uncertain question receives a two-pronged reply: God’s transcendent singularity as encapsulated in the name yhwh (v. 14), and the inclusion of the divine life amidst the people of Israel within God’s own identity (v. 15). In Philo’s terms: . . . ‘I am He that IS’ (Ex. 3.14), which is equivalent to ‘My nature is to be, not to be spoken.’ Yet that the human race should not totally lack a title to give to the supreme goodness He allows them to use by license of language, as though it were His proper name, the title of Lord God of the three natural orders, teaching, perfection, practice, which are symbolized in the records as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.9 Throughout the ages, Christian theologians have found the text of Exodus 3 to mandate a particular understanding of divine transcendence.10 The 6

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contra Martin Noth, Exodus: A Commentary (trans. J. S. Bowden; OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), pp. 44–45. Donald E. Gowan, Theology in Exodus: Biblical Theology in the Form of a Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), p. 85; cf. Michael Fishbane, Text and Texture: Close Readings of Selected Biblical Texts (New York: Schocken, 1979), p. 67; Terence Fretheim, Exodus: A Commentary (IBC; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991), pp. 62–67. Gowan, Theology in Exodus, p. 85. Philo, de. Mut. II.12–13 (cited in Janet Martin Soskice, ‘Athens and Jerusalem, Alexandria and Edessa: Is there a Metaphysics of Scripture?’ IJST 8, no. 2 [April 2006], p. 156 [emphasis hers]). Jewish and Muslim interpretation has likewise been extensive but will not be commented upon here; see, e.g., Paul Vignaux (ed.), Dieu et l’être: Exégèses d’Exode 3,14 et de Coran 20,11–24 (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1978); Alain de Libera and Emilie Zum Brunn (eds.), Celui qui est: interpretations juives et chrétiennes d’Exode 3.14 (Paris: Cerf, 1986); George H. van Kooten (ed.), The Revelation of the Name yhwh to Moses: Perspectives from Judaism, the Pagan Graeco-Roman World, and Early Christianity (TBN 9; Leiden: Brill, 2006), pp. 3–36, 71–104.

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so-called ‘classical tradition’ of Christian theology understands Exod. 3.14, in particular, to imply a doctrine of divine simplicity and other so-called ‘classical divine attributes’ (e.g., eternity, immutability, impassibility) which characterize God’s being. In fact, this verse has led to the naming of God as ‘Being’ itself (following the Greek translation ego eimi ho on to the Latin rendering ego sum cui sum).11 Yet such traditional arguments have been much maligned in the twentieth century as the classical tradition was accused of Hellenizing the Hebraic church and following Plato and Aristotle rather than the logic of the gospel.12 The disdain for the classical attributes of God has trickled down from historical studies through theological anthologies to contemporary exegetical scholarship.13 Yet Exodus 3 does imply a doctrine of God like that encapsulated by the classical theologians (e.g., Augustine, Thomas).14 Brevard Childs suggests the theological importance of this naming, which is ‘paradoxically both an answer and a refusal of an answer. The tenses of the formula indicate that more than a senseless tautology is intended, as if to say, I am who I am, a selfcontained, incomprehensible being . . . Rather God announces that his intentions will be revealed in his future acts, which he now refuses to explain.’15 11 12

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Thomas declares that ‘He who is’ (Cui est) is the most apt name for God, in ST 1a.13, 11. The classic instance of this argument remains Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma (trans. Neil Buchanan; 3rd ed.; New York: Dover, 1961), vol. 1, pp. 47–53, 107–28, 227–28; contra W. V. Rowe, ‘Adolf von Harnack and the Concept of Hellenization’, in W. E. Helleman (ed.), Hellenization Revisited: Shaping a Christian Response within the Greco-Roman World (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1994), pp. 69–84. See, e.g., Christopher R. Seitz, Figured Out: Typology and Providence in Christian Scripture (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), p. 140; Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 78–79; George A. F. Knight, Theology as Narration: A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), p. 23; on the historiographical migration of the so-called ‘Hellenization thesis’, see Lewis Ayres, ‘Augustine, the Trinity, and Modernity’, AugStud 26, no. 2 (1995), pp. 127–33; Michel René Barnes, ‘De Régnon Reconsidered’, AugStud 26, no. 2 (1995), pp. 51–79; Barnes, ‘The Use of Augustine in Contemporary Trinitarian Theology’, TS 56 (1995), pp. 237–51; pace Colin E. Gunton, ‘Augustine, the Trinity, and the Theological Crisis of the West’, SJT 43, no. 1 (1994), pp. 33–58. Regarding the idea of a ‘classical theology’ or ‘classical Christian theism’, see the historical work of Placher, The Domestication of Transcendence. Placher elucidates the similarities of premodern theologians as diverse as Thomas, Luther, and Calvin, and notes the seismic shift apparent by (at least) the seventeenth century (though perhaps overplayed in the case of Francis Turretin and federal theology). Brevard Childs, Exodus: A Critical and Theological Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), p. 76. The self-referentiality of the naming exists irrespective of the tense in which the phrase is rendered: ‘I am who I am’ or ‘I will be who I will be’ or ‘I am who I will be’; pace Gunton, Act and Being, p. 11. The self-referentiality eludes eclipse at any point in the drama of humanity’s gracing by God’s disruptive salvation; God eternally remains sui generis.

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Childs has it partly right, for the incomprehensibility of God meets the narrative identification of God: without confusion, without separation. Explanation of this merged identity is refused precisely because it eludes such explanation: it is more than a senseless tautology insofar as it identifies the tautologous character with a particular narrative shape.16 That is, Exod. 3.14 provides a ‘narrative clue’ by which all identification of Godself within the Scriptural narratives may be hermeneutically appropriated. Thomas articulates this ‘narrative clue’ by way of his analogical structuring of theological language immediately following his discussion of the so-called ‘divine names’ (de nominibus Dei). Thomas notes the analogical nature of all language used of God: ‘words are used of God and creatures in an analogical way.’17 This is not merely a ‘proportional’ distinction, as Thomas points out, because God and creatures are entirely different: ‘they do not even share a common genus.’18 The first ‘divine name’ given in Exodus 3 (‘I am who I am’) qualitatively distinguishes between yhwh and all else, affecting both theological ontology and theological language.19 Thomas followed such a pattern of identifying God’s difference from the world by means of exegeting Exodus 3. The so-called ‘five ways in which one can prove that there is a God’ follow the authoritative words of Exod. 3.14 (ego sum qui sum), because Thomas offers a distinctly ontological reading of this enigmatic play on the word yhwh.20 The self-circumscribed naming befitting yhwh represents the self-actualized being of God, over against the potentiality intrinsic to all other forms: God’s being is God’s essence.21 Thomas finds Exodus 3 to interpret metaphysically the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo by demonstrating the type of distinction between Creator 16

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The deficient Christology of Robert Jenson arises with his failure to differentiate between the first and second divine names given in Exodus 3 (ST, vol. 1, pp. 44, 46). ST 1a.13.5, reply. ST 1a.13.5, ad 2. Augustine also notes the qualitative distinction: ‘For God is existence in a supreme degree – he supremely is – and he is, therefore, immutable’ (Augustine, City of God [trans. Henry Bettenson; New York: Penguin, 1972], XII.2). If this were merely quantitative, then human progression up the scale of being would end in immutability. But acquired immutability is an oxymoron; pace the misleading terminology of ‘maximal being’ in Paul J. Griffiths, Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2003), p. 47. On the link between ontology and theological language, see Gunton, Act and Being, pp. 48–49. ST 1a.2.3, reply. On the distinctly apophatic nature of the ‘five ways,’ see Fergus Kerr, After Aquinas, pp. 54–58; Janet Martin Soskice, ‘Naming God: A Study in Faith and Reason’, in Griffiths and Hütter (eds.), Reason and the Reasons of Faith (TTFC; London: Continuum, 2005), p. 247; David Burrell, ‘Distinguishing God from the World’, in Brian Davies (ed.), Language, Meaning and God: Essays in Honour of Herbert McCabe (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1987), p. 84. ST 1a.3.4, sed contra; see also 1a.3.5, ad 1, where Thomas notes that God is sui generis.

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and creation: the relation of essence and existence.22 Thomas is one of many who transform pagan metaphysical schemes by allowing creatio ex nihilo to chasten ontology by demystifying creation and acknowledging distance and dependence from the Creator.23 As Janet Martin Soskice puts it: ‘The meaning of all the attributes found in Greek natural theology changes when applied to one who is Creator ex nihilo. It is significant that the discussion of the “names” that follows the Five Ways (questions 3–11) is all, as Thomas tells us, by way of saying how God does not exist.’24 Thomas affirms the analogical nature of language about God precisely due to the qualitative distinction between God and world.25 In this vein, Thomas follows Augustine’s understanding of the apophatic nature of analogous theological language as restricted by God’s answer to Moses.26 Augustine’s only explicit exposition of Exodus 3 occurs in a sermon where he finds the naming ‘I am who I am’ to limit knowledge of God: ‘This is not creature – not sky, not earth, not angel, not power, not thrones, not dominions, not authorities.’27 Moses, Augustine, and the listener are not left in a state of unknowing, however, given that this divine name is followed by a ‘name of mercy,’ the historical name which describes God’s life for us.28 Augustine’s pastoral motivation is then noted: ‘let us then praise, though we

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Soskice, ‘Naming God’, in Griffiths and Hütter (eds.), Faith and the Reasons of Faith, p. 248; David Burrell, ‘Aquinas’s Appropriation of Liber de causis to Articulate the Creator as Cause-of-Being’, in Fergus Kerr (ed.), Contemplating Aquinas: On the Varieties of Interpretation (London: SCM, 2003), pp. 77ff.; Gunton, Act and Being, p. 26. Soskice, ‘Athens and Jerusalem’, pp. 159–61. See Augustine, Confessions (trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin; New York: Penguin, 1961), VII.11. On a similar understanding of the Israelite doctrine of creation contrasted with their ancient near-Eastern neighbors, see Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), p. 386. Soskice, ‘Naming God,’ in Griffiths and Hütter (eds.), Faith and the Reasons of Faith, p. 252. ST 1a.13.10, reply (cf. ad 5). Similarly, the use of divine names or attributes to signify God’s hiddenness occurs in Luther, according to Gerhard O. Forde, ‘Robert Jenson’s Soteriology’, in Gunton (ed.), Trinity, Time, and Church, pp. 136–37; Placher, Domestication of Transcendence, pp. 50–51; Jüngel helpfully shifts hiddenness from an unrevealed quantitative claim to a revealed qualitative aspect of the divine glory, according to the penetrating account of Christopher R. J. Holmes, ‘Disclosure without Reservation: Re-evaluating Divine Hiddenness’, NZSTR 48, no. 3 (2006), pp. 367–80. Augustine, Sermons, vol. 1: On the Old Testament (trans. Edmund Hill; WSA; New York: New City, 1990), 7.7. Augustine has been criticized here for distinguishing between God’s life in se and pro nobis; see William Placher, ‘The Triune God: The Perichoresis of Particular Persons’, in Narratives of a Vulnerable God, p. 80 fn. 54; Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (San Francisco: Harper, 1991), pp. 7–8; pace F. Bourassa, ‘Théologie trinitaire chez saint Augustin’, Greg 58 (1977), pp. 670–75.

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cannot find words for it, his being and love his mercy.’29 God’s economic activity – even mercy – characterizes God’s being and, therefore, remains analogously ineffable, yet calling for vocal praise. Exodus 3 suggests the distinction between God and world, ontologically explicated by Augustine and Thomas by means of the divine names (de nominibus Dei) or classical attributes. That this text suggests such doctrines involves a canonical judgment which interprets this text amidst other texts (esp. Isa. 46.5-10) and according to Scriptural doctrine (creatio ex nihilo), thereby tracing out a multitude of doctrinal implications. These implied characterizations include such terms as eternity, immutability, omnipresence, goodness, impassibility, limitlessness, and simplicity, used to distinguish analogously God from creation.30 Each term excludes the transfer of creaturely categorization and judgment from speech about God’s life. Augustine notes that Exodus 3 teaches divine simplicity – the ontological indivisibility of God – and that this has been understood by the Arians to impede Nicene Trinitarianism.31 Augustine suggests that such misuse of divine simplicity stems from a corporeal (and, therefore, univocal) consideration of God.32 In fact, the doctrine of divine simplicity constitutes the shared terrain upon which Augustine engages the Arian heresy in Book V.33 The entire Arian objection – that a divine Son would make Sonship inherent to the divine substance and, therefore, disallow the divinity of the Father qua Father – flounders without this assumed doctrine of divine simplicity. Then in Book VII Augustine explicitly states the apophatic nature of divine simplicity: ‘whether he [God] is called being, which he is called properly, or substance which he is called improperly, either word is predicated with reference to self, not by way of reference to something else. So for God to be is the same as to subsist.’34 For Augustine (and later for John 29 30

31 32

33

34

Augustine, Sermons, 1:7.7. Augustine notes various ways of explaining ‘I am who I am’: ‘I am eternal’ or ‘who cannot change’ (Sermons 1: 7.7; cf. City of God, XII.2). That such terms are not explicitly Scriptural is quite beside the point, given that Augustine (and Thomas) will show that they are judgments logically implicit in Scriptural statements; pace the tendency towards biblicism in discussing the divine attributes found in Gunton, Act and Being, pp. 15, 81, 92. Augustine, The Trinity (trans. Edmund Hill; WSA; New York: New City, 1991), I.4. Augustine, The Trinity, I.1. Here Augustine suggests that univocity follows the path of experience, psychology, or sheer foolhardiness. Robert Jenson strongly suggests a denial of divine simplicity in the vein of this corporeal mindset denounced by Augustine (ST vol. 1, p. 169); see Jenson’s caricature of Augustine on vol. 1, pp. 111–13); cf. a brutally perceptive critique of Jenson on this score in George Hunsinger, ‘Robert Jenson’s Systematic Theology: A Review Essay’, SJT 55, no. 2 (2002), pp. 188–92. Augustine, The Trinity, V.3. Admittedly, Augustine rarely mentions Exodus 3; thus, it is a structural factor which only occasionally surfaces in explicit fashion. Augustine, The Trinity, VII.10; idem, Expositions of the Psalms, vol. 3: pp. 121–50 (trans. Maria Boulding; WSA; New York: New City, 2004), 121.4.

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Calvin35), the doctrine of divine simplicity characterizes the ontological distinction between God and creation, otherwise termed divine transcendence, thereby extending the ontological and analogical judgments intrinsic to Exod. 3.14. The classical attributes implied by the divine naming at the burning bush require a particular view of divine and human action. Kathryn Tanner has suggested that Thomas (and the ‘classical tradition’) articulate a ‘radical doctrine of divine transcendence’ to provide a ‘non-competitive relationship’ between divine and human action.36 That is, agency is not a ‘zero-sum game’ and, therefore, can proceed at two ontological levels simultaneously and co-extensively. Analogous theological language, the ‘divine names’ or ‘classical attributes,’ and a non-competitive view of divine and human action all require what Tanner calls ‘radical divine transcendence.’37 God’s freedom in se follows from the differentiation between God and the world, yet in no way compromises the creationally contingent freedom bestowed on creaturely agents. Because God is not part of the ‘metaphysical furniture of the universe,’ God’s presence neither minimizes nor impedes human agency in any way.38 In fact, the depth to which God is present actualizes human agency as such: the more involved God is, the more agency humans exercise. The sharper the view of transcendence, the more replete (even personal) the presence of God can be amidst creaturely life. Only a qualitative distinction between God and humanity allows for a thoroughly extensive divine presence in worldly affairs.39 A metaphysic of participation, then, undergirds the divine workings in history – particularly the personal union in the Incarnation – and in so doing differentiates natural (even scientific) description of worldevents from dogmatic or liturgical identification of divine agency.40

35 36

37 38 39

40

Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas, pp. 15, 25. Kathryn Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology: Tyranny or Empowerment? (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988; repr. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), pp. 45–47, 56–57, 67, 79–80, 89–90. Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology, pp. 60–61. Hauerwas, With the Grain of the Universe, p. 28. The extensive nature of divine agency is omnicausal, not monocausal, precisely because it provides for human causality in its own plane (hence the affirmation of concursus); see Barth, CD, III/3, pp. 144–45; George Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 198–99. Barth’s theological ontology is similar in this regard to that of Thomas’s nature-grace scheme; see, e.g., Karl Barth, The Knowledge of God and the Service of God According to the Teaching of the Reformation: Recalling the Scottish Confession of 1560: The Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Aberdeen 1937 and 1938 (trans. J. L. M. Haire and Ian Henderson: London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938; repr. Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2004), pp. 8–9, 21. David Burrell, ‘Can We Be Free without a Creator?’ in L. Gregory Jones et al. (ed.), God, Truth, and Witness: Engaging Stanley Hauerwas (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005),

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The non-competitive relationship between divine and human activity applies to all events. In this way, traditional Protestant concerns about an analogia entis may be put to rest, for Thomas uses analogy as a limiting feature of theological language rather than a stair-stepping aid to trace vestigia to their supernatural counterparts. Without suggesting an extensive geneology of the ‘domestication of transcendence,’ the move toward univocal language in speaking of God and creation marks a shift in modern theology toward a merely quantitative view of divine transcendence.41 Though certain claims about the role of Duns Scotus in the ‘fall’ of modern theology may be overstated as such, the affirmation of univocal ties between God and world (which Scotus did affirm42) certainly plays a part in this broader degeneration sketched by Placher, Buckley, Milbank, Hauerwas, and Dupré.43 Without asserting any causal role to Scotus or Suárez, the modern project of God-talk subverted the theological epistemology of

pp. 45–46; Rudi te Velde, Aquinas on God: The ‘Divine Science’ of the Summa Theologiae (ASHPT; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 165, 178; George Hunsinger, ‘Fides Christo Formata: Luther, Barth, and the Joint Declaration,’ in Wayne C. Stumme (ed.), The Gospel of Justification in Christ: Where Does the Church Stand Today? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), pp. 75–78. 41

42

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David Burrell, ‘Analogy, Creation, and Theological Language’, in Rik Van Nieuwenhove and Joseph Wawrykow (eds.), The Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), pp. 77–98; Burrell, ‘From Analogy of “Being” to the Analogy of Being’, in John P. O’Callaghan and Thomas S. Hibbs (eds.), Recovering Nature: Essays in Natural Philosophy, Ethics, and Metaphysics in Honor of Ralph McInerny (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), pp. 253–66; John Milbank, ‘Intensities’, Modern Theology 15, no. 4 (1999), pp. 445–97; Janet Soskice, ‘Naming God’, in Griffiths and Hütter (eds.), Faith and the Reasons of Faith, pp. 241–54. Richard Cross, Duns Scotus on God (ASHPT; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 109–11; John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), pp. 302–06; Catherine Pickstock, After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy (CCT; Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), pp. 122–25; Pickstock, ‘Duns Scotus: His Historical and Contemporary Significance’, ModTheo 21, no. 4 (2005), pp. 543–74; pace Fergus Kerr, ‘Why Medievalists Should Talk to Theologians’, NBf 80 (1999), pp. 369–75; David Bentley Hart, ‘Review Essay: Catherine Pickstock, After Writing’, ProEccl 9, no. 3 (2000), p. 370; Gunton, The One, the Three, and the Many, pp. 56–58. Hauerwas, With the Grain of the Universe, pp. 31–37; Michael J. Buckley, At the Origins of Modern Atheism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), p. 66; Louis Dupré, Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 93–105; pace Richard Cross, ‘ “Where Angels Fear to Tread”: Duns Scotus and Radical Orthodoxy’, Anton 76 (2001), pp. 7–41. The particular role of Suárez is helpfully discussed in John Milbank, The Word Made Strange: Theology, Language, Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p. 41; Placher, Domestication of Transcendence, pp. 71–87.

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Augustine and Thomas by viewing analogy as a pathway to natural theology, rather than a linguistic qualifier for theological language. Such a project certainly deserved repudiation, yet a spate of recent works have suggested that the post-Heideggerian criticism of so-called onto-theology, which (perhaps) adequately responds to this tendency in modern theology, fails to engage the classical tradition as a distinct theological program with its own dogmatic limits of creaturely knowledge and expression.44 We should distinguish then between analogy as linguistically mediated correspondence (Augustine and Thomas) and analogy as univocally grounded (Scotus), that latter of which can be summarized as such: ‘we can give an account of analogy only if we accept that some concepts we apply to God and creatures are univocal. These univocal concepts correspond to attributes common in some sense to God and creatures.’45 Such concerns become most blatant when speaking of abstract attributes (‘love’ and ‘holiness’) which are not negations of creatureliness as such, according to Gunton, and must thereby be univocally affixed to God and humans.46 Here the contrast with Thomas and Augustine is most stark, for the classical tradition affirms the extension of analogy to all predications (even ‘love’). Reformed theologians have similarly emphasized the need to understand even the via negationis as only analogically denying predicates of God. Scotus has reduced analogy to a (quantitative) measure of dissimilarity and, therefore, suggested a univocal theory of language.47 Given the ties between

44

45 46

47

Janet Martin Soskice, ‘The Gift of the Name: Moses and the Burning Bush’, in Oliver Davies and Denys Turner (eds.), Silence and the Word: Negative Theology and Incarnation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 61–75; Matthew Levering, ‘Participation and Exegesis: A Response to Catherine Pickstock’, ModTheo 21, no. 4 (2005), pp. 587–601; Brian Davies, ‘Classical Theism and the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity’, in Davies (ed.), Language, Meaning, and God, pp. 51–74; Christopher A. Franks, ‘The Simplicity of the Living God: Aquinas, Barth, and Some Philosophers’, ModTheo 21, no. 2 (2005), pp. 275–300; Richard A. Muller, ‘Incarnation, Immutability, and the Case for Classical Theism’, WTJ 45, no. 1 (1983), pp. 22–40. Richard Cross, Duns Scotus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 37–38. Gunton, Act and Being, pp. 70–71; pace John Webster, ‘The Holiness and Love of God’, in John Webster, Confessing God: Essays in Christian Dogmatics II (London: T&T Clark, 2005), pp. 116–21. Gunton, Act and Being, pp. 61, 69, 137–38. Paul Helm mistakenly conflates the terms literal and univocal in interpreting ST 1a.13.3, and thereby fails to note that Aquinas never affirms univocal language about God and creation (Paul Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas, p. 191; see also p. 31). Helm’s later criticism – ‘The view that all language about God is non-literal courts self-refutation’ (p. 192) – fails to note that the affirmation of analogical predication self-limits its own application, for Thomas nowhere points out each of the exact ways that analogies function. To affirm analogy is likewise to acknowledge that one will not be able to note the differences between the two terms, because there is no univocal reference point by which to adjudicate varying levels of distinction.

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language and being, his caveat has quite devastating repercussions as it reduces the depths of divine transcendence and suggests a competitive divine–human relationship. Every dogmatic locus which relates to both divine and human agency, then, will be drastically skewed if Scotus’s tendency toward univocity leads the way and may only be avoided by interpreting divine transcendence as complete ontological difference, linguistically construed via thorough-going analogy. Finally, divine transcendence as implied by Exod. 3.14 coheres with the narrative identification of God, for this is simultaneously affirmed in the immediately following verse.48 The identity of yhwh deciphered in the stories of God’s interaction with Israel’s patriarchs is to be understood analogically; similarly, the Gospels ought to be understood as speaking analogically about divine activity within the creaturely realm.49 Given the qualitative nature of divine transcendence, this cannot be a mere analogy of proportion which would be nothing other than a quantitative maximalism. Rather, Scripture’s identification of the life of Jesus with the life of the Son of God involves analogical predication. As Augustine puts it: ‘Hold on instead to what he whom you cannot understand became for you. Hold onto the flesh of Christ . . . because Christ himself, even Christ, is rightly understood by this name, I AM WHO I AM, inasmuch as he is in the form of God.’50 God names Godself by identifying with the narratives of Israel, Jesus, and the Church, yet God’s characterization – while personal – remains mysterious and transcendent and, thus, cannot be directly – univocally – discerned from Scriptural speech-acts.

That is, contra Helm, analogy is not a literary device like metaphor which limits a particular quantity of revelational data; rather, analogy extensively limits revelation. There is no world outside analogy, to turn Derrida’s phrase. 48

49

50

pace Gunton, Act and Being, p. 11. Gunton’s reading of Exodus 3 fails to differentiate between the two namings and, therefore, uncharitably understands the ontological reading as intrinsically stoic (cf. pp. 48, 114–16 where he argues that the ontological reading and the apophatic tradition necessarily involve dualism and a flight from the material); pace Horton, Lord and Servant, pp. 42–43. Gunton’s dissent against analogy follows his fear that analogy and negative theology will lead to a minimalization of Scriptural history as such (Act and Being, pp. 16, 20, 23, 47, 62, 65–66, 77, 134–35, 152). Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics, pp. 133–42; Paul Gavrilyuk, The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought (OECS; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp.149–50, 173; pace William Placher, ‘The Suffering God’, in Narratives of a Vulnerable God, pp. 15–16; Bauckham, God Crucified, pp. 78–79. Augustine, Exposition of the Psalms, 3.121.5.

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II. Two-Natures Christology and the Reformed Logic of Chalcedon In particular, the affirmation of radical divine transcendence necessarily precedes and logically provides for acknowledging a two-natures Christology in the realm permitted by the Definition of Chalcedon.51 Karl Barth speaks of ‘the mystery of revelation’ when describing the continuing limits to knowledge of God, even that which is (rightly) ‘Christologically determined.’52 That is, the unveiling that occurs in Jesus Christ remains a veiling precisely because God identifies Godself in Jesus by assuming that which is other than God – human flesh – into God’s own life; moreover, God allows this human flesh to maintain integrity within God’s own being. Therefore, the divinity of Jesus remains veiled beneath the complex ontological structure of this human. The claim that divine transcendence and analogy has been overcome in the hypostatic union fails to honor the otherness brought within the very life of the eternal Son.53 The prologue to John’s Gospel clarifies that Jesus does reveal the Father as only one ‘close to the Father’s heart’ can (Jn 1.18; cf. 6.46). Yet Jesus’s ministry is here paralleled with that of Moses such that presence cannot overwhelm and negate the mediatorial nature of fellowship (v. 17). Jesus’s mediation has exceeded that of Moses insofar as he does not give law, but ‘grace and truth came through’ him (v. 17). The distinction between the activity of Moses (rendered instrumentally as given) and that of Jesus (rendered personally as coming) certainly highlights that this union is unlike any other: a personal (hypostatic) union. Nevertheless, this personal presence of God remains limited by the next statement: ‘No one has ever seen God’ (v. 18). Jesus has been the site for revelation, making known the Father, yet Jesus is not an object for vision of God’s own self.54 This ought

51

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53

54

The link between non-competitive divine transcendence and Christology in both the Roman Catholic and Reformed traditions has been hinted at by Robert Barron, ‘The Christian Humanism of Karol Wojtyla and Thomas Aquinas’, NV 3, no. 3 (2005), pp. 534–35. Barth, CD I/2, pp. 123–32 (esp. pp. 131–32); Barth, Göttingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion (ed. Hannelotte Reiffen; trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), vol. 1, pp. 134–35. Barth, The Epistle to the Philippians, pp. 63–64. Barth here understands the kenosis as a hiding of divinity by assuming humanity and thereby becoming incognito. John Chrysostom, ‘Homily 15 (John 1.18)’, in Saint John Chrysostom:_Commentary on Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist: Homilies 1–47 (trans. T. A. Goggin; FC 33; New York: Fathers of the Church, 1957), p. 144. Here Chrysostom limits vision of God in Christ to the ‘flesh, not in his substance’. More recently, this has been affirmed by Marianne Meye Thompson, The Humanity of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia:

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not be surprising, given that John earlier characterized the glory of Jesus ‘as of a father’s only son’ (v. 14).55 The linguistic qualifier ho¯s implies analogy when relating the narrative of Jesus to the filial life of the triune fellowship.56 Other New Testament texts, of course, suggest a certain unmediated visibility to God in Christ which might contradict the extent of analogy as proposed here (2 Cor. 3.16; Col. 1.15; Heb. 1.3). Nevertheless, the varied testimonies of divine unveiling do not negate the unceasing dialectic of veiling within the economy of God’s sanctifying revelation.57 In this vein, Christology ought to heed the contours of Eucharistic theology: in setting apart the common for an holy use, the common is not negated, divinized, or sublimated. The divine presence remains veiled amidst the creaturely and humble means of grace in the bread and wine and also in Jesus.58 That God remains veiled in self-revelation implies that Christological affirmations may be of at least two orders: indirect and direct.59 Speech may be directly – though not univocally – referred to God in Christ when referencing his divine nature as such. Nevertheless, the claim that all

Fortress, 1988), pp. 118–19; pace Ernst Käsemann, ‘The Structure and Purpose of the Prologue to John’s Gospel’, in New Testament Questions of Today (trans. W. J. Montague; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), pp. 159–61. 55

56

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The ‘pregnant use’ of the term etheasametha points toward a need for spiritual visibility and, therefore, presupposes a veiling (C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968], p. 167). The imagery of ‘tabernacling’ also includes a conceptual element of veiledness, as well as particularity and presence. pace Calvin’s claim that ho¯s ‘does not denote an improper comparison but rather a true and strong proof’ as in Eph 5:8 (The Gospel according to St. John (1–10) [ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance; trans. T. H. L. Parker; CC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961], p. 21); see also John Chrysostom, ‘Homily 12 (John 1.14)’, in Saint John Chrysostom: Commentary on Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist: Homilies 1–47, pp. 112–13. On the eschatological limits of sight (and, it might be added, language), see Randall Zachman, ‘Manifestation and Proclamation in Calvin’s Theology’, in John Calvin as Pastor, Teacher, and Theologian: The Shape of His Writings and Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), pp. 203–04. Randall C. Zachman, ‘Calvin as Analogical Theologian’, in John Calvin as Pastor, Teacher, and Theologian, pp. 210–11, 222–29. Zachman helpfully notes that Calvin’s use of analogy and anagoge exceeds the Eucharistic debates (p. 211); pace the immanent and direct availability of the divine proposed by Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Men (trans. Lancelot Sheppard and Elizabeth Englund; San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988), pp. 53, 73, 82, 88, 127, 196, 286 (but see p. 363). There may be no equivocal language about Christ insofar as there is no person, nature, or way of being in Christ which appertains to a strictly secular existence and, therefore, can be entirely distinguished from God’s life; that is, even Christ’s humanity exists not only dependently (as do all creatures) but also enhypostatically (sui generis) in the Word. Thus adoptionism – construed either temporally or otherwise – is refuted.

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Christological predication might directly render faithful witness to God’s presence in finite form fails to honor the veiled nature of God in creaturely time and space.60 Speech about the humanity of Christ cannot properly refer to the divine life, nor can speech about the person of Christ at the level of person be posited directly of God’s nature as such.61 This distinction, of course, raises the question of the long-debated communicatio idiomatum. Prior to such discussion, it will be helpful to consider the theological ontology which grounds a Reformed approach to assessing the relation of Christ’s two natures. The importance of divine transcendence for Chalcedonian two-natures Christology can best be demonstrated by critically attending to several judgments George Hunsinger has exposed within the Chalcedonian shape of Christology: affirmation of asymmetry, integrity, and intimacy with regard to the union of divine and human nature.62 Asymmetry: The second person of the Trinity assumed a human nature, not a human person. That is, the divinity and eternal person of the Christ preceded his humanity logically and temporally. As the humanity assumed by Christ was not adopted upon its merits or inherent potential, the divinity maintains a metaphysical asymmetry.63 As with other persons, God provides for human agency by drawing the agent into ever-fuller union with the depths of God’s being; that is, God’s agency preveniently supplies space for human agency within God’s own life. This divine prevenience pertains most emphatically to the incarnate Son, whose union of divine and human agency has attained hypostatic shape.64 This necessitates what has been termed anhypostatic–enhypostatic Christology: the two-pronged claim that the

60

61

62

63

64

Eberhard Jüngel, ‘Zum Begriff der Offenbarung’, in G. Besier (ed.), Glaube, Bekenntnis, Kirchenrecht (Hannover: Lutherisches Verlaghaus, 1989), p. 218 (thesis 5.3); Barth, CD IV/3.2, pp. 693ff.; pace Horton, Covenant and Eschatology, pp. 97–98. Note that Horton terms Jesus’s life as the ‘hidden yet univocal presence of God in the world’ (p. 98), failing to note that hiddenness excludes univocity because of the Incarnational non-obsolesence of divine transcendence. Ian A. McFarland, ‘Developing an Apophatic Christocentrism: Lessons from Maximus the Confessor’, TT 60, no. 2 (2003), pp. 201, 208–13. Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, p. 186. See also Ian McFarland, ‘Christ, Spirit and Atonement’, IJST 3, no. 1 (2001), pp. 83–85, 87; Barth, CD IV/3.1, p. 63; IV/3.2, pp. 539, 761. For this emphasis in both the patristic and the post-Reformation eras, see Donald Fairbairn, Grace and Christology in the Early Church (OECS; New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 222; Kelly Kapic, Communion with God: The Divine and the Human in the Theology of John Owen (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), pp. 82–83. On asymmetry in the Chalcedonian Definition, see Georges Florovsky, The Byzantine Fathers of the Fifth Century (CW viii; Vaduz: Büchervertrievsanstalt, 1987), p. 297; pace Andrew Louth, St John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology (OECS; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 157 fn. 157.

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human nature assumed by Christ was non-existent apart from this union, and that the human nature’s existence resides entirely within the life of the logos.65 God’s gracious assumption of humanity by the divine life of the eternal Son thereby validates the description of Christ’s humanity as instrumental. While the danger of lapsing into a monistic cosmology no doubt lingers, and the potential for crass liturgical and devotional caricatures has been realized, the instrumentality of Christ’s humanity affirms an important metaphysical point: the contingent necessity of Christ’s humanity over and against the proper necessity of Christ’s divine life as such.66 Such instrumentality does not occur at the narrative level of patent human existence and, therefore, cannot be analyzed phenomenologically; rather, the analytical discussion of Christ’s activities requires a dual-track discussion which, along with natural and theological discussion of Christ’s human doings, must include depiction of his assumption, perfection, and glorification of humanity as metaphysically instrumental. John Webster’s suggestion that the hidden-revealed dialectic ought to be restricted to the relation of the two natures in the one person, rather than the filial or essential relation between Son and Father, clarifies that the integrity of the natures and the ensuing epistemological dialectic can be maintained only if proper Trinitarian order structures this metaphysical analysis.67 Hiddenness, veiling, and the necessary humility intrinsic to analogical language about Christ follows from the personal union of divine and human, rather than from the veiled nature of one member of the Trinity (the Father) behind the available yet deceptive face of another (Jesus the Son). The Son truly does reveal the Father (Jn 1.18), thus no revelational lapse accompanies their filial relation. The Son, however, assumes humanity and veils divinity so that his narrative identity can be discerned only with attention given to his distinct metaphysical makeup and its attendant linguistic requirements for honest depiction. Proper dogmatic order, then, will prioritize statements which attest the subject of the Incarnation, the Son, before adjectival or adverbial

65

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Christoph Schwöbel, ‘Christology and Trinitarian Thought’, in Christoph Schwöbel (ed.), Trinitarian Theology Today: Essays on Divine Being and Act (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), pp. 142–43; cf. Thomas, ST, 3a.2.5; John Owen, Works, vol. 1, pp. 225–26; vol. 3, p. 165; vol. 12, p. 230. On the distinction between ‘contingent necessity’ and ‘logical necessity’, see Kevin W. Hector, ‘God’s Triunity and Self-Determination: A Conversation with Karl Barth, Bruce McCormack and Paul Molnar’, IJST 7, no. 3 (2005), pp. 258, 261. I have altered the term ‘logical necessity’ to ‘proper necessity’ to clarify the intrinsic and self-constituting nature of this necessity, better depicting its distinction from contingent necessity. John Webster, ‘Jesus in Modernity: Reflections on Jüngel’s Christology’, in Word and Church, p. 178.

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characterizations of the manner in which the Son exists and acts, according to either of the two natures.68 Worry that this analytic distinction somehow loses the single protagonist of the Gospels confuses metaphysical implication, adverbial analysis of this divine subject, with explicit Scriptural statements (i.e., ‘crucified the Lord of glory,’ 1 Cor. 2.8) and wrongly assumes that only one level of depiction may be proferred.69 Similarly, criticism of patristic exegesis often denounces the piecemeal approach to Gospel stories and statements found in Athanasius and others, whereby claims are divided between the human or divine natures as appropriate.70 Such criticism falters insofar as it fails to distinguish between events and their interpretive reporting found in Scriptural claims; whereas events in the life of Jesus must be affixed to his person, analytical claims about the adverbial manner in which such events occurred may be present in Scripture.71 Integrity: The union of two natures – divine and human – in no way collapses or confuses the natures themselves, leading to creation of a tertium quid. The Chalcedonian worry about Eutyches has since haunted Reformed theologians, ever wary of the Lutheran tendency to divinize the humanity of Christ or (worse yet) humanize the divine. The soteriological purpose of the Son’s assumption of human nature – the perfection of human life as such – mandates that the union in no way implode or alter humanity apart from its eschatological fulfillment qua humanity. This concern follows the immediate issues at play within the Chalcedonian discussion wherein the need for humanity’s own perfection must be initiated from God’s own end, lest humanity never attain fulfillment.72 Only a qualitative doctrine of divine transcendence, as noted earlier, allows for the full exercise of life in both a divine and human manner within the same identity.

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John Damascene faltered in maintaining dyothelite balance by seemingly turning natures into agents, according to Demetrios Bathrellos, The Byzantine Christ: Person, Nature, and Will in the Christology of Maximus the Confessor (OECS; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 184–85. For this misplaced concern, see Robert W. Jenson, ‘Conceptus . . . De Spiritu Sancto’, ProEccl 15, no. 1 (2006), p. 104; Jenson, ST, vol. 1, pp. 128–29, 131–32. Gunton, ‘Creation and Mediation in the Theology of Robert W. Jenson’, in Gunton (ed.), Trinity, Time, and Church, p. 84; Jenson, ST, vol. 1, pp. 128 fn. 11; 131 fn. 131 (contra p. 129 fn. 18). Athanasius, Against the Arians (ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; trans. J. H. Newman; NPNF 4; n.p.: Christian Literature Publications, 1892; repr. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999), pp. 416–22 (3:42–53). Fairbairn, Grace and Christology in the Early Church, pp. 224–26; Paul Galtier, ‘Saint Cyrille et saint Léon le Grand à Chalcédoine’, in A. Grillmeier and H. Bacht (ed.), Das Konzil von Chalkedon: Geschichte und Gegenwart, 1: Der Glaube von Chalkedon (Würzburg: Echter-Verlag Würzburg, 1951), pp. 386–87.

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Robert Jenson is no doubt correct in claiming that talk of the protagonist, Jesus, precedes talk of natures explicitly,73 yet his failure to link adequately Jesus with yhwh via eternal preexistence prevents him from extending attention given to the divine essence as such (yhwh) to Christologically focused attention offered to a divine nature or eternal Son prior to the narrative agent apparent in the Gospels. That is, contra the Lutheran Jenson, the Reformed concern for the integrity of the two natures follows from the covenantal consideration of Jesus within the preceding drama of God’s work amidst the people Israel.74 Whereas Jenson (over-)identifies Jesus with Israel narrativally, he fails to identify simultaneously Jesus with the divine essence revealed in the Old Testament and represents the pursuit of Christology apart from the material principle of divine transcendence. His formal approach to Christology, therefore, involves a strictly immanent, narratival analysis – the triumph of univocal dogmatism. The kenosis undertaken by the divine Son, then, involves the addition of a human nature and no diminution of divinity or its appropriate mannerisms. Paul’s claim that the Son ‘emptied himself’ finds appositional explanation in the succeeding phrase ‘taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness’ (Phil. 2.7).75 Even Reformed Christology must affirm a kenosis, yet this no doubt alludes to the assumption of human life rather than the loss of divine fullness. In fact, the doctrine of divine transcendence – when understood in a radical, qualitative fashion – removes the ontological need for an emptying out of the Son’s divinity for the sake of becoming human. The integrity of Christ’s divinity follows from the distinction between divinity and humanity forged by the texts of Exodus 3 and Isaiah 46 and the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. The Lutheran impulse toward a strong kenotic Christology, therefore, follows only from a failure to tease out the implications of the divine life for the hypostatic union; that is, the Lutheran view severs Christology from theology proper, particularly the formal contours implied in the transcendental characterization of yhwh in the Old Testament.76 In so doing, kenosis Christology endangers the providential care exercised by the Word during his period of humiliation (either while in Palestine in the first century or, if logically consistent, throughout the rest of his incarnate history), posits an ontological change within the divine life that adherence to the doctrine of divine simplicity disallows, and (ironically) fails to provide adequately for 73

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Jenson, ‘Conceptus . . . De Spiritu Sancto’, p. 104. Jenson here crassly recharacterizes early Christian consideration of Jesus as Son as ‘filially related to the Father’, not by union with the eternal Son. The identification of this flesh, Jesus, with the eternal Word (Jn 1.14), however, links Father, eternal Son/Word, and Jesus. The two relationships – filial and self-identity – cannot be mutually exclusive. Jenson, ST, vol. 1, pp. 138–44, 205–06. Barth, The Epistle to the Philippians, p. 64. Weinandy, Does God Suffer? pp. 185–86.

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the doctrine of ubiquity required by consubstantial theories of the eucharist.77 Fortunately, antecedent consideration of theological ontology – tethered to the divine naming in Exodus 3 – negates the necessity of the Lutheran view of kenosis. Intimacy: The distinction between the two natures appertains amidst the personal union wherein only one agent exists. That is, the natures do not act as distinct agents in their own right; rather, the person (hypostasis or prosopon) provides the identity. Against the error of Nestorius and Theodoret, Chalcedonian Christology sees no metaphysical difficulty in affirming the singular personal identity of Jesus of Nazareth and the second person of the Godhead.78 That the divine and human maintain a perfect intimacy grounds the soteriological particularity of the Incarnation: this person has been brought into God’s own life in a manner unlike all others. The Chalcedonian claims that the incarnate Son is one person in two natures demonstrates an ontological, not psychological, approach to affirming Christ’s hypostatic unity.79 As noted in Chapter 2, two-natures Christologies affirm two wills and, often rightly, two minds or ways of knowing. The particular phenomenological characteristics of this Incarnational ontology, however, cannot be drawn from psychological or social-scientific considerations precisely due to the sui generis nature of the hypostatic union.80 Quite apart from any comparison to schizophrenic humans, the

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Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, pp. 121 fn. 7, 143 fn. 41; On the failure of the Lutheran communicatio idiomatum to provide ‘the property of being locally present in several places at once’, see Stephen R. Holmes, ‘Reformed Varieties of the Communicatio Idiomatum’, in Stephen R. Holmes and Murray A. Rae (eds.), The Person of Christ (London: T&T Clark, 2005), p. 75. It is not entirely clear that Weinandy’s suggestion that the ‘I’ of the Incarnation is an human ‘I’ (on which see fn. 95 below) does not also lead to the first two of these three problems. Fairbairn, Grace and Christology in the Early Church, p. 201; Felix Heinzer, Gottes Sohn als Mensch: Die Struktur des Menscheins Christi bei Maximus Confessor (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz, 1980), pp. 117ff. contra the emphasis on existential categories (the ‘Human “I” ’) in Weinandy, Does God Suffer? pp. 209–11, and elsewhere. Weinandy’s argument that Christ’s ‘I’ was n ‘human “I” ’ becomes increasingly problematic when fundamental ontological questions arise, as highlighted by consideration of divine transcendence and freedom. In this sense, Weinandy is overly Cyrillian, and not enough Chalcedonian, as especially apparent in his ‘Jesus’ Filial Vision of the Father’, pp. 194–98; idem, ‘The Beatific Vision and the Incarnate Son: Furthering the Discussion’, The Thomist 70, no. 4 (2006), pp. 611–12. In this respect, even Weinandy’s noble attempt to guard the doctrine of impassibility fails insofar as the Incarnate ‘I’ (hypostasis) exists as human (rather than as human and divine). Eric Mascall, Christ, the Christian, and the Church (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1946), pp. 39–42, 54.

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Christ embodies a divine nature, singularly assuming humanity, and, therefore, cannot be likened to anyone else. The personal union of human and divine in Christ is singular, hence his soteriological importance as a representative of both God and humanity. Thus, these psychological and phenomenological limitations ought not to limit dogmatic attempts to affirm his personhood as theologically construed. Each judgment depends upon an ontological distinction between divine and human. The very notion of integrity-amidst-intimacy presupposes such differentiation. That the natures may co-extensively pertain to this person – the logos incarnatus – requires a categorical or qualitative distinction between the two natures. That God was domesticated in early modern theological and philosophical discussions certainly paved the way for the emergence of nineteenth century kenoticism (quite distinct from the Formula of Concord’s kenoticism).81 Unfortunately, even Tanner has failed to see the effects of her radical view of divine transcendence upon the relationship of the two natures, as she has succumbed to the affirmation of eschatological alteration of humanity, that is, deification.82 Tanner’s reaffirmation of the theological ontology affirmed by Augustine, Thomas, and the Reformed confessions must be related to the communicatio idiomatum and the integrity of the two natures so as to avoid kenoticism (emptying the divine) or deification (imploding the human).83 The communicatio idiomatum, then, sustains the possibility of speech about the integrity of asymmetrically ordered, yet intimate natures. The communicatio does not obliterate the integrity of the natures and, therefore, does not explain the union in any way.84 Rather, the communicatio, hermeneutically construed, demonstrates the personal nature of the union of humanity and divinity so as to brush off the dangers of Nestorianism. In fact, Calvin suggested, in response to Servetus’s charge that Reformed

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McCormack, ‘Karl Barth as a Resource for a Reformed Version of Kenotic Christology,’ pp. 245–46. Tanner, Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity, pp. 50–51; pace O’Collins, Christology, pp. 272–73. For a penetrating critique of the recent Protestant re-enchantment with the doctrine of deification, Bruce L. McCormack, ‘Participation in God, Yes, Deification, No: Two Modern Protestant Responses to the Ancient Question’, in Ingolf U. Dalferth et al. (eds.), Denkwürdiges Geheimnis: Beiträge zur Gotteslehre (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), pp. 347–74; pace Bruce D. Marshall, ‘Justification as Declaration and Deification’, IJST 4, no. 1 (2002): pp. 3–28. For a survey of the spate of recent proposals for renewing the centrality and articulation of deification, see David Vincent Meconi, ‘The Consummation of the Christian Promise: Recent Studies on Deification’, NBf 87 (2006), pp. 3–12. contra Richard Cross, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation: Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 184, 196 fn. 60.

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Christology appears Nestorian, that Scriptural juxtaposition of attributes properly tied to one nature with reference to titles pertaining to the other nature in and of itself refutes the Nestorian timidity to affirm the personal union.85 While this may be an oversimplification (as even Nestorius was willing to allow a strictly empirical communicatio), Calvin avoids the Nestorian error insofar as he affirms the personal union of the eternal Logos with a particular human nature by means of assumption. Application of terms befitting one nature to the person necessarily involves an hypostatic, rather than empirically apparent but personally vacuous, union; that there is but one hypostasis or prosopon undermines the Nestorian claim that each nature is personal as such.86 Whereas Nestorius removes God from the life and death of Jesus, and thereby unintentionally displaces the soteriological pay-off of the Incarnation, Calvin affirms the unity-in-distinction and vicarious representation of humanity in Jesus’s life and death. The hermeneutical communicatio affirms the application of naturespecific attributes to the person of the Son, as well as to the accompanying nature, albeit in an improper manner.87 This must be distinguished from moral impropriety, however, for such hermeneutical license as exercised within the New Testament must be termed improper only from an analytical perspective. To link the subject ‘God’ with the predicate ‘spilt blood’ is to affirm that the incarnate Son who is God shed his own blood. The phrase ‘God spilt blood,’ however, improperly depicts this event because it fails to precisely identify the manner in which this person spilt blood: by manner of his humanity. That is, the lack of an adverbial qualifier renders such statements dogmatically imprecise, though liturgically and, yes, even Scripturally mandated. Failure to distinguish between various levels of discourse has undoubtedly led to castigation of the Reformed construal of the communicatio idiomatum, and failed to note that the entire debate is prefaced upon the existence of New Testament texts which make such imprecise (yet true and appropriate) statements. Christ assumes a human nature so that the importance of human life ordered properly might be met within his own person. Not only does Christ assume a human nature, but this nature maintains its own integrity within the asymmetrically ordered hypostatic union. The covenantal necessity of humanity’s perfection as such will be discussed in chapters five and six, and flows from the eschatological limitations noted earlier in chapter two. Suffice it to say, the soteriological importance of Christ’s humanity as such depends upon the strict maintenance of divine transcendence,

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Calvin, Institutes, III.xiv.4. Calvin does affirm the communicatio idiomatum, albeit in hermeneutical, not ontological fashion. Weinandy, Does God Suffer? p. 181 fn. 14 (though contra p. 188 fn. 32). ‘In diverse aspects,’ according to Thomas, ST 3a.16.4, ad.1.

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analogy, and a Reformed version of the communicatio idiomatum. That is, Christology is properly prefaced with attention to theology proper, especially the ontological and linguistic distinctions befitting divinity. Strict analytical care which avoids confusion or obfuscation of the humanity amidst the Word’s prevenient divinity honors the salvific necessity of Christ’s human life ordered as such. Having cleared the metaphysical ground for Christ’s assumption of humanity, the particular type of humanity assumed by the eternal Son must now be considered in terms of both ontological and soteriological concerns (and with a keen eye to pertinent New Testament texts): did the Word assume a fallen or unfallen human nature?

III. Christ’s Fallen Human Nature Few discussions have incited as much heated debate lately in the guild of systematic theologians as that over the moral nature of Christ’s humanity.88 The rhetoric has grown to be pointed: On the one hand, those who seek to affirm that the Son assumed a fallen human nature (or sinful flesh) are often interpreted as sacrificing the sinlessness of Jesus and thus leaving believers still in need of a Savior. On the other hand, those who affirm that the Son assumes an unfallen human nature (cf., Adam prior to the fall) are often charged with presenting a generic Jesus who is not truly man, thus losing the soteriological significance of his life, death, resurrection and ascension.89 Thus far the debate has proceeded with very little precision regarding the dogmatic judgments being rendered and without reference to broader Christological concerns (e.g., the communicatio, covenantal structures). While covenantal discussion must be delayed, the preceding argument in favor of a Reformed construal of the communicatio idiomatum in a strictly hermeneutical fashion must be logically tied to the moral status of the human nature. Whereas kenosis as emptying tends to be debated among Lutheran dogmaticians, the fallenness debate exists within the Reformed camp precisely because of both the theological ontology which provides for its possibility (i.e., a strictly hermeneutical communicatio), and the soteriological scheme which mandates its consideration (i.e., emphasis on the ‘active

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For an overview of the contemporary debate, see Kelly M. Kapic, ‘The Son’s Assumption of a Human Nature: A Call for Clarity’, IJST 3, no. 2 (2001), pp. 154–66. Kapic, ‘The Son’s Assumption of a Human Nature’, p. 154.

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obedience’ of Christ).90 Prior to sketching a particular proposal and honing its broader dogmatic ramifications, the link between this debate and preceding ontological discussion deserves clarification. As noted, the hermeneutical rendering of the communicatio allows for the claim that the flesh assumed by the Word was fallen, without thereby risking the moral transfer of depravity (or guilt) from the human to the divine nature.91 Distinction of natures, however, does not reduce to or necessitate the existence of two agents or subjects who are linked only phenomenologically, or empirically; to the contrary, the moral characteristics of natures cannot sever their hypostatic union any more than ontological attributes can.92 That is, the Reformed insistence on creaturely integrity within the hypostatic union necessarily provides metaphysical space for discussion of the type of humanity assumed by the Word without in any way limiting the divine nature in moral or ontological terms.93 Those who advocate that Christ assumed a fallen human nature do so for classical soteriological reasons: ‘that which is not assumed is not healed.’94 Not only was there no human nature for the Word to assume other than a fallen nature from Mary, but the salvific efficacy of the Incarnation depends upon the assumption of humanity under fallen conditions.95 This soteriological necessity grounds both substitutionary and exemplary atonement

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Gerhard O. Forde is one notable exception within the realm of Lutheran dogmatics, in that he affirms the fallenness position (‘The Work of Christ’, in Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson [eds.], Christian Dogmatics [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984], vol. 2, p. 52). Whereas classic Roman Catholic theology was broadly synonymous with the Reformed doctrine of Christ’s person, the recent proposal for the fallenness position by Weinandy appears quite unsteady when placed aside the magisterial affirmation of Mary’s immaculate conception (Thomas G. Weinandy, In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh: An Essay on the Humanity of Christ [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993], p. 155). Crisp fails to maintain this distinction (Divinity and Humanity, pp. 112–13). Contrary to his intentions, Crisp’s use of nature-perichoresis and his affirmation of eschatologically heightened transfer of properties from Christ’s divinity to his humanity risks obliterating the integrity of the two natures (Divinity and Humanity, pp. 17–18, 25–26). contra the thoroughly inconsistent diatribe of Macleod, The Person of Christ, p. 228. See R. Michael Allen, ‘Calvin’s Christ: A Dogmatic Matrix for Discussion of Christ’s Human Nature’, IJST 9, no. 4 (2007), pp. 391–95. Gregory of Nazianzen, To Cledonius the Priest against Apollinarius (ep. CI) (ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; trans. C. G. Browne and J. E. Swallow; NPNF 2:7; n.p.: Christian Literature Publications, 1894; repr. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999), p. 440; Weinandy, In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh, pp. 17 fn. 1, 27 fn. 10, 28 fns. 13–14; John Webster, ‘Incarnation,’ in Gareth Jones (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology (BCR; Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), p. 220. Colin E. Gunton, ‘Christology: Two Dogmas Revisited – Edward Irving’s Christology’, in Theology through the Theologians: Selected Essays, 1972–1995 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), pp. 158–59.

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concerns and, therefore, cannot be tethered to the project of liberal moralism. In fact, the epistle to the Hebrews has provided impetus for understanding Christ’s assumption of our fallen existence as ground for both substitutionary singularity (Heb. 5.8-10) and moral exemplarism (Heb. 12.2). As of yet, little clarity has arisen regarding exactly what is being claimed when Christ’s human nature is termed ‘fallen,’ and the link between this claim and moral, cultural, and physical semantic realms deserves attention.96 Also lacking from the fallenness position has been discussion regarding the narratival dimensions of this claim: when, if ever, did Christ move beyond such a fallen state and, if so, what was the manner or course of his development? The opposition party, of course, agrees with Gregory’s maxim that ‘that which is not assumed is not healed’; nevertheless, those who claim that Christ assumed an unfallen human nature consider fallenness to be outside the form or nature of humanity as such: incidental rather than essential.97 In fact, fallenness rendering fellowship with the divine inopportune, the argument has been made forcefully that fallenness actually lessens the form of humanity.98 That anthropological point noted, the primary impetus for this claim appears to be concern regarding the moral status of the Redeemer. Christ must possess moral integrity, even perfection, lest he be unfit to vicariously represent sinners as the spotless lamb and perfect sacrifice (2 Cor. 5.21). Those who affirm the doctrine of original sin in the form of the Reformed confessions do not distinguish between fallenness and imputed guilt; therefore, the assumption of fallenness within the hamartiology of classical Reformed theology would also imply Christ’s own moral culpability.99 The Holy Spirit’s conceptus of the incarnate humanity of the eternal Son of God, therefore, immediately prepares a morally upright nature.

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Weinandy, In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh, p. 155. Such semantic extrapolations should be explored well beyond the modest sketch offered here. Thomas, ST 3a.15.1, reply (pace the reading of Thomas offered by Weinandy, In the Likeness of Sinful Flesh, pp. 47–49, 53). That prelapsarian Adam was human demonstrates that humanity is not essentially fallen. Demetrios Bathrellos, ‘The Sinlessness of Jesus’, in Paul L. Metzger (ed.), Trinitarian Soundings in Systematic Theology: Essays in Honor of Colin Gunton (London: T&T Clark, 2005), p. 117. Yet Webster suggests that Jesus’s distance from our enacted sinfulness – ‘he is and does what we are not and do not do’ – instantiates humanity as such, thus distinguishing between human faculties and nature, and humanity as narrativally and morally actualized (‘Incarnation,’ in Jones (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology, p. 220). Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, p. 93; Macleod, The Person of Christ, p. 229. See the Westminster Shorter Catechism, q. 18 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 230); Westminster Confession of Faith, vi.3 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 180); French Confession of Faith (1559), xi, (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 148); Belgic Confession of Faith, xv (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 199); Heidelberg Catechism, q. 10 (cited in Reformed

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Valid concerns mark both sides, yet a dogmatic Christology which follows the theological ontology of classical theism and the Christological trajectory of the Reformed confessions may integrate the concerns of traditional Reformed theology – the moral character of the Incarnate Word – into the soteriologically and metaphysically necessary affirmation that the eternal Son assumed fallen flesh.100 To do so will require appropriate alteration of a related doctrine – original sin – and such ramifications will be sketched here only in brief. The eternal Word assumes a human nature of sinful flesh, performing his redemptive activity within and upon the realm of sin and death. That is, to save sinful humans, God must assume fallen humanity unto God’s own self.101 In Jesus Christ God has embraced humanity qua fallen. Thus, to save sinners the eternal Word must have assumed a fallen human nature. Christ did come ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’ (Rom. 8.3), sarx denoting the morally impugned human existence which marks humanity after the Fall (cf. Jn 1.14). This fallenness implies moral depravity, concupiscence, such that sin will necessarily result apart from the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit. The eternal Word assumed an human nature like any other, post lapsum, insofar as his life was meant to be lived authentically and sympathetically within the realm of our miserable existence (Heb. 2.17-18; 4.15). The Roman Catholic doctrine of Mary’s immaculate conception points to the somewhat obvious truth that she gave Jesus his human nature. Where else might he have received his humanity but from the one parent involved?102 The dogmatic impulse of Rome demonstrates the soteriological link between Mother and Child; unfortunately, the doctrine of her immaculate conception is poorly grounded and quite unnecessary.103 That is, Rome

Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 306). Many outside the Reformed world also support this claim; cf. Bathrellos, ‘The Sinlessness of Jesus’, in Metzger (ed.), Trinitarian Soundings in Systematic Theology, pp. 116–17; Augsburg Confession, II, in The Book of Concord, pp. 36–39; Formula of Concord, I.6, in The Book of Concord, p. 488; The Solid Declaration I, in The Book of Concord, p. 533. 100

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Cf. Barth, CD I/2, p. 153; IV/3, pp. 166–68; Gregory of Nyssa, ‘An Address on Religious Instruction’, in Christology of the Later Fathers, p. 305. Barth, CD I/2, p. 152. Christ cannot be created ex nihilo without broaching the soteriological maxim: Christ saves only that which he assumes. His vicarious relation to sinful humanity requires his human genesis proceed via assumption of a human nature from the realm of sinful humans. Bathrellos, ‘The Sinlessness of Jesus’, in Metzger (ed.), Trinitarian Soundings in Systematic Theology, pp. 118–19. A similarly problematic solution is offered by Thomas Watson, wherein the Holy Spirit overshadows and purifies a ‘part’ of the virgin Mother from which Christ assumes his human nature (A Body of Divinity: Contained in Sermons on the Westminster Assembly’s Catechism [London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1958], pp. 134–35). Watson’s suggestion fails to note the constitution of parental

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finds the claim that Christ assumed fallen humanity to be problematic, yet this is far from the truth. Rome’s reticence stems from the static eschatology of Thomas Aquinas (discussed in Chapter 2) whereby immediate glorification marks the life of the Incarnate Word and, similarly, his Mother.104 Overly realized eschatology may lead to the need for the immaculate conception or other arguments for the unfallen nature of Christ’s humanity, precisely because the developmental maturation of humanity within the dynamic contours of Christ’s own life is swept away by the broader rubric of instantaneous deification.105 Emphasis upon the ontological integrity of Christ’s humanity must be matched by respect for the dynamic character of such creaturely life, thereby removing the fullness of eschatological expectation from the horizon of the Word’s incarnational descent: salvation in Christ takes time. The eternal Word assumes a human nature after that of sinful flesh, anhypostatically in ipsum and enhypostatically within the Word, sanctified immediately and thereafter by the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit. The eternal Word does assume fallen flesh, yet sanctification accompanies this assumption of such flesh. The instrument of the flesh’s sanctification is not

identity wherein an offspring receives her nature from the person, rather than any number of constituent parts. Either Mary is extensively immaculate (a thoroughly problematic notion) or extensively sinful (as proposed here). What both Rome and Watson realize, however, is that the assumption of humanity involves the moral prognosis of the parent be passed on to the child. Thus, both realize the oddity of claiming that a fallen parent passes on a nature which is then purified so as to have never been termed fallen. The unfallenness position fails to honor this logical precedence of inherited humanity (albeit tempered by the affirmation of Christ’s an- and enhypostatic humanity). 104

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Thomas, ST 3a.14.4, reply. Thomas here notes that disabilities which impair perfect knowledge and grace cannot be assumed by Christ, precisely because Christ partakes of such ultimate experiences immediately upon conception; cf. ST 3a.31.7; Heribert Mühlen, Der Heilige Geist als Person (Münster: Aschendorff, 5th ed., 1988), pp. 206–07. Bathrellos, ‘The Sinlessness of Jesus’, in Metzger (ed.), Trinitarian Soundings in Systematic Theology, p. 117; Bathrellos actually states: ‘What he assumed, he sanctified and redeemed. He redeemed our nature, not our sinfulness’. Unfortunately, he fails to note the logical – if not temporal – progress from assumption of fallen humanity toward renovation, redemption, and sanctification of human nature (on which, see G. C. Berkouwer, The Person of Christ [trans. John Vriend; SD; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954], pp. 248–49). To some degree, then, the fallenness position simply insists on a logical distinction between Christ’s assumption of flesh and the Spirit’s sanctification of such flesh, whereas the unfallenness position insists that assumption and sanctification are cotemporaneous and, furthermore, logically synonymous. Yet cotemporaneous action fails to sustain the ontological relation between Mary’s fallen humanity and Christ’s inherited human nature, a concern which seems to require a logical (if not temporal) ordering.

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the divine nature as such, but the mortifying and vivifying activity of the lifegiving Spirit. This sanctification begins co-temporal with the assumption; therefore, the Word never existed sinfully. The danger of adoptionism is guarded against by the anhypostatic–enhypostatic distinction: that is, the humanity of Jesus never exists independently, and only exists within the person of the Word. The sanctification of Jesus continues throughout his life so that he matures and attains perfection, by means of engagement with increasingly difficult temptations met by the sustenance of divinely mediated grace.106 In fact, the occurrence may best be described as the Word’s sanctification of a human nature from sinful flesh, albeit without morphing the humanity of Christ (post-conception) into a tertium quid. That such transformation is quantitatively, and not qualitatively, scoped follows from the similar assertion that Christ continues to be sanctified throughout his life and ministry.107 Given that Christ’s humanity continues to receive ever-deepening riches of fellowship in the Spirit (‘above all measure’), the initial transformation need not be classified as implosion or explosion of this human nature.108 Rather, sanctification for both Christ and the other children of God is marked by elevation from the mire of shame and pride toward glorious fellowship with the Father by the Spirit (Heb. 2.11). Similarly, Christ’s sanctification cannot be equated with his glorification or else he will be physically unfit to suffer and die. Glorification, being a qualitative descriptor of realized eschatological life, cannot mark the life of a wayfarer. Christ’s sanctification, however, cannot be identical with that of his followers, for his sanctification will be the material ground and instrument of the sanctification of his followers via union with Christ (1 Cor. 1.30;

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In this vein, Jesus (like Adam) moves from moral childhood to maturity, though morally upright at every stage in a phase-appropriate manner, and thus demonstrating that development of obedience’s depth involves dynamic perfection (demonstrated by the divine declaration of creation’s goodness at even its earliest stages of development, which certainly required furtherance [esp. the command to subdue, offered in Gen. 1.28, which presupposes as yet undeveloped or amorphous terrain for human governance]); see Barth, CD III/1, p. 231. Westminster Confession of Faith, viii.3 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 182). John Owen termed this ‘renovation of the image of God in us,’ according to Alan Spence (‘Christ’s Humanity and Ours: John Owen’, in Christoph Schwöbel and Colin E. Gunton (eds.), Persons, Divine and Human: Kings College Essays in Theological Anthropology [Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991], pp. 84–85). Spence links the integrity of sanctified humanity to the ministry of the Holy Spirit: ‘The underlying assumption of this discussion has been that the integrity of Christ’s human nature, understood in this active sense, can only be maintained if the divine Word is recognized as operating on it not directly or immediately, but rather indirectly through the Spirit’ (Spence, ‘Christ’s Humanity and Ours: John Owen’, in Schwöbel and Gunton [eds.], Persons, Divine and Human, p. 96).

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Rom. 6.10-11, 23; Gal. 2.20). Christ was made perfect (Heb. 2.10), attaining a degree of sanctification unmatched prior to the glorification of the saints. In fact, Christ ‘did not sin’ (Heb. 4.15), singularly righteous before the demands of the law (cf. Rom. 3.10, 23). Such differences, however, do not lead to thoroughgoing equivocation with regard to the sanctification of the firstborn and his siblings. The similarity of Christ’s sanctification with that of his followers is marked by his submission to the cleansing waters of baptism.109 Whereas baptism need not mark one’s cleansing instantaneously, the renovation of one’s humanity finds instrumental efficacy by entrance through this sacramental medium.110 Quite apart from adoptionist renderings of the baptism in the Jordan, Jesus here receives baptism as the representative Son of God, identifying himself with the calling as Messiah set apart – sanctified – for corporate responsibilities at the dawn of the last days. That Christ possessed a human nature, sanctified from fallenness, means that he inherited a moral nature which required remedy by the Spirit. Every other human being throughout history who has inherited sinful human nature has been found guilty at the bar of divine justice, and this moral culpability has been linked to the doctrine of original sin. The Redeemer, as noted earlier, cannot be morally guilty or culpable, lest he be unfit for service as perfect redeemer and sacrifice for sin. The Word’s assumption of fallen flesh, therefore, must lead to a reconfiguration of the doctrine of original sin such that guilt does not necessarily or immediately flow from parent to offspring.111 I will briefly suggest the manner in which John Calvin’s doctrine of original sin – as original depravity, though not original guilt – may serve as one way to maintain a confessional rejection of both adoptionism and Pelagianism, alongside affirmation of Christ’s assumption of fallen human nature. Whether or not his particular exegesis or dogmatic approach is ideal, the distinction between inherited depravity and guilt must be maintained on Scriptural grounds and for dogmatic coherence. Calvin’s commentaries provide the most pointed remarks on hamartiology and, contrary to later Reformed confessions and orthodox dogmatics, sever

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Berkouwer, Person of Christ, p. 245; Rae, ‘The Baptism of Christ’, in Holmes and Rae (ed.), The Person of Christ, pp. 129, 131–33. Whereas the efficacy of baptism is distinguished from the actual time of its administration so as to account for its often delayed efficacy (calling and regeneration) in the case of baptized infants (Westminster Confession of Faith, xxx.6 [cited in Book of Confessions, p. 207]), the opposite would be true of Jesus, who was cleansed prior to his baptism. Discontent with the inclusion of original guilt in the Protestant orthodox doctrine of original sin has been expressed by Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, p. 104 fn. 25; Henri Blocher, Original Sin: Illuminating the Riddle (NSBT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 74–76, 121, 130.

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the doctrine of original corruption (or inherited depravity) from original guilt (or inherited guilt).112 The most important distinction in this regard must be the denial of imputed guilt, a Reformed emphasis which has derived from exegesis of Rom. 5.12-21 and an argument for covenantal fittingness. Upon careful reflection, however, neither traditional exegesis of Rom. 5.12, nor the type of ‘tight’ symmetrical fittingness which federal theology has proposed between the headship of Adam and Christ, can be maintained.113 Calvin does not posit a direct parallel between Adam and Christ, contrary to the exegetical, dogmatic, and confessional tendencies of his descendants.114 The first (and, arguably, primary) difference between these two corporate figures, apparent in Romans 5, refers to the manner of transmission: whereas we are accounted righteous solely by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, ‘we are condemned by Adam’s sin not by imputation alone, as though we were being punished for another’s sin; but we suffer his punishment because we too are guilty, since God holds our nature, which has been corrupted in Adam, guilty of iniquity.’115 What is a one-step relationship in the case of Christ and the believer – namely the imputation of righteousness – is paralleled by a two-step process in the case of Adam and mankind – namely the imputation or inheritance of a sinful nature which then deserves guilt due to its own sinful acts. Calvin has thereby distanced the inheritance of corruption and guilt such that the predication of the former to Christ’s human nature need not imply the predication of the latter, thus honoring the pollo¯ mallon (‘much more’) characterization of Christ’s

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This is extensively argued in Allen, ‘Calvin’s Christ: A Dogmatic Matrix for Discussion of Christ’s Human Nature’, pp. 384–91; cf. Oliver D. Crisp, ‘Federalism vs. Realism: Charles Hodge, Augustus Strong and William Shedd on the Imputation of Sin’, IJST 8, no. 1 (2006), p. 66 (see fn. 27). Blocher, Original Sin, p. 121; G. C. Berkouwer, Sin (trans. Philip C. Holtrop; SD; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), pp. 457–58. John Calvin, The Epistles of Paul to the Romans and Thessalonians (ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance; trans. R. Mackenzie; CC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961): ‘The comparison, however, is not similar in all respects’ (p. 111, on Rom. 5.12). On this point, John Murray notes that Calvin’s exegesis of Rom. 5.12-21 is quite similar to that of the Roman Catholic Church (Imputation of Adam’s Sin [Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1959], p. 18). Calvin also admits that four of the five articles from the Council of Trent which regard original sin are fully agreeable to the teaching of the church fathers and the Reformers; however, the fifth article receives heated disagreement regarding the notion of baptismal regeneration. See John Calvin, ‘Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, with the Antidote, 1547’, in Tracts (trans. Henry Beveridge; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1851; repr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958), vol. 3, p. 85. Calvin, Epistles of Paul to the Romans and Thessalonians, pp. 116–17 (on Rom. 5.17).

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headship attested in Rom. 5.15, 17.116 The traditional interpretation of Rom. 5.12 has followed the symmetrical reading of the Adam–Christ parallel: direct imputation of covenantal blessing/curse from each to their kin; however, Calvin’s awareness of instrumental asymmetry makes this reading unnecessary. Thus, a grammatically likely reading of Rom. 5.12 (‘just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all on the basis of which all sinned’) can be followed,117 thereby making Adam’s role an instrumental one, mediating depravity to his heirs who will necessarily sin apart from the Spirit’s intervention. Having dismissed imputed guilt as exegetically ungrounded and an unnecessary covenantal inference, another objection arises to the claim that depravity may be inherited irrespective of guilt.118 The very existence of a depraved creature, so Crisp has argued, meets God’s loathing and wrath, such that moral nature is morally responsible in ipso, temporally (and, perhaps, logically) prior to any sin of omission or commission.119 Calvin’s doctrine of justification hints at such an issue, insofar as God proleptically hates all the actions and the very existence of those who will later sin, this on the basis of God’s foreknowledge of later sin and contextual understanding of

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Christ’s headship is not merely superior by way of its result (righteousness and vindication over and against sinfulness and condemnation, as reflected in Rom. 5.16), but also much more superior in the manner of its occurrence (direct imputation of righteousness, rather than mediated inheritance of death which leads to personal sin, as reflected in Rom. 5.15, 17). On the importance of the fourfold pollo¯ mallon for Rom. 5.15-19, see Blocher, Original Sin, p. 80. Reading eph ho¯ as ‘on the basis of which’, rather than the strained (but traditionally necessary) ‘because’; on this exegetical debate, see Joseph A. Fitzmyer, ‘The Consecutive Meaning of eph ho¯ in Romans 5:12’, NTS 39, no. 3 (1993), pp. 321–39; pace Blocher, Original Sin, p. 71; Dunn, Theology of Paul the Apostle, p. 95 fn. 76. Whereas Douglas J. Moo demurs from this reading of v. 12 due to its positing an implicit ‘middle term’ (inheritance of a depraved human nature which then leads to actual sin), v. 12c actually provides this term provided ‘death’ is understood spiritually – and symbolized in Gen. 3.23 as banishment from God’s presence in Eden and discontinued enjoyment of the sustaining ‘tree of life’ – as depriving nature of life-giving fellowship with God (pace Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 326). On understanding ‘death’ as the opposite of ‘eternal life’ and, therefore, as loss of spiritual sustenance, see Otfried Hofius, ‘The Adam-Christ Antithesis and the Law: Reflections on Romans 5:12-21’, in James D. G. Dunn (ed.), Paul and the Mosaic Law: The Third DurhamTübingen Research Symposium on Earliest Christianity and Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), pp. 182–83. Another objection may arise from supporters of Augustinian realism, which cannot be discussed here. For a realist account of original sin, see Oliver D. Crisp, ‘Scholastic Theology, Augustinian Realism and Original Guilt’, EuroJTh 13, no. 1 (2004), pp. 25–26; Crisp, ‘Federalism vs. Realism: Charles Hodge, Augustus Strong and William Shedd on the Imputation of Sin’, p. 71; pace Blocher, Original Sin, pp. 115–16. Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, pp. 105–6, 112.

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the moral value of any given work.120 Yet this would not apply in the case of a creature who will be immediately sanctified by God and sustained by the Holy Spirit such that actual sin will never happen in thought, word, or deed; thus, the logical precedence of Jesus’s humanity’s fallenness to his sanctification cannot render his humanity at conception guilty by narrative association. Rather, God’s disruptive grace sanctifies his humanity such that its assumed fallenness can only be spoken of as a logical necessity with zero narratival or moral import, albeit with great redemptive-historical force. A radical view of divine transcendence and an ensuing Christology along rigorously Reformed lines provides ontological space for the claim that the eternal Word, second person of the Trinity, assumed a fallen human nature. The soteriological import of this claim requires a robust articulation of the sanctification of this fallen humanity, such that Christ maintains moral fortitude and appropriate innocence as preparation for sacrificial service. Thus, attention to Christ’s humanity must lead to consideration of the way in which the Holy Spirit broods over this particular fallen nature to bring life and freedom in unparalleled, yet inclusive fashion.

IV. The Spirit of Christ, or How the Spirit Resides on the Son Any theological ontology which preserves the integrity of Christ’s two natures, shirking neither soteriological concerns about his sinlessness and moral fitness for redemptive substitution, nor the narrative depictions of this character as one person or identity, must affirm a pneumatology which relates the Word to humanity – Christ’s own and that of the totus Christus by adoption. The Holy Spirit, then, must indwell and impel Jesus’s humanity in a way that neither overwhelms its integrity and agency, nor allows for a moral aporia between the enhypostatic human nature and the divine Word. Having noted the Creator–creature distinction which precedes a Chalcedonian Christology with Reformed emphases, the soteriological and ontological necessity of Christ assuming a fallen human nature has been shown. And, as hinted earlier, this entrance into plagued humanity makes the logical possibility of moral disparity between the humanity of Jesus and the eternal Word particularly acute. This danger has been reassessed within soteriological categories – by speaking of Christ’s sanctification of human flesh within his own identity – and must now be teased out in Trinitarian terms. Pneumatological consideration of Christ’s humanity suggests a distinct approach to Christology, one which has taken many forms in patristic and

120

Calvin, Institutes, II.i.8; III.xvii.7; IV.xv.10; cf. Allen, ‘Calvin’s Christ: A Dogmatic Matrix for Discussion of Christ’s Human Nature’, pp. 389–91.

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contemporary times. So-called ‘Spirit-Christology’ has garnered widespread support following the charismatic renewals of Protestant and Roman Catholic communities, and has taken both complementary and contradictory shapes with regard to Nicene and Chalcedonian orthodoxy. Assuming an historical survey which finds pneumatology to be the Achilles heel of Western theology, Spirit-Christology offers a distinct formal approach to one major locus, Christology, by way of articulating the Spirit’s relationship to Christ.121 Without endorsing the historical and theological concerns of Spirit-Christology en toto, the importance of the bond between Christ and Spirit for properly identifying the Second Person of the Trinity seems particularly apt. Just as the filial relation between Father and Son, along with the mediatorial and exemplary union of Christ and the redeemed, as well as the creational sovereignty and lordly judgment relating Christ and the damned all necessarily shape Christological concerns, so also the economy and immanent intercourse between Christ and Spirit must aid the task of Christological identification. Spirit-Christology ought to be appropriated for dogmatic ends in an ad hoc manner which considers the active engagement of one another by these two divine persons. For my purposes, the active movement of the Spirit upon Jesus’s humanity will be considered, particularly in light of the sanctification of this fallen humanity for a life of perfect obedience and in preparation for his vocation as the blameless sacrifice.122

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The literature on Western pneumatology (or the lack thereof) is vast: see, e.g., Robert W. Jenson, ‘You Wonder Where the Spirit Went’, ProEccl 2, no. 3 (1993), pp. 296–304; Eugene F. Rogers, Jr., After the Spirit: A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources Outside the Modern West (RT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), pp. 19–32; Gunton, Theology through the Theologians, chs. 5, 7; idem, ‘Augustine, the Trinity, and the Theological Crisis of the West’; pace the penetrating critique of this passé reading of Western trinitarianism in Ayres, ‘Augustine, the Trinity, and Modernity’. Recent claims that the Western theological tradition has only recently experienced a revival or renewal of Trinitarian theology (e.g., Stanley Grenz, Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005]; Samuel M. Powell, The Trinity in German Thought [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001]) drastically misrepresent the state of Western theology prior to the era of Ritschl and Harnack (cf. Bruce D. Marshall, ‘Trinity,’ in Jones (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology, pp. 183–203; Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004], pp. 407–14; Matthew Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics, chs. 5–7). The extension of this consideration to argue for ontological egalitarianism between Son and Spirit will not be considered here; cf. Thomas G. Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit of Sonship: Reconceiving the Trinity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), p. 17. My concerns are more circumspect: considering Christology rather than Trinitarian theology, and focusing on the Spirit’s unidirectional action on the Son rather than the Son’s action with regard to the Spirit.

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The instrumental agent of Christ’s purification must be the Holy Spirit, and this ministry receives creedal suggestion as professed in belief that Jesus was ‘conceived by the Holy Spirit.’123 The juxtaposition of this predication with the claim that Jesus was also ‘born of the virgin Mary’ implies an ontological distinction akin to that argued in the second part of this chapter: the notion of concursus and simultaneous attribution of an occurrence to subjects both divine and human.124 Integrity inheres in description of this event from both the divine and human perspectives, and intimacy obviously precedes the confession of one subject ‘Jesus Christ our Lord.’ Less obvious, though nonetheless present, is the asymmetry noted by the creedal text: whereas Jesus is conceived ‘by’ a divine agent, he is merely ‘born of’ a human person. That is, the work of the Holy Spirit in uniting the eternal Word with an human nature receives rather active depiction when compared to the passive description of Mary’s agency in this event. More important than these broader ontological considerations, for present purposes, is the identity of the agent of this conception: the Holy Spirit. Not only does the Holy Spirit enact the beginning of the Incarnation, but the Spirit also brings the earthly ministry of Jesus to conclusion by raising him from the dead (Rom. 1.4; 8.11; 1 Cor. 6.14; 1 Tim. 3.16; 1 Pet. 3.18)125 and comforting the disciples amidst the absence of their ascended Lord (Jn 16.1-16). That is, the Holy Spirit’s instrumental work upon the human Jesus bookends the Gospel story, suggesting a thematic Trinitarian relationship which likely extends well beyond its explicit notice in Scripture. The Holy Spirit rests on the Son so as to continue the work of hypostatically uniting the Word to fallen humanity, to sanctify Jesus’s humanity, and to vindicate the Christ’s life by resurrection and the ministry of applying his redemption to many.126 The Holy Spirit, then, is the instrument of humanity’s sanctification, both in the union of Word and human nature and in that of Jesus and his adopted siblings. The Holy Spirit’s instrumentality in the daily life of the incarnate Son does receive scattered notice throughout the Gospels, from beginning to end.127 In fact, Jesus received the Spirit without measure (Jn 3.34). The lively Spirit

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John Owen, Works, vol. 3, p. 162. For further clarity on the notion of concursus, see Tanner, Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity, pp. 20–21, 44–45; Barth, CD IV/1, p. 40; Gregory of Nyssa, ‘An Address on Religious Instruction’, p. 276. Hawthorne, The Presence and the Power, pp. 188–94. Tanner, Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity, p. 28; Kapic, Communion with God, pp. 44, 78, 85–88. On the biblical material, see the trenchant study of Hawthorne, The Presence and the Power, chs. 2–6. Unfortunately, the dogmatic conclusions drawn by Hawthorne significantly assume the ontological problems of univocity and competitive relations between divinity and humanity (see pp. 204–11).

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sends Christ into the wilderness unto temptation (Mk 1.12; cf. Mt. 4.1; Lk. 4.1), an apocalyptic encounter which Luke bookends with mention of Jesus being ‘full of the Holy Spirit’ (Lk. 4.1) and ‘in the power of the Spirit’ (Lk. 4.14). The ministry of the Holy Spirit upon the Messiah attains visible manifestation at the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, where the Spirit’s descent upon the Son takes the form of a dove (Jn 1.32; cf. Mt. 3.16; Mk 1.10; Lk. 3.22). The Spirit’s sustaining role assumedly continues until the climax of the Savior’s temptation: the crucifixion. Only upon faithfully submitting his human will unto the divine will (Mt. 26.42; cf. Mk 14.36; Lk. 22.42), suffering the pangs of grotesque death, does Jesus relinquish the Spirit of God (Mt. 27.50; Lk. 23.46; Jn 19.30). All these testimonies to the work of the Spirit resting upon the Son may be summed up in Jesus’s own words: ‘For their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth’ (Jn 17.19). Jesus claims agential responsibility for his own sanctification thus this cannot be a begrudging transformation of his humanity, yet his involvement (‘I sanctify myself’) does not preclude the normal instrumental cause of sanctification (the presence of the Holy Spirit) from instigating this divine work ad extra.128 Recurrent debate regarding the peccability of the logos incarnatus may best be considered subservient to this pneumatological discussion. In fact, the theological ontology developed previously in this chapter nicely grounds a metaphysics of concursus which accounts for two claims: innately, Jesus was peccable; trinitarianly, Jesus was impeccable. What deserves ample clarification is the differentiation between these two perspectives: viewed in and of himself, this person as a human character might very well have fallen prey to sin’s lurings; however, when viewed as the Messiah providentially upheld by the life-giving Spirit, the contingencies of temptation and trial stood no chance at the most basic (though not empirically apparent) ontological level. The integrity of human morality, then, may be upheld via the affirmation of Christ’s intrinsic peccability, while concurrently maintaining his pneumatologically derived impeccability. Contrary to the claims of many, concursus (and some form of philosophical compatibilism) finds sufficient grounding in the ontology of radical divine transcendence and noncompetitive divine and human agency.129 Yet non-competitive concursus must be articulated in such a way that the Spirit’s impelling is irresistible,

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That Jesus’s sanctification by the Spirit did not take place immediately due to ontological necessity, but only in following the covenantal parameters of the Spirit’s work through the means of grace, is further demonstrated by consideration of the sacramental life of Jesus; cf. Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man: Comprehending a Complete Body of Divinity (trans. William Crookshank; London: R. Baynes, 1822; repr. Kingsburg, Calif.: den Dulk, 1990), vol. 1, pp. 276–77. contra Trevor A. Hart, ‘Sinlessness and Moral Responsibility: A Problem in Christology’, SJT 48, no. 1 (1995), p. 50.

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intrinsically efficacious, lest the human agent be capable of rejecting or distorting the Spirit’s movement.130 In such an articulation, Jesus’s impeccability arises from his covenantal situation, rather than any metaphysical a priori.131 Even further, the impeccability derived from the Spirit’s life-giving work of sanctification upon this humanity rests singularly upon this person, the only human enhypostatically united with the Word. That is, the participation of the humanity of Jesus within the divine life qualitatively differs from the adopted life of other humans who inhere in the divine life only by elected fellowship with Christ’s own humanity. The particularity of this Spiritinfused human follows ontological and covenantal claims: his singular union with God – hypostatic union – and his representative vocation as Israel’s Messiah. The moral singularity, however, finds providential grounding in the divine determination that this Jesus serve as faultless sacrifice and perfect Messiah, by gifting his humanity with the ever-beneficent presence of the Holy Spirit in an unqualified fashion. Impeccability – Christ’s moral singularity – follows only from the intra-Trinitarian relations of the Father’s decree, the Son’s assumption of fallen humanity, and the Spirit’s restoration and perfection of that finite nature for particular service. Affirmation of Jesus’s sanctification as maintaining – restoring – creaturely integrity, therefore, in no way sacrifices the soteriological and ontological particularity of this person. Two dangers plague attempts to articulate a Spirit-Christology, capitulation to either of which represents a strong deviation from the gospel. First, the emphasis on the Spirit’s vivifying work upon the humanity of Jesus may imply an adoptionist Christology. That is that the Spirit endows Jesus with maximally honed human faculties, even moral perfection, may be taken to suggest that later claims regarding the deity of Jesus express his adoption or incrementally achieved assumption into the divine life.132 In so doing, this adoptionist maneuver involves the loss of the Christological ontology articulated via divine transcendence: this person possesses only one nature, a

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contra Hart, ‘Sinlessness and Moral Responsibility’, pp. 52–53. Berkouwer, Person of Christ, pp. 260–61; Trueman, The Claims of Truth, pp. 178–79; contra the claim that the Spirit gives nothing new to the Son (even qua human) by Rogers, After the Spirit, pp. 144–45. Thomas G. Weinandy notes that the adoptionistic charge is not dodged by quickening the incrementalism to the moment of conception, insofar as the adoptionist judgment is one of identity rather than time or manner (‘The Case for Spirit Christology: Some Reflections’, The Thomist 53, no. 2 [1995], pp. 180–81 fn. 10. The proposals of G. W. Lampe and James D. G. Dunn may also suggest a binitarianism (Rowan Williams, ‘Word and Spirit’, in On Christian Theology [CCT; Oxford: Blackwell, 2000], pp. 109 fn. 12; 116) or monarchian modalism (Ralph Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit, pp. 146, 162–64, 173).

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supremely graced humanity.133 This error fails on at least two accounts: an ontological and a soteriological argument. First, the claims about Christ’s divinity as found in the New Testament do not represent a rhetorical articulation of his perfected humanity ‘deified’ or the like. Rather, Richard Bauckham, David Yeago, and Kavin Rowe have cogently demonstrated that the language used in the New Testament Gospels and Epistles includes Jesus within the singular identity of yhwh, who is to be worshipped, an attribution which would never be applied to an intermediary-for-hire or adopted human within their Jewish milieu.134 Second, the adoptionist position fails to honor the gospel principle that only God can save humanity which is extensively sinful.135 No matter how perfected Jesus might become by means of the Spirit’s workings, he would not be fit to atone for the sin of the world unless he embodies the divine nature itself; thus, he must be both human and divine personally. The second danger of Spirit-Christology follows from the first, applying its ontological problem to the realm of atonement theology.136 Whereas many use the New Testament witness to the Spirit’s significance in the life of Jesus to affirm an adoptionist Christology, this then suggests a merely exemplarist atonement theology. That is, Jesus becomes the spiritual human who is to be imitated, perhaps (in Schleiermacher’s idiom) by seeking ‘Godconsciousness’ in his wake,137 or (in Rahner’s terms) ‘the realization of the highest possibility of man’s being.’138 The exemplarist strain, as will be 133

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Gary D. Badcock, Light of Truth and Fire of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), pp. 161–62. Bauckham, God Crucified, pp. 4, 26–42, 46–69; David S. Yeago, ‘The New Testament and the Nicene Dogma: A Contribution to the Recovery of Theological Exegesis’, in Stephen E. Fowl (ed.), The Theological Interpretation of Scripture, pp. 88–93; C. Kavin Rowe, ‘Biblical Pressure and Trinitarian Hermeneutics’, ProEccl 11, no. 3 (2001), pp. 301–06; Rowe, ‘The God of Israel and Jesus Christ: Luke, Marcion, and the Unity of the Canon’, NV 1, no. 2 (2003), pp. 365–78; Rowe, ‘Luke and the Trinity: An Essay in Ecclesial Biblical Theology’, SJT 56, no. 1 (2003), pp. 13–22. A. K. M. Adam, ‘Docetism, Käsemann, and Christology: Why Historical Criticism Can’t Protect Christological Orthodoxy’, SJT 49, no. 4 (1996), p. 399. The soteriological danger may not be entirely dependent upon the ontological danger, however, if Kevin W. Hector’s argument regarding Schleiermacher’s ‘high Christology’ and the availability of non-Sabellian Trinitarian options within Schleiermacher’s own dogmatic milieu, proves correct (‘Actualism and Incarnation: The High Christology of Friedrich Schleiermacher’, IJST 8, no. 3 [2006], pp. 320–21). Nevertheless, the ontological necessarily leads to the soteriological error. Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith (ed. H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart; Philadelphia: Fortress, 2nd ed., 1928), pp. 563–69, 582; cf. Ralph Del Colle, ‘Schleiermacher and Spirit Christology: Unexplored Horizons of The Christian Faith’, IJST 1, no. 3 (1999), pp. 286–307. Karl Rahner, ‘Current Problems in Christology’, in Theological Investigations (trans. Cornelius Ernst; London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2nd ed., 1965), vol. 1, p. 183.

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demonstrated in Chapter 6, cannot be denied as a necessary constituent of a pluriform atonement theology; nevertheless, to remove its substitutionary preface turns the imitatio Christi into the condemning word of the Law: an imperative without the freeing indicative of the gospel; an improvement of degree, not disruption of sin and death.139 For present purposes, it will suffice to note that confronting the ontological error of much Spirit-Christology has the added benefit of disputing intrinsically this soteriological error as well. If Jesus actually embodies the divine life personally, his representative life and passion may have vicarious repercussions distinct from and logically prior to service as example. The particular contours of relating union with Christ and imitation of Christ will be teased out in Chapter 6. The Holy Spirit rests on the Son’s humanity as such. Even ardent critics of flawed versions of Spirit-Christology must affirm the need to extend the classical affirmation of the Spirit’s significance in the life of Jesus dogmatically, with biblical and creedal roots for such insistence. The extensive New Testament witness to the life-giving ministry of the Spirit upon Jesus testifies to the authentic and oftentimes grotesque humanity assumed into the eternal life of the Word. This Son of Israel knows the travails and groanings of the exiled children of God, but he also knows the radiant delight of transformed finitude as the Spirit has called him forth from fallenness into sanctified light and ever-contingently fortified faithfulness. The assumption of humanity by the Word necessarily involves the taking on of fallen human nature, yet the salvation of sinful creatures requires that the Holy Spirit purify this sinful flesh and raise it unto glory. This path through the doctrine of God into metaphysical Christology, with particular focus upon the humanity of Christ and the Spirit’s ministry to that nature, concludes my argument for the coherence of the Christ’s faith. Having previously demonstrated the coherence of the predicate, faith, being attributed to the Incarnate Son (in Chapters 2 and 3), the ontological context within which a robust account of the Christ’s humanity may be articulated has now been sketched along Chalcedonian and Reformed lines. This has entailed a radical view of divine transcendence (with an accompanying non-competitive account of the relation of divine and human agency), sustained in a Reformed understanding of the communicatio idiomatum, as a means of affirming a two-natures Christology faithful to the threefold judgment intrinsic to the Definition of Chalcedon (asymmetry, integrity, intimacy). Christological metaphysics have been explored within the theological limits found in the Old Testament, relating to the divine essence (yhwh). Proper space for the union of creaturely life and God’s own identity have, therefore, been sustained by unflinching attention to the ontological and linguistic context of Scriptural narrative and Christological

139

Weinandy, ‘The Case for Spirit Christology: Some Reflections’, pp. 181–82.

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predication tied to Christ’s humanity. The ontological and soteriological requirements for Christ’s assumption of a fallen human nature have been shown to be overwhelming, and a carefully circumscribed account of original sin has been found necessary to sustain this Christological judgment without involving the Savior in personal sin and guilt. Finally, the necessity of the Holy Spirit’s ministry upon the Son’s humanity throughout his incarnate life has been sketched as the divine provision by which the Son’s humanity vicariously attains victory over sin, death, and devil. Having shown the coherence of the Christ’s faith, Chapters 5 and 6 will consider the soteriological and covenantal necessity of this Christological activity.

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5 christ’s faith within the loci of salvation, covenant, and eschatology: three case studies I. On Comparative Analysis of Dogmatics The doctrine of the Christ’s faith finds meaning only within the contours of particular soteriological and covenantal schemes which relate his earthly life to the people of Israel and the Church. That is, given the ontological coherence of the claim that the incarnate Son might exercise faith, the purpose and texture of this activity follow from broader biblical–theological developments which relate to anthropological mandates and eschatological expectations. Whereas the previous three chapters lingered over metaphysical and terminological questions, these final two chapters will engage atonement theology and ethics with regard to the dogmatic function of the Mediator’s faith. In so doing, the anthropological concerns of various theological traditions will be highlighted by noting their covenantal and eschatological trajectories, insofar as these impulses color their broader soteriology. As noted in Chapter 1, the faith of Jesus has found a place in dogmatic theology only rarely. The absence of this doctrine has followed from explicit theological disagreement with its plausibility in many cases (e.g., Thomas Aquinas), as well as from a dearth of explicit biblical references to this Incarnational dynamic. Nevertheless, the present chapter will demonstrate the doctrine’s possible coherence within three major covenantal schemes, by way of adjusting certain features within each formulation. This analytic procedure in no way suggests an historical similarity, nor an expectation of ecclesiastical conformity to my thesis. Rather, this chapter simply performs a thought experiment insofar as it traces the potential place of the Christ’s faith within the contours of the thought of Thomas Aquinas, federal theology (or ‘covenant theology’), and Karl Barth’s theology. Only Barth’s theology has explicitly adopted the language of Jesus’s belief or faith, whereas 143

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only Thomas’s theology has explicitly denied the propriety of this affirmation. Federal theology has ignored the possibility for the most part, though the influential Herman Witsius has suggested its place within the textures of covenant theology. Other soteriological programs might be considered similarly as possible contexts for assimilation of the doctrine of the Christ’s faith. These three have been chosen for their systemic precision, broad influence, and theological acuity in my own eyes. My use of these three, however, should not be interpreted as affirmation of their validity (particularly as certain features within them are mutually contradictory – e.g., the role of the sacraments within the Christian life in Thomas vis à vis Barth, or the role of human merit as a material ground for the final judgment in Thomas vis à vis both Protestant accounts). That said, I find elements of each to be particularly salient and biblically rooted, yet my judgments regarding the usefulness of each paradigm will not be sketched in the chapter. Each account highlights the value of the Christ’s faith in various ways which, while perhaps present in some fashion in the others, attain importance that should instigate dogmatic analysis (though not necessarily acceptance as such).1 Criticism of these covenantal structures, however, will be limited to those elements which logically relate in a substantial manner to the potential place of the Christ’s faith within their soteriology. The chapter, then, will proceed in four steps: considering, first, the perfecting role of the Christ’s faith in Thomas Aquinas’s theology; second, the vicarious role of the Christ’s faith in federal theology; third, the elected role of the Christ’s faith in Karl Barth’s theology; and, fourth, concluding remarks about the validity of the various approaches for a biblically rooted, theologically coherent Christology.

II. Thomas Aquinas and the Perfecting Role of Christ’s Faith Thomas Aquinas emphatically denied the need for faith within the incarnate life of the eternal Son. As noted in Chapter 2, Thomas considered faith to be epistemologically juxtaposed with knowledge so that it would not be fitting for an all-knowing Christ to exercise faith. But what if Thomas had judged the relationship of faith and knowledge differently? What if Thomas affirmed the Christ’s faith? How would this mediatorial activity relate to the salvation of humans as well as the cultic and moral demands of the Law? 1

E.g., the sacramental role of the Christ’s faith within Thomas’s soteriology would place greater material weight upon intrinsic human transformation and ecclesial mediation than is possible within a Reformational theology (see Karl Barth, ‘Roman Catholicism: A Question to the Protestant Church’, in Theology and Church: Shorter Writings, 1920–1928 [trans. L. P. Smith; New York: Harper & Row, 1962], pp. 314–15).

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The sacramental role of the Christ’s faith will be sketched here, particularly by showing the potential relationship of the Christ’s filial submission to the Father and dependence upon the Spirit to the transformation of humans forged through the sacramental mediation of the Church. As with my consideration of Thomas’s theology in Chapters 2 and 3, the Summa Theologiae deserves primacy and may be clarified at points by comparison with Thomas’s extensive corpus of Scriptural commentaries. The very presence of the question, Did Christ have Faith?, within the ST is surprising, precisely because Thomas remains little known as a Christological theologian. Unfortunately, his reputation has been linked with the program of natural theology and philosophical metaphysics as severed from dogmatic, liturgical, and Scriptural theology.2 The charge that Thomas lacks a Christocentric theology follows from analysis of the structure of the ST, wherein Christology follows prolegomena, Trinitarian theology, creation, eschatology, anthropology, and moral theology.3 Yet Thomas takes the time to engage this pointed question – Did Christ have faith? – which has so frequently evaded consideration within dogmatics, and this suggests he had greater Christological interest than might be structurally apparent. In fact, the structure of the ST should be considered misleading if its delay of properly Christological doctrine leads observers to label its material content as either natural theology or bland theism.4

a. Covenantal Structure of the Summa Theologiae The structure of the ST invokes covenantal relationships in the order by which theology progresses. First, the triune God must be considered the instigator of relations with humanity, suggesting that the identity of the Trinity must be articulated insofar as made available by economic relations (i.e., 2

3

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See, e.g., the reigning anthology of Thomas’s writings which lacks reference to his Trinitarian and Christological considerations: A. M. Fairweather (ed.), Aquinas: On Nature and Grace (LCC 11; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1954). The philosophical hijacking of Thomas’s theology has been rebuffed more recently, as exemplified in the more recent anthology: Frederick C. Bauerschmidt, Holy Teaching: An Introduction to the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2005), which majors on Thomas’s doctrines of the Trinity, creation, Christ, and the sacraments in ways entirely lacking in Fairweather’s account. Mark D. Jordan has helpfully demonstrated the purpose of the ST to resituate moral theology within a clear dogmatic ontology, thereby meeting a critical need within the Dominican education of Thomas’s day (‘What the Summa of Theology Teaches’, in Rewritten Theology: Aquinas after His Readers [CCT; Oxford: Blackwell, 2006], p. 153). Unfortunately this pedagogical purpose – passing on a Christian moral theology – has been understood to occlude Thomas’s own dogmatic interests. For the structural place of Thomas’s Christology within the ST (and varying arguments surrounding this issue), see esp. Jean-Marc LaPorte, ‘Christ in Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae: Peripheral or Pervasive?’ The Thomist 67, no. 2 (2003), pp. 221–48.

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economic sendings suggest eternal origins). Second, creation in general and human beings in particular deserve treatment as the recipients of fellowship with the preveniently welcoming Lord. Third, moral theology and (what can be termed) covenantal theology outline the contours of relations (and their failures) between God and humans. Only with these ontological and moral parameters explicitly sketched does Thomas then move to consider the mediatory role of Christ. He concludes the ST with the tertia pars on Christ and the sacraments, invoking the identification of the totus Christus as the linchpin for the participation of humanity within the triune life of the one eternal God. Theology proper and anthropology – drawn especially from the wells of the Old Testament and, only when adjudicated to be coherent with this Scriptural witness, from secular philosophies – precede the predication of divine and human attributes and actions to the God-human. The ontological depiction of history in Thomas’s ST takes the twofold pattern of exitus and reditus – that is, the creation from the triune God’s own life of that which is creaturely and, therefore, other than this God (characterized in the prima pars), followed by the elevation of created human nature into participation with the divine Trinity (depicted in the prima secunda, secunda secundae, and the tertia pars).5 Yet this twofold ontological division – creation as other and elevation as deification – attains more defined articulation by way of a threefold covenantal structure: Old Law, New Law, and the hereafter; or Old Covenant, New Covenant, and anticipated beatitude.6 The Old Covenant – the law – defines the parameters within which humanity may be elevated from natural to supernatural existence.7 This gracing of nature finds its roots within the intrinsic openness of nature itself, as Henri de Lubac so pointedly reemphasized in the mid-twentieth century, such that nature itself yearns for the divine exaltation of humanity beyond its own integral limits and potencies.8 The law provides appropriate 5

6 7

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On exitus-reditus and the structural role of the metaphysics of participation for the ST, the best study remains Rudi A. te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas (Leiden: Brill, 1995). ST 1a2ae.103.3, reply. Although the topics of grace and law are delayed within the structure of Thomas’s moral theology, according to Mark D. Jordan, ‘The Summa of Theology as Moral Formation’, in Rewritten Theology, pp. 130–31. Jordan suggests this pedagogical order highlights the ‘elements of moral science before he confronts paradoxes of direct divine intervention’ (p. 131). Henri de Lubac, Surnaturel: Etudes historiques (Paris: Aubier, 2nd ed., 1991). On de Lubac’s retrieval of the supernatural longings of nature, see Fergus Kerr, ‘Quarrels about Grace’, in After Aquinas, pp. 134–48; Milbank, The Suspended Middle, pp. 15–32, 88–103 (where Milbank links de Lubac’s predominantly patristic retrieval of the supernatural to recent Thomistic scholarship). On the natural capacity of humanity for grace, see ST 1a.48.4; 1a2ae.113.1. The natural desire for elevation, however, cannot be termed ‘pure nature’ because its existence solely depends upon divine initiative and sustenance (Kerr, ‘Quarrels about Grace’, p. 142).

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mediation for the habitualization and gracing of humanity to transform the thoroughly natural creature into a ‘partaker of the divine nature’, a deified or divinized human with supernatural existence. The reditus moves by use of concrete faculties and tangible instruments of spiritual sustenance: that is, the Spirit rests on and graces through the material. In this affirmation of concrete mediation, Thomas is not granting independent value to concrete things, though he does maintain the instrumental use of created things for the sanctification and, ultimately, glorification of humanity.9 The pathway to divinization involves the legal ordering of society by the Decalogue and Divine Law. Obedience to these stipulations fittingly prepares one to merit grace, which then aids one in the task of further obedience to the Law, thus promoting a mutually reinforcing dynamic of submission to the concrete guidance of these legal parameters and Spirit-birthed infusion of grace. Thomas interprets the law in a threefold manner – hermeneutically distinguishing between a Moral Law, Ceremonial Law, and Judicial Law within the Mosaic Law itself, classifying the relationship of varying types of legal code to the Spirit’s infusion of grace.10 Yet Thomas’s affirmation of the law’s goodness does not translate into his equation of Old Law with the Gospel.11 Rather, he distinguishes between the intrinsically good guidance of the law and its impotence to provide efficaciously for its proper use.12 The law was ceremonially unfit to purify spiritual stains and morally dependent upon the (altogether insufficient) character of its recipients for the sake of procuring its intended result.13

b. Christology and Salvation within History The Son’s Incarnation, then, ushered theological history into a new era – the Gospel – transforming the intrinsically good yet insufficient structures of the law into a paradigm for mediation which meets the needs of humanity post lapsum.14 Thomas explains Christ’s role within the economy of salvation via the munus triplex: Christ as prophet, priest, and king. Christ fulfills these three roles in continuity with their figural ancestors, albeit by singularly 9

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E.g., Thomas supports the transformation of human bodies in heaven such that the body does not inhibit appropriate intellectual activity as befits a viator; nevertheless, the importance of the body – and its transformation – is not intrinsic, but remains limited to instrumental use in promoting the broadly intellectualist eschatology which has marked so much of the Christian tradition. See ST 2a2ae.24.9; 3a.69.5, ad 1; In. Io. 3:5 [443]. Pamela M. Hall, Narrative and the Natural Law: An Interpretation of Thomistic Ethics (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), pp. 52–55. On the Law’s goodness, see ST 1a2ae.98.1, reply. ST 1a2ae.98.1, ad 3. On ceremonial weakness, see ST 1a2ae.103.2, reply; on moral dependence, see ST 1a2ae.98.1, ad 2; 3a.49.5, ad 1. On the Incarnational overlap of law and gospel prior to the passion of Jesus, see ST 1a2ae.103.3, ad 2.

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heightening the intrinsic efficacy of each office in a manner befitting only a human characterized by hypostatic union with divinity. Yet Thomas attributes the exercise of each office to the humanity of Christ, properly speaking, allowing the attribution of predicates affixed to any of the offices to fall upon the person of the Word only as a subject via communicatio idiomatum (due to the instrumental nature of the humanity’s function within the incarnational ontology).15 Thomas also renders Christ’s fulfillment of these offices in a patently dynamic fashion, according to Matthew Levering, such that his fulfillment of Torah and Temple via hypostatic participation in the Word occurs within the texture of history.16 While Levering’s defense of Thomas against the charges of crass supersessionism is valid,17 his characterization of the fulfillment of the munus triplex as historically mediated is only partially valid and deserves pointed critique.18 Thomas emphasizes the Scripturally narrated stories of Jesus’s life within the tertia pars as constitutive and necessary elements of salvation – the ‘mysteries’ recounted also in the regula fidei. Following his metaphysical and broad historical comments on the fittingness of the Incarnation (q.1-26),19 Thomas slowly attends to the precise features and functions of the life of Jesus with soteriological acuity (q. 27–59).20 Yet Thomas’s affirmation of historical development within the realm of redemptive progress, as noted in Chapter 2, ceases when attention to the incremental maturation and patient perfection of Jesus’s humanity is considered.21 That is, the moral and 15

16 17

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ST 3a.16.4 (on the instrumentality of the Word’s humanity, see ST 3a.18.1, ad 2; 3a.19.1). cf. Henk J. M. Schoot, Christ the ‘Name’ of God: Thomas Aquinas on Naming God (Leuven: Peeters, 1993), pp. 110–55 (esp. pp. 139–43). Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, p. 66. pace Jordan, ‘What the Summa of Theology Teaches’, in Rewritten Theology, p. 143 fn. 24. On the complex relationship of Thomas to supersessionism, see the recent proposals by Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, p. 24; pace Michael Wyschogrod, ‘A Jewish Reading of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Old Law’, in Clemens Thoma and Michael Wyschogrod (eds.), Understanding Scripture: Explorations of Jewish and Christian Traditions of Interpretation (SJC; New York: Paulist, 1987), pp. 125–28; Richard Schenk, ‘Views of the Two Covenants in Medieval Theology’, NV 4, no. 4 (2006), pp. 912–14; Francis Martin, ‘Election, Covenant, and Law’, NV 4, no. 4 (2006), pp. 868–69. On the dogmatic notion of ‘fittingness’ (convenientia), see Frederick C. Bauerschmidt, ‘Incarnation, Redemption, and the Character of God’, NV 3, no. 3 (2005), pp. 464–65. ST 3a.8.1, ad 1; 3a.34.3; 3a.48.2, ad 2. The tension between Thomas’s emphasis on creational integrity and, thus, historical development, on the one hand, and the immediacy of Christ’s intrinsic perfection, on the other hand, becomes explicit within the tertia pars. Whereas Christ suffered the worst imaginable pains ‘of this world’, Thomas distinguishes this dereliction from the pangs of hell which would be only eschatologically possible (ST 3a.46.6, ad 3). This eschatological distinction was omitted from Thomas’s affirmation of Christ’s beatific vision described in 3a.7.3; 3a.9-12 (see Chapter 2).

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intellectual dimensions of Christ’s personality – particularly as befit his humanity – lack the contingencies and temporalities intrinsic to the emphasis on history and dynamism throughout the rest of Thomas’s Christology and soteriology. Thomas refuses to advocate progressive sanctification and divine fellowship with regard to the person of Christ, although his broader covenantal theology suggests such an eschatological reserve.22 Thomas’s Christology excludes the role of Christ’s faith from the ‘mysteries’ of the life of Jesus precisely because Thomas foreshortens the eschatological anticipation which marks even the unfolding earthly life and ministry of the divine Son. Thus, inclusion of Jesus’s faith within his account of the humanity of Christ requires correction of the Christological application of his otherwise dynamic eschatology. The faith of Christ, within such a reconstructed theology of Thomas, would bolster his attention to the soteriological causality of every moment of Jesus’s life. The obedience of Jesus as Son rendered submissively to the prescriptions of the Father, according to Thomas, fulfills the Moral Law.23 In this vein, Thomas attends to the circumcision of Jesus as binding Christ to the extensive demands of the Mosaic Law, further solidified by his entry into the baptismal waters of the Jordan.24 Thomas also lingers over the dynamic texture of Jesus’s wayfaring existence, considering his temptations, steadfast patience, and oftentimes grotesquely marked longsuffering to be soteriologically important – that is, causally related to human flourishing.25

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Thus, Thomas cannot be said to deny or flatten the distinction between Christ and Christians (or the Church), for Thomas’s resolve in denying substantive moral and covenantal change with regard to the humanity of Christ distinguishes the Son from the adopted children. Rather, Thomas must be criticized for improperly distinguishing between Christ, Christians, and the Church; his effort to do so is right, but his manner is flawed (see below). Andrew Hofer, ‘The Circumcision of the Lord: Saving Mystery after Modern Oblation’, NV 3, no. 2 (2005), pp. 265–68; Torrell, Le Christ en ses mystères, p. 356; Ulrich Kühn, Via caritatis: Theologie des Gesetzes bei Thomas von Aquin (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965), pp. 203–06. ST 3a.40.4; cf. Hofer, ‘The Circumcision of the Lord’, p. 267; Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, p. 51. Levering further demonstrates the covenantal primacy of obeying the Moral Law to fulfilling the Ceremonial Law, particularly with regard to baptism as a purifying preparation to sacrifice (ST 1a2ae.100.1; 100.10, ad 3; Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, p. 58). On Christ’s baptism as a link with Israel, see ST 3a.39.4. Rik Van Nieuwenhove, ‘ “Bearing the Marks of Christ’s Passion”: Aquinas’ Soteriology’, in Van Nieuwenhove and Wawrykow (eds.), The Theology of Thomas Aquinas, p. 296; cf. ST 3a.46.3, reply (where Christ’s passio seems to refer to his entire life, an extension of Thomas’s usual use of the term to refer strictly to Jesus’s final suffering and death); on the importance of Christ’s temptation, see ST 3a.41.1 (and on the distinct manner of the temptations, see ad 3).

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c. Participation, Reditus, and the Work of Christ Thomas affirms the covenantal structure of Old Covenant–New Covenant, with Christ fulfilling the Old and initiating the New in various ways. Thomas affirms a soteriology of participation, not substitution, highlighting the ontological transformation of natural persons plagued by sin into virtuous saints marked by supernatural grace. While Christ does suffer for sins committed by others, thereby vicariously representing sinners before the wrath of God, the merits of Christ garner graces to be poured upon believers who will merit subsequently their own eternal destiny (what Protestant confessions call ‘justification’), due to the empowering presence of the Spirit provided by Christ’s entitlements.26 Christ atones for sins and merits the habituating and infused graces needed to impel corresponding acts of obedient submission by his flock,27 for sin’s malignancy hinders but does not destroy human potential for right living – virtue.28 The application of Christ’s life – including his faith – occurs through participation in the mediating life of the Redeemer via the sacramental mediation of the Church. Thomas’s affirmation of Christ’s merit ties this moral desert to the distribution of graces within the divinely appointed means of grace. These graces enable the keeping of the moral law by individuals qua individuals, even as the Ceremonial Law and Judicial Law are fulfilled by individuals qua members of Christ’s own person.29 In fact, the beatific vision will mark the viator such that perfect love will flow from these then glorified ones blessed with deifying grace.30 Ever deepening participation in the fount of all being – the triune life of gracious love – depicts ontologically that

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Thomas states that believers merit eternal life (ST 1a2ae.114.3), but not justification (ST 1a2ae.114.5, ad 1). His definition of justification, however, differs from that typically employed by Protestants (say, in the confessions of the magisterial Reformation). Thomas defines justification in a twofold manner as both ‘primarily and strictly a means of bringing about justice, and secondarily, and somewhat loosely, it can be used of signifying justice as of a disposition to justice’ (ST 1a2ae.100.12, reply), though Romanus Cessario finds a fourfold definition present in ST 1a2ae.113.6 (‘Aquinas on Christian Salvation’, in Weinandy et al. (eds.), Aquinas on Doctrine, pp. 144–45). For helpful analysis of these slightly divergent definitions, see Joseph P. Wawrykow, God’s Grace and Human Action: ‘Merit’ in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), pp. 203ff. On the ability to merit for others, see ST 3a.19.4, reply, where Thomas also distinguishes between meriting for others and sharing the ability to merit for others (ad 2). Nature cannot be destroyed or else the creature would cease to exist (ST 1a2ae.82.12). E.g., while sin can aggravate each limitation of natural reason – its helpful use only by an elite class, its difficulty, and its tendency to go awry (ST 1a2ae.94.5, ad 1) – sin does not undo the possibility of such demonstration (1a2ae.94.6). Nature cannot be destroyed or else the creature would cease to exist (1a2ae.82.1-2). Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment of Torah and Temple, p. 28. ST 2a2ae.24.8.

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which appears morally: human virtue and merit.31 Reditus takes moral shape via the sacramental affiliation of natural humans with Christ’s mysteries, thereby appropriating supernatural graces to those for whom he merited them. Again, these mysteries are the various fulfillments of the Law in the singularly obedient life of Christ, which may be fittingly depicted as demonstrable instances of faithful submission to the Father.32

d. Christ’s Dynamic Life and Human Transformation The theology of Thomas Aquinas has great potential, then, for integrating with a doctrine of the Christ’s faith, particularly by relating this human activity to Christians through various causal relationships.33 That is, a multitude of soteriological uses present themselves as conduits for this doctrine’s function within Thomas’s Christology: Jesus’s faith fulfills the Moral Law, merits human justification, offers a moral example,34 and provides assurance via sacramental mediation (thus grounding the flawed life of individual Christians and the wayfaring Church at large in the perfect human worship of the Savior).35 Thomas articulates a fivefold function of Christ’s coming: demonstration of divine love, example of virtue, emancipation from sin and meriting of grace, placing humans in God’s debt, and granting dignity to humans.36 Elsewhere (and more frequently), Thomas can whittle the list down to two human needs met by Christ (precisely because the law can quench neither in ipso): slavery to sin, and the debt of punishment.37 Whether

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Thomas’s soteriology avoids the high medieval bait-and-switch wherein soteriologies based upon knowledge/sight of God were replaced with a focus upon the justice of God, and he does so by denying the mutually exclusive nature of the typology; see Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds, p. 153. A replete moral ontology may be structured according to Thomas’s exitus-reditus paradigm, according to Francis J. Caponi, ‘Karl Rahner and the Metaphysics of Participation’, The Thomist 67, no. 3 (2003), p. 408; cf. ST 3a.8.1, ad 1, where the Holy Spirit initiates reditus to fellowship with God by applying Christ’s cultic activity to his friends, those elected for virtuous union with the Trinity. ST 3a.40.4, reply. On the instrumental relation of Christ’s humanity to the eternal Word’s salvific designs, see Paul G. Crowley, ‘Instrumentum Divinitatis in Thomas Aquinas: Recovering the Divinity of Christ’, TS 52 (1991), pp. 451–75; Theophil Tischpke, Die Menschheit Christi als Heilsorgan der Gottheit (Freiburg: Herder, 1940), pp. 139–43. See esp. ST 3a.1.2, reply, where Thomas articulates two distinct five-part typologies for the purposes of the Incarnation. ST 3a.41.1. ST 2a2ae.2.7, ad 3. ST 3a.46.3, reply. The third function – emancipation and merit – certainly appears to be divisible, thus providing six reasons for the Incarnation. ST 3a.48.4, reply; 3a.56.1, ad 4. Thomas expands on slavery to sin in 3a.49.1 and on our debt of punishment in 3a.49.3.

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Thomas is considering the atonement under a basic or detailed typology, the application of this salvation to humans occurs by means of faith and the sacraments: that is, through the sacraments appropriated by faith and through faith fed by the sacraments.38 Yet the inclusion of faith within the mysteries of the life of Christ requires adjustments to Thomas’s eschatology, anthropology, and Christology. As extensively shown in Chapter 2, Thomas posits an eschatological end which includes (and climaxes in) human enjoyment of the beatific vision. His epistemology requires faith and knowledge to be mutually exclusive, given faith’s decisively noetic nature. Thus, Thomas denies the possibility of Christ ever having faith, given that Jesus immediately possessed the beatific vision upon conception.39 To remedy what is essentially an eschatological error, Thomas would have to delay Christ’s glorification (that is, attribution of a predicate theologically linked with the life of glory – beatific vision – to the wayfaring Christ) while affirming dynamism and development within Christ’s own incarnate journey. By so altering his Christology, Thomas might have more adequately differentiated Christ’s humanity from the creaturely life of the Church in so far as Jesus’s humanity enjoys morally perfect yet eschatologically appropriate maturation, whereas the Church’s moral life involves development and fallibility.40 That is, Thomas’s embrace of development within the human life of Jesus requires the differentiation between Christ and Church to recede to a tenet other than that of temporal dynamism and progressive maturation, suggesting that the Church is distinct from Christ’s identity on account of her failure, rather than her finitude and temporal constrictions.41 Thus, acceptance of my thesis might prod the theology of Thomas Aquinas toward a more ecclesially circumspect ontology which affirms the proper limits of

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On the instrumentality of the sacraments: ST 3a.49.1, ad 4; 3a.49.3, ad 2;3a.62.5. On the instrumentality of faith: ST 3a.49.1, ad 5. On the instrumentality of the sacraments in faith and faith from the sacraments (understanding them as mutually beneficial actions), see ST 3a.49.3, ad 1. Jean-Pierre Torrell has also criticized this psychological-epistemological weakness in Thomas’s doctrine of Christ’s humanity (Le Christ en ses mystères, pp. 338–39). pace de Lubac, Catholicism, pp. 53, 73, 82, 88, 127, 196, 226 (but see p. 363). This ecclesiological suggestion moves well beyond the immediate confines of my thought experiment, yet offers a promising ecumenical hint. Whereas Thomas’s soteriology distinguishes between Christ’s life and that of the Church by way of immediate glorification (in certain respects, though not all) of Christ and developed glory within the Church, my suggested alterations would require their identities to be differentiated elsewhere (not along the lines of development), the most promising candidate of which appears to be culpability. Obviously, an altered Christology could simply identify Christ and Church, affirming development and infallibility of both; however, such blurring via identification denies the basic ontological moves suggested in ST 1a and affirmed by both Roman Catholic and Reformed Christology (see Chapter 4, part one).

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creaturely finitude and extensive culpability, that is, the sin-plagued existence of the justified Church: simul iustus et peccator. Thomas blatantly opposed the doctrine of Christ’s faith within his ST for covenantal and eschatological reasons. With slight alterations to his anthropology and the relation between sanctification and glorification, however, Thomas’s Christology may embrace a more holistic affirmation of the Son’s humanity including all the creaturely limitations inherent in the assumptio carnis.42 As noted in Chapter 4, the metaphysics of the Incarnation shaped by a radical view of divine transcendence (affirmed consistently by Thomas in ST 1a) allows for every true predicate of humanity to be affirmed of the incarnate Son. Thus, a shift in Thomas’s anthropology – denying the possibility of beatific sight while wayfaring – immediately alters the textures of his Chalcedonian Christology.43 Finally, the inclusion of Christ’s faith within Thomas’s theology bolsters the sacramental mediation of grace by which nature-bound sinners attain deification. The fiducially obedient humanity of Christ may be mediated to humans, thereby aiding their journey toward ever-fuller participation in the divine friendship,44 in so far as his faith-earned and passion-intensified merits grace these creatures with supernatural, sacramental blessings.45

III. Federal Theology and the Representative Role of Christ’s Faith By and large, federal theology (or ‘covenant theology’) has occasionally addressed the question of the Christ’s faith in the affirmative (although certain post-Reformation Reformed dogmatics followed Thomas in his mutually exclusive juxtaposition of faith and knowledge, thereby grounding the broader, implicit denial of the Christ’s faith with explicit theological argument).46 Where present, affirmations that Christ exercised faith have been 42

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‘For as man he is set apart from God in nature and from men in the eminence of his grace and glory . . . [that he might] unite men with God, which he does by setting before men the divine commandments and gifts and by atoning and interceding for men with God’ (ST 3a.26.2, reply, in answer to the question ‘Is it as man that Christ is mediator of God and man?’). Bauerschmidt suggests that this anthropological shortsightedness (i.e., failure to allow the Incarnation to define the ‘character of humanity’) was corrected by Pope John Paul II (‘Incarnation, Redemption, and the Character of God,’ p. 471). In.Heb. 8:6-10b [392, 396]. ST 3a.64.3. Although the term ‘covenant theology’ more directly relates to the dogmatic loci and formal approach to theology as embodied in this tradition, the title ‘federal theology’ better differentiates this approach to a theology of the covenants from competing systems.

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scant or lean. More importantly, however, federal theology emphasizes the humanity of Christ in a manner which provides a hospitable dogmatic environment for the doctrine of Christ’s faith, especially under the rubric of the active obedience of Christ. My consideration of federal theology, therefore, will situate this active obedience within its theology of the covenants and its Christology. Federal theology represents a theological tradition with dogmatic and confessional representation over the course of several centuries. Whereas the theologies of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth both involve the singular efforts of monumental thinkers, albeit hermeneutically appropriated through a variety of theological grids, the writings of federal theologians span five centuries and numerous countries. From the earliest ruminations found in Voetius, Ursinus, and Olevianus, to the confessional expansion in the Westminster Confession of Faith, to the dogmatic edifices constructed by Cocceius and Turretin, the federal theology developed certain impulses within the earliest Reformed theologians (i.e., Calvin, Zwingli, Bullinger),47 albeit with certain logical, interpretive, and systemic modifications (e.g., the movement from original sin to its codification as original guilt).48 Federal theology has continued to develop, however, throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly within the conservative efforts of the Princeton theology along with, more recently, the Dutch Calvinistic impetus toward a specifically redemptive-historical theology (e.g., Geerhardus Vos) and its Anglo-American descendants in the conservative Presbyterian world (e.g., the Westminster seminaries). Accurate dogmatic reflection upon federal theology, therefore, must span the centuries and involve historical and confessional texts and concerns.

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The substantive continuity between Zwingli and Calvin’s theology, for example, and their dogmatic and confessional development in the post-Reformation texts of Bullinger, Beza and later successors has been amply demonstrated in, e.g., Richard A. Muller, ‘Calvin and the “Calvinists”: Assessing Continuities and Discontinuities between the Reformation and Orthodoxy’, in After Calvin, pp. 63–102; Carl R. Trueman, ‘Calvin and Calvinism’, in Donald K. McKim (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin (CCR; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 225–44; as well as the insightful essays in two recent symposia: Carl R. Trueman and R. Scott Clark (eds.), Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1999), and Willem J. van Asselt and Eef Dekker (eds.), Reformation and Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise (TSRPRT; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001); pace the claims for substantive discontinuity by R. T. Kendall, ‘The Puritan Modification of Calvin’s Theology’, in W. Stanford Reid (ed.), John Calvin: His Influence in the Western World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), pp. 197–214; Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649, pp. 209–13; Holmes Rolston, III, ‘Responsible Man in Reformed Theology: Calvin versus the Westminster Confession’, SJT 23 (1970), pp. 129–56. See Allen, ‘Calvin’s Christ: A Dogmatic Matrix for Discussion of Christ’s Human Nature’, pp. 384–88.

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Covenant theology involves the affirmation of three materially decisive covenantal arrangements: the covenant of redemption, the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace. Within this broader dogmatic edifice, various Scriptural texts witness to the diverse historical instantiations of the covenant of works and covenant of grace. According to some federal theologians, the covenant of works originally appears in the Edenic narratives and resurfaces during the Sinai theophany. Similarly, most theologians in this tradition also affirm the variegated nature of the covenant of grace during various eras (i.e., Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, New). Following the suggestion of Calvin’s Institutes,49 the developed dogmatic texts of federal theology find that the gracious dispensation of the Old Covenant (with its own multifarious nature) differs in certain aspects from that of the New Covenant, albeit with great structural similarity regarding the material ground of atonement – the work of Christ – and the instrumental means of this atonement’s application – sola fide. That is true even if these are directed toward Christ only proleptically during the Old Covenant era in eschatological anticipation of Israel’s redemption.

a. Covenant of Redemption The covenant of redemption represents the eternal agreement of the triune God to pursue the task of revealing God’s glory by means of the salvation and damnation of humans within a distinct framework. That is, humans that will be saved shall find such blessing only through covenantally structured means, and other humans who will be damned likewise will be punished for failures that are clarified covenantally.50 In an eternal decision, the triune God determines to relate to humanity by means of covenantal

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Calvin, Institutes, II.ix–xi. Federal theology exists within the ‘predestinarian’ context of classical Calvinism, wherein the so-called ‘doctrines of grace’ are affirmed: (1) extensive human depravity post lapsum; (2) God’s unconditional election of some for salvation; (3) Jesus provides an efficient atonement for the elect; (4) the grace of God effectively transforms the elect; and (5) the elect are divinely preserved for salvation. See David A. Weir, The Origins of the Federal Theology in Sixteenth-Century Reformation Thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), p. 108 (though Weir’s suggestion that federal theology arose primarily due to predestinarian debates lacks credible evidence, on which see p. 158). Contrary to the claims of many (e.g., Brian Armstrong, Charles McCoy, James B. Torrance, and Alister McGrath), the structural shift from discussing predestination within the Christian life (book three of Calvin’s 1559 Institutes) to the forefront of the economy of salvation does not involve a substantive change to the doctrine itself, according to Richard A. Muller, ‘The Placement of Predestination in Reformed Theology: Issue or Non-Issue?’ CTJ 40 (2005), p. 187; pace Brian Armstrong, Calvinism and the Amyraut Heresy: Protestant Scholasticism and Humanism in Seventeenth Century France (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), pp. 31–40.

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parameters.51 The covenant of redemption, then, determines God’s own life insofar as the Father agrees to offer his Son as a sacrifice for sin; the eternal Son submits himself to the humiliating pursuit of his own glory in the Incarnation and atonement; and the Spirit bonds the Father’s decree with the Son’s delight by applying the work of Christ to those elect in Christ.52 The covenant of redemption has not received universal recognition within the tradition of federal theology, however, as it represents a dogmatic inference with meager explicit links to Scriptural language.53 That is, this reformational tradition’s adherence to the formal principle of sola Scriptura has oftentimes led its adherents to reject the application of the term ‘covenant’ to an agreement which involves only divine agents,54 and which includes no redemptive blessings granted by one party to another.55 This methodological reserve – rooted in respect for the verbal nature of revelation – has also led to reticence on the part of some federal theologians. That is, the application of

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Richard A. Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (SHT 2; Durham, NC: Labyrinth, 1986; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988), pp. 10, 94, 113–15, 149–68, 181; pace Barth, CD II/2, pp. 78–79. Willem J. van Asselt has demonstrated the Trinitarian nature of the covenant of redemption by extrapolating the pneumatological rendering of this eternal pact in Johannes Cocceius (The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius [1603–1669] [SHCT 100; trans. Raymond A. Blacketer; Leiden: Brill, 2001], pp. 233–36). Admittedly, Cocceius neither affirms an immanent role for the Spirit in the pactum salutis, nor does he carry the entire tradition with him, in as much as many limit the covenant of redemption to a pactum solely between Father and Son in both its immanent and economic construals; see the cogent analysis of this more constricted version of the covenant of redemption by Amy Plantinga Pauw, The Supreme Harmony of All: The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), pp. 111–12. With respect to the convincing arguments of van Asselt and Pauw, we must affirm the covenant of redemption was used in both fully Trinitarian and less than fully Trinitarian forms. In either case, the Reformed federalists were intent to distinguish between the person of the Spirit – the dynamis of God – and the Son who wills to be humiliated and, thus, must agree immanently to this pactum with his Father. For a careful analysis and nuanced defense of the covenant of redemption, see David VanDrunen and R. Scott Clark, ‘The Covenant before the Covenants,’ in R. Scott Clark (ed.), Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry: Essays by the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2007), pp. 167–96 (esp. their historical commentary on the confessional teaching regarding the topic on pp. 171–73). A less extreme methodological reaction has been the nonetheless pejorative application of the term ‘speculative’ to this dogmatic construct (see, e.g., G. C. Berkouwer, Divine Election [trans. Hugo Bekker; SD; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960], p. 162). See, e.g., A. A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), pp. 119, 121; John Murray, ‘The Adamic Administration’, in The Collected Works of John Murray, volume 2: Selected Lectures in Systematic Theology (ed. Iain H. Murray; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1977), p. 49.

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a theological technical term to an arrangement which is not described in Scripture as a covenant has drawn hesitancy from some federal theologians. Nonetheless, many within the tradition have noted Scriptural judgments affirming the presence of a covenantal arrangement without using the conceptuality of ‘covenant’ as such.56 Finally, the covenant of redemption analytically merges the doctrines of the immanent Trinity and divine election, thereby providing a dogmatic synthesis which may be questioned only on formal grounds but requires logical affirmation on material grounds from all federal theologians.57

b. Covenant of Works The covenant of works likewise receives general affirmation within federal theology, albeit oftentimes in diverse terminology. Whether called the covenant of works, the covenant of creation,58 the covenant of nature,59 the covenant of life,60 or even the Adamic Administration,61 federal theology unanimously affirms the existence of a works-based covenant initiated by yhwh’s proclamation to Adam and Eve.62 The identifying mark of federal theology is its bicovenantal structure: that is, the juxtaposition of the covenant of works with the covenant of grace, wherein each offers a unique 56

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Gordon P. Hugenberger has defended the claim that lack of an oath and/or ratification ceremony does not necessarily involve the lack of a covenant (Marriage as a Covenant: Biblical Law and Ethics as Developed from Malachi [BRS; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994], pp. 168–214). Geerhardus Vos, ‘The Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology’, in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (ed. Richard B. Gaffin; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), pp. 247, 250–51. O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), p. 67. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, p. 574. A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1980), p. 310, in which Hodge admits his preference for the term ‘covenant of works’ but affirms the cogency of others’ use of the term ‘covenant of life’. Most interestingly, the Edenic arrangement is called the ‘covenant of works’ in Westminster Confession of Faith, vii.2 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 180); Westminster Larger Catechism, q. 30 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 253); yet it is then termed a ‘covenant of life’ in the adjoining catechisms: Westminster Larger Catechism, a. 20 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 251); Westminster Shorter Catechism, a. 12 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 230). That the Assembly saw fit to mix terminology (even within the same Larger Catechism) demonstrates the fluidity of description used to depict the same theological judgment. John Murray, ‘The Adamic Administration’, in The Collected Work of John Murray, vol. 2: Systematic Theology, p. 49. Westminster Confession of Faith, vii.2 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 180); Belgic Confession, xiv (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 198, where the covenant of works is termed the ‘commandment of life’); cf. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 281–83.

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pathway to eternal fellowship with the triune God.63 The precise nature of the covenant, as with its nomenclature, involves varied description within the tradition; nevertheless, a few substantive points mark the vast majority of adherents so that the traditional doctrine of the covenant of works can be meaningfully referenced in the singular. From germinal suggestions in Calvin to the recent formulations of Horton, the substance of the covenant of works has been embraced by those theologians influential for and dependent upon the federal theology and its confessional affirmation in the Belgic Confession and in the Westminster Standards.64 The systematic concept of the covenant of works arises due to exegetical inferences drawn from Genesis 2–3 when read within the broader context of the canon. The Genesis text affirms the divine decision to provide life, command obedience, and promise results based upon (lack of) corresponding submission to one’s duty.65 Federal theology finds structural parallels between later covenant formulations and the intercourse between yhwh and Adam in Genesis 2. Biblical scholarship in the twentieth century has expanded this comparative approach to note extensive similarities between Scriptural covenant formulations and those found in ancient Near-Eastern treaty agreements.66 yhwh the suzerain dictates the terms of human existence

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Bicovenantal here means something quite different from its use within recent Pauline studies, wherein it refers to God’s distinct soteriological programs for Jews and Gentiles; see, e.g., Krister Stendahl, Paul among Jews and Gentiles (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1977); Lloyd Gaston, Paul and the Torah (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1991); as well as the penetrating criticism of this post-Holocaust ‘two covenant’ approach by Bruce D. Marshall, ‘Christ and the cultures: the Jewish people and Christian theology’, in Colin E. Gunton (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine (CCR; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 89–90. On Calvin’s affirmation of a covenant of works, see Calvin, Institutes, I.xv.8; cf. Peter A. Lillback, The Binding of God: Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology (TSRPRT; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), p. 304; pace Weir, Origins of the Federal Theology, pp. 9–10; T. F. Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine of Man (London: Lutterworth, 1949), pp. 52–53. On the divine initiative which roots even the legal covenant of works within the divine freedom and was affirmed by the whole federal tradition (though only some used the term ‘grace’ to depict this divine condescension), thus denouncing any theory of strict merit, see, e.g., Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants, vol. 1, pp. 76–82; Zacharias Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism (trans. G. W. Williard; Columbus, Ohio: Scott & Bascam, 1851; repr. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1985), pp. 34–35; Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, p. 578; vol. 2, pp. 710–12; Westminster Confession of Faith vii.1 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 180); pace the suggestion that grace and legal conditionality are mutually exclusive in prelapsarian fellowship (Berkouwer, Sin, pp. 207–08). See, e.g., George E. Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Pittsburgh: Biblical Colloquium, 1955), pp. 36–45; D. R. Hillers, Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969), pp. 30–35;

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and flourishing to the covenantal vassals, Adam and Eve. First, God grants life and provides sustenance to the dependent subjects, meeting their daily needs by providing the Tree of Life for their maintenance (Gen. 2.16).67 Second, the promise of this provision, human flourishing, and (assumedly) escalation to an even higher state of human delight comes to implicit expression in God’s command not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen. 2.17a).68 Most federal theologians interpret this prohibition as a token command, representing the entire Natural Law (identical with the Ten Commandments) rather than guidance to keep Adam and Eve from a particularly thorny situation directly related to the particular nature of this tree.69 Thirdly, the results of obedience are foretold, as well as the corresponding curses which will follow disobedience. Failure to refrain from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil will lead to their dying and mark their existence with spiritual death (Gen. 2.17b).70 The implicit presence of a covenant in the Genesis text receives explicit affirmation in the witness of Hos. 6.7, wherein it states that ‘like Adam they transgressed the covenant’. The comparison between a relatively recent covenant – made with Israel – and a covenant with Adam interprets the relationship of yhwh and Adam and Eve in covenantal terms.71 This parallel certainly allows for substantive discontinuity between the two covenants mentioned, and such nuance arises within the federal theology wherein many find the Mosaic Covenant to serve as a republication of the Edenic D.J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 2nd ed., 1978), pp. 52–55; Klaus Baltzer, The Covenant Formulary (trans. D. E. Green; Oxford: Blackwell, 1971); Meredith G. Kline, The Treaty of the Great King (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963); cf. the variegated accounts of ancient Near-Eastern treaties and grants in Moshe Weinfeld, ‘The Covenant of Grace in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East’, JAOS 90 (1970), pp. 184–203; Gary N. Knoppers, ‘Ancient Near Eastern Royal Grants and the Davidic Covenant’, JAOS 116 (1996), pp. 670–97. 67

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John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis (trans. John King; Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), p. 116; Belgic Confession of Faith, xiv (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 198); Henri Blocher, In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis (trans. David G. Preston; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1984), pp. 123–24; pace Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, pp. 579–81. John Owen, Biblical Theology (trans. S. P. Westcott; Morgan, Pa.: Soli deo Gloria, 1994), p. 25; Robert Rollock, A Treatise of God’s Effectual Calling (trans. H. Holland; London: T. Man, 1603), p. 7; pace the denial of any probationary period or eschatology in Eden in Blocher, In the Beginning, p. 133; G. C. Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God (trans. Dirk W. Jellema; SD; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), p. 345. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, p. 577; Hodge, Outlines of Theology, p. 312 Westminster Shorter Catechism, a. 19 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 230); Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, p. 581; Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants, vol. 1, p. 105; Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 296–98. Calvin, Institutes, IV.xiv.18; Hodge, Outlines of Theology, pp. 309–10.

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covenant of works yet others disagree.72 The widespread agreement, however, involves the bicovenantal structure of redemptive history as providing two paths to human justification: law and gospel, or the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.73 The federal theology also consistently affirms the hopelessness of any attempt to merit justification by fulfilling the covenant of works. The law’s demands require perfect obedience for passing muster at the final judgment, so that the smallest infraction implicates one in cosmic anarchy and, thus, the forfeiture of a divine inheritance. The universal failure to submit properly to yhwh’s requirements follows from the extensive inheritance of a depraved nature from Adam. Consistently decrying the humanist projects of Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism, the federal tradition has testified to the sinfulness of all humanity. Given that all people will necessarily tend toward evil of their own volition, the law can promise no hope or assurance for anyone’s aspirations for eternal glory. Beyond the extensive corruption of postlapsarian humanity, the federal tradition has also broadly affirmed the accounting of Adam’s guilt to the moral standing of all his posterity, either by means of imputation or some other instrumentality.74 Whether original guilt is affirmed or not, however, the covenant of works cannot be met; the law cannot save.

c. Covenant of Grace The covenant of grace follows the covenant of works by offering its antidote, responding to the plight of the law with the promise of the gospel.

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See, e.g., on Sinai as republication of the covenant of works, William Ames, Medula Theologica I.xxxix.4; ET: The Marrow of Divinity (trans. J. D. Eusden; Durham: Labyrinth, 1983), p. 206; contra William Bucanus, Institutiones Theologicae (1605); ET: Institutions of Christian Religion (trans. Robert Hill; London: n.p., 1606), p. 215. A modified version of Ames’s account is suggested by Polanus wherein the covenant of works is republished so as to highlight the inability of Israel to fulfill it and, thus, further point toward the need for divine redemption (Amandus Polanus, The Substance of Christian Religion Soundly Set Forth in Two Books by Definitions and Partitions Framed according to the Rules of a Natural Method [trans. Elijah Wilcocks; London: John Oxenbridge, 1595], p. 88) and similarly by Wollebius (Johannes Wollebius, Compendium Theologiae Christianae; ET: Reformed Dogmatics [LPT; trans. J. W. Beardslee; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1965], p. 76). Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, pp. 264–67; pace John Owen, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews (ed. H. W. Goold; London: Johnstone & Hunter, 1855; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), vol. 1, pp. 76–81 (cf. Owen’s perceptive account of the debate on pp. 70–100). Westminster Confession of Faith, vii.3 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 180); cf. the articulation of original sin as involving both depravity and guilt appears in Westminster Confession of Faith, vi.3 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 180); Martin I. Klauber, ‘The Helvetic Formula Consensus (1675): An Introduction and Translation’, TrinJ 11, no. 1 (1990), p. 118 (Canon 11).

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The Reformed adherence to the hermeneutics of law and gospel, as similarly developed in Lutheranism, involves recognizing the differentiation of the Scriptural witness into a bicovenantal structure wherein the divine demand for obedience unto justification denotes Law and the covenant of works, with the promise of salvation in Christ alone by faith alone heralded as Gospel and the covenant of grace.75 The Reformed tradition from its inception has affirmed the Lutheran distinction between law and Gospel,76 though the Reformed have provided their own unique emphasis upon the third use of the Law and identified this binary hermeneutic with the covenantal framework of works/grace.77 As the Law has not provided efficiently for fellowship between God and humanity, the triune Lord issued a second covenant of grace which would fulfill – not abrogate – the covenant of works and decisively provide for eternal fellowship between the holy God and sinful humans.78 The covenant of grace took several forms throughout the time periods recounted in the Scriptures, yet Calvin, the Protestant orthodox dogmatics, and the Reformed confessional tradition affirm with one voice that the covenant of grace is one covenant administered in a variety of eschatologically appropriate

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van Asselt, Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius, p. 143. The 1560 Scots Confession distinguishes between the ‘threatenings’ of God and the ‘promise’ of God (The Scots Confession, ii and iv [cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, pp. 166–67]); cf. Belgic Confession of Faith, xvii (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, p. 200). Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, pp. 1–3, 13, 14, 20; Theodore Beza, The Christian Faith (trans. James Clark; n. p: n. p, 1558; repr. Lewes, UK: Focus Christian Ministries Trust, 1992), pp. 41ff.; William Perkins, The Art of Prophesying (n. p.: n. p., 1606; repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1996), pp. 54–55, 60; Michael S. Horton, ‘Calvin and the Law-Gospel Hermeneutic’, ProEccl 6, no. 1 (1997), p. 29; pace Lillback, The Binding of God, pp. 71, 125. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 90, 289–90; R. Scott Clark, Caspar Olevian and the Substance of the Covenant: The Double Benefit of Christ (RSHT; Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 2005), pp. 79, 83, 106, 120, 139, 149–53, 159–62, 166, 179; Vos, ‘The Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology’, in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, pp. 234 fn. 1, 243–44. Furthermore, Vos suggests that the dogmatic inability of Lutheran theology to absorb the bicovenantal concerns of the federal theologians stems from the formal influence of the sola fide principle within Lutheranism. On the continuing validity of the covenant of works, see Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants, vol. 1, p. 151; Cocceius influentially suggested the notion of ‘abrogations’ of the covenant of works, that is, the incremental removal of the curse of breaking the covenant of works (van Asselt, Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius, p. 271). These ‘abrogations’ of the curse, however, do not embody the abolition of the covenant itself, only its curses; cf. the confessional affirmation of the abrogation of the Law’s curses in the Second Helvetic Confession, xii (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, pp. 248–49).

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forms.79 The basic structure of this covenant responds to, but also exceeds the structure of the Edenic covenant of works. Both the covenant of works and the covenant of grace involve the link between a representative figure and their people. Reformed theology has focused consistently upon the parallels drawn by Paul in Rom. 5.12–21 to highlight the nature of this Adam–Christ parallel. Most frequently, the guilt of Adam’s sin is transferred to his posterity, whereas the righteousness of Christ then moves into the accounts of those united to him by faith.80 The particular instrumentality involved in these exchanges has been debated and cannot be considered here,81 yet the representative nature in any case determines the vicarious nature of both covenants. Whereas Adam sins representatively for all humans, Jesus obeys vicariously for the elect. The tradition has rightly seen this judgment paralleled in 2 Cor. 5.21 as well: ‘For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’. The covenant of grace is unilaterally mandated, flowing solely from the merciful wishes of the triune God. Yet the framework of the covenant of grace, like the covenant of works, has been considered bilateral within the tradition of federal theology.82 Many seek to avoid using the term ‘bilateral’ so as to emphasize its difference from the covenant of works, wherein the material ground of one’s justification is intrinsic.83 Yet this is to confuse categories and ought to be translated analytically so that the federal theology 79 80

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See, e.g., Westminster Confession of Faith, vii.5–6 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 181). See, e.g., Belgic Confession of Faith, xxiii (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, pp. 204–05); Second Helvetic Confession, xv (cited in Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, pp. 255–56); Westminster Confession of Faith, xiii.1 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 187). See the discussion of Rom. 5.12–21 in Chapter 4. The bilateral nature of the covenant of grace within the federal theology has been a broadly maligned aspect of its covenantal structure, rivaled only by its affirmation of a covenant of works for contemporary distaste; see, e.g., J. B. Torrance, ‘Covenant or Contract? A Study of the Theological Background of Worship in Seventeenth-Century Scotland’, SJT 23 (1970), pp. 51–76; J. B. Torrance, ‘Strengths and Weaknesses of the Westminster Theology’, in Alasdair I. C. Heron (ed.), The Westminster Confession in the Church Today: Papers prepared for the Church of Scotland Panel on Doctrine (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew, 1982), pp. 40–53. pace the misleading account of an unilateral covenant theology in Calvin, Olevianus, Gomarus, and Perkins, on the one hand, and the supposedly distinct, bilateral covenant theology of Bullinger, on the other hand, in J. Wayne Baker, Heinrich Bullinger and the Covenant: The Other Reformed Tradition (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1980), pp. 195, 204–06, 213; Baker has failed to note the non-competitive nature of divine and human action within Calvin’s theology such that humans do have responsibility within the covenant of grace – albeit not responsibility which materially grounds their justification – yet their fulfillment of this responsibility is assured efficiently by the non-competitive and life-giving work of the triune God.

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describes the covenant of grace as one in which God unilaterally provides the material ground upon which moral standing depends, though inclusion in this covenant necessarily involves one’s corresponding lifestyle of faith along with its fruits of obedience and love.84 The elect do not merit their own redemption, yet their lives are necessarily marked by faith and service.85 The justification and sanctification of these covenant members can be analytically distinguished within the federal tradition, although these two soteriological categories depict historical activities which admittedly may be difficult to differentiate along the way. Thus, those whose justification is secured by the atoning work of Christ and the merits of Jesus’s faithful submission to the Father will render obedience to the law’s demands and follow the ethical example of their Lord in so doing.

d. Jesus’s Faith and His Human Obedience Having clarified the covenantal and Christological structures of federal theology, the potential role of Christ’s vicarious faith within this established tradition may now be explored. The Christological form of the tradition – marked by its material affirmation of solus Christus – necessitates the doctrine’s function appearing to be markedly different from its more ecclesiologically mediated role within the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Within the contours of federal theology, Jesus’s faith might serve to bolster the justifying role of Christ’s active obedience by noting its humanity, demonstrating its similarity to obedience exercised by Christians, and providing an ethical example for Christians. First, the material ground of God’s justification of the ungodly involves the double imputation of sinfulness to the sacrificial high priest, Jesus, and the perfect righteousness of Christ to the elect.86 That is, justification requires both forgiveness and meritorious fulfillment of the divine commands; thus, Jesus’s mediation atones for sin and meets the demands of the Edenic

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Ursinus, Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, p. 492. Even the fulfillment of the human responsibilities within the covenant of grace – that is, the exercise of faith – is a gift from God, understood metaphysically along the lines depicted in chapter four; see, e.g., Second Helvetic Confession, x and xvi (cited in Book of Confessions, pp. 106–08, 121); Westminster Confession of Faith, xii.1–2 and xvi.1 (cited in Book of Confessions, pp. 186–87, 189). While many contemporary theologians and biblical scholars have suggested that the term ‘merit’ cannot apply to rewards for grace-enabled fulfillment of covenantal conditions, Michael Horton has shown that this debate over terms is relatively inconsequential insofar as conditionality and reward are nevertheless affirmed as essential to both law and gospel, except for universalists who completely submerge the appropriation of redemption within its accomplishment (‘Which Covenant Theology?’ in Clark [ed.], Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry, pp. 209–11). See, e.g., Westminster Confession of Faith, xiii.1 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 187).

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covenant as well. Christ’s faith, then, would bolster both these activities. Christ’s faith would fulfill the requirement that the sacrifice be a perfect individual, without any personal guilt and able to atone for others. Jesus trusts the Father, and in so doing proves himself above reproach. Like a spotless lamb, he could suffer wrath and punishment for others.87 The Son’s faith would also constitute part of his submission to the divine standards intrinsic to the covenant of works, that is, the Sabbath principle and trust that God’s prohibition is for one’s good.88 Thus, the importance of Christ’s faith as a constitutive aspect of the material ground of justification also demonstrates the organic tie between faith, strictly speaking, and its fruit of obedience and service. This relation between faith and obedience pertains also to the place of Christ’s faith as an ethical example within federal theology. Whereas Christ’s particular acts of obedience may be singularly performed, at least in part, the motivating trust behind his path to suffering, ministry and the cross can function as a broader moral principle. That is, no one else will be commanded to serve as a mediator between God and humanity in the manner taken by Jesus; nevertheless, others will be required to endure suffering and to dispense with their lives as service. Federal theology has consistently employed a paradigm of law-gospel-law, wherein the commands of God drive the sinner cognizant of personal failings to find a balm in Christ’s gospel.89 Yet the law’s driving one to the gospel further results in the gospel’s compulsion of the forgiven and adopted child of God to embrace gratefully service and submission as a way of life.90 That is, the delights of the Gospel impel faithful obedience to God’s demands, not as the ground of acceptance before God but as a sign or token of gratitude and expectant hope. The faith which led Jesus himself to embrace the path of perfect obedience provides a doctrinal link between the material ground of justification, therefore, and the morality expected of justified Christians.

87 88

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Kapic, Communion with God, pp. 100–01. Horton, Lord and Servant, p. 221, on the extension of the wilderness trial throughout Christ’s life and the typological identification of this test with those given to Adam and Israel in the wilderness; cf. G. C. Berkouwer, The Work of Christ (trans. C. Lambregste; SD; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), pp. 319–27. Horton, ‘Calvin and the Law-Gospel Hermeneutic’, p. 34; Heidelberg Catechism, a. 2 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 59); cf. Westminster Larger Catechism, a. 97 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 264). Vos, ‘The Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology’, in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, p. 260. Demonstrating this point is the location of the Ten Commandments as the third topic of the Heidelberg Catechism wherein obedience to God flows out of gratitude and thankfulness (Heidelberg Catechism, a. 86 [cited in Book of Confessions, p. 73]).

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The faith of Jesus within federal theology bolsters the tradition’s emphasis upon Jesus’s fulfillment of human responsibility before God the Father. The Son’s consistent submission to the Father’s command qualifies him as a human fit for vicarious service as an atoning sacrifice. Jesus perfectly fulfills the demands of the covenant of works, thereby meriting the escalation of humanity’s existence to eschatological bliss. Finally, the example of Jesus for justified sinners attains a particularly cogent analytical clarity by distinguishing between Jesus’s faith as an ethical ideal to emulate, and his particular acts of obedience which should not be imitated in extenso. My next chapter will consider this ethical use of the doctrine at great length; however, consideration of Karl Barth’s theology and the role of Christ’s faith within it must conclude my comparative thought experiment first.

IV. Karl Barth and the Elected Role of Christ’s Faith The faith of Christ appears explicitly within the massive contours of Barth’s theology; thus my analysis of its potential place follows a markedly different method in this section. Whereas dogmatic analysis of the place of Jesus’s faith within the work of Thomas and the federal theology involves imaginative experimentation and a fair amount of dogmatic reconceptualization, my approach to the doctrine within Barth’s thought shows much more restraint, simply extending Barth’s Christology and soteriology by clarification and reorganization. Given the scope of Barth’s literary output, the methodological mannerisms at play within the Church Dogmatics, and the revisionary theological ontology which Barth has articulated, the task of clarification and summary involves a large amount of hermeneutical nuance made none the easier by the lack of attention given to the faith of Christ within the extant secondary literature. The veracity of Barth’s theology, however, is not being demonstrated or assessed here; rather, my relatively conservative approach merely recognizes the fact that this twentieth-century master has already found a way to honor the dogmatic importance of the Christ’s faith. I will, then, clarify the role of affirmations like the following: There is vicarious faith, however, only in the form of the faith which Jesus Christ established for us all as the archegos tes pisteos (Heb. 12:2), who empowers us for our own faith, and summons us to it, even as He stands there in our stead with His faith. Through His faith we are not only moved but liberated to believe for ourselves . . . that a man actually believes, that he himself believes even though enabled and awakened to do so by the faith of Jesus Christ, can only be his own decision.91

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Barth, CD IV/4, p. 186.

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Barth grants material and formal primacy to Jesus Christ as archegos in his theological project, thus the decisive particularity of the incarnate Son shapes his understanding of the dogmatic importance of this human’s faith. As noted in this late text, Barth affirms two functions of Jesus’s faith: (1) its vicarious role, and (2) its action as summons and enablement for imitation. Barth can identify these two aspects with the gospel and the law, by transforming the standard understanding of these theological terms through inversion and dogmatic reconfiguration. Prior to explicit consideration of his soteriology, then, I must explicate Barth’s approach to gospel and law.

a. Gospel and Law, Grace and Nature Whereas federal theology (and Reformation theology more generally) typically divided the Scriptures into law and gospel, Barth protested the material legality of this approach and suggested its formal inversion.92 That is, Barth affirmed the need to speak first of gospel, and only secondarily of the Law. His insistence on the singular nature of God’s covenant with humanity owes much to his cultural milieu and the need for a distinctly Christian sociopolitical response, as well as a deeply rooted commitment to the axiomatic nature of God’s identification and self-constitution of God’s own being in the person of Jesus Christ. Whereas the KulturProtestantismus within Nazi-era Germany appropriated the tradition of natural law and natural theology so as to bolster the ideological monologization espoused by Hitler, Barth proclaimed that the jealous God revealed Godself only within the life of Jesus. Barth interpreted the Nazi ideology as a particularly gruesome example of the Law when understood apart from the gracious moral realm given by the gospel of triune love.93 To this immanent approach to societal and moral questions, Barth responds with the promise and demands of God summed up in the gospel and formed through the law in election’s wake. Barth’s understanding of gospel and law may be summed up by noting three judgments which structure his exposition and are particularly apparent in his essay ‘Gospel and Law’: (1) the distinction of gospel and law; (2) the unity of gospel and law; and (3) the priority of gospel over law.94 The distinction of gospel and law follows obviously from the predication 92

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For his comments on Luther, see Barth, CD II/2, pp. 511–12; on gospel and law, see also CD IV/3.1, pp. 369–71. Barth, CD III/1, p. 414; IV/2, p. 504; Nigel Biggar, The Hastening that Waits: Karl Barth’s Ethics (OSTE; Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), p. 14. Karl Barth. ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church (trans. G. Ronald Howe; Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1960). The three judgments to be explained here tellingly parallel Barth’s three judgments regarding divine and human action in general, and the divine and human within Christ’s person in particular; this has been noted in nuce by Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation, p. 107, and most aptly by George Hunsinger’s account of the ‘Chalcedonian pattern’ in How to Read Karl Barth, p. 85.

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of the gospel strictly in the perfect tense – ‘once for all’ – whereas the law continues to direct the texture of humane life.95 Yet the distinction between the materially accomplished gospel and the unfolding of the law’s demands does not involve the abolition of the law. Rather, the law’s very form points to the consummated form of the gospel inasmuch as grateful submission finds extrinsic value from its motivating influence – the death and resurrection of Jesus.96 Thus the law’s discrete integrity remains amidst an ontological unity insofar as this form of human witness flows from and, therefore, cannot be separated from the divine election, the gospel.97 Finally, the gospel necessarily precedes the law for it is ‘[f]rom what God does for us, [that] we infer what he wants with us and from us’.98 Barth interprets the First Commandment as containing in seed-form the other nine commandments, precisely because faithful loyalty to the singular Lord extends itself into knowing obedience to the commands of this triune God.99 Grateful trust – the human stance in the gospel – redounds into concrete witness according to the law which gives shape and scope to grace’s disruption.

b. The Covenant of Grace and None Other Barth’s criticisms of the standard law-gospel hermeneutic extended into a particularly illuminating excursus on federal theology within CD IV/1, wherein he criticized the federal theologians for using the law-gospel dichotomy as an architectonic structure with ontological consequences for God’s own being. Barth’s covenant theology can best be discerned by comparison with the system he here disputes.100 Barth suggests a number of

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Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church, p. 82; Barth, ‘Extra Nos—Pro Nobis—In Nobis’, The Thomist 50, no. 4 (1986), pp. 505–06. Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church, pp. 83–84, 87; Barth, CD I/2, pp. 136, 161; IV/2, pp. 50, 115–16; Barth, Christ and Adam, p. 34 (for the Chalcedonian notion of distinct integrity). Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church, pp. 80–81, 96; Barth, ‘Extra Nos—Pro Nobis—In Nobis,’ pp. 506–07; Barth, CD IV/2, pp. 62–64, 115; Barth, Christ and Adam, pp. 32–33, 35–37 (for the Chalcedonian affirmation of intimacy). Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church, p. 78; cf. p. 89; Barth, ‘Extra Nos—Pro Nobis—In Nobis,’ pp. 507–08; Barth, CD I/2, pp. 136, 168; IV/2, pp. 45, 47, 54, 70–71, 655; Barth, Christ and Adam, pp. 37–44 (for the Chalcedonian judgment of asymmetry). On this theme and the properly-circumscribed agency of humans under the Law, see Eberhard Jüngel, ‘ “. . . keine Menschenlosigkeit Gottes . . .”: Zur Theologie Karl Barths zwischen Theismus und Atheismus’, in Barth-Studien (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1982), pp. 344–47. Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church, pp. 82, 87, 89. For a similar hermeneutical approach to Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation and covenant, see J. L. Scott, ‘The Covenant in the Theology of Karl Barth’, SJT 17, no. 2 (1964), p. 185.

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exemplary moves made by the federal theologians: first, they properly affirmed the dynamism of the works and Word of God; second, they originally confessed the universality of the covenant; third, they claimed that the character of the covenant within God’s own life is all of grace; fourth, they rightly rooted history within the eternal determination of God’s life by Godself.101 His own covenant theology will be explained by clarifying his admiration and concern regarding these four points, as well as noting a fifth judgment which arises by implication. First, Barth affirms the dynamic nature of God’s life – in Word and deed. Evidenced in his admiration of the federal theologians’ use of the covenant concept as a structural principle precisely owing to its inherent dynamism,102 Barth’s archetypal use of event as a principle of theological ontology has led George Hunsinger to term his theology ‘Actualist’.103 God’s self-revelation must be formally considered solus Christus, thereby seeking God’s identity within the dynamic and particular – even singular – movement of the triune God.104 Yet Barth considers the federal theologians’ emphasis on history to have degenerated into the study of general ‘religious history’ as they failed to bind themselves to Scripture’s own attestation of the materially decisive events of Christ’s life.105 Second, the earliest Reformed theologians to use the covenant concept as a means of developing a ‘theology of biblical history’ affirmed its universality, an approach which Barth highly applauds.106 While the universality of God’s grace was affirmed by Zwingli and Bullinger, Barth blames the ‘moderns’ for restricting the covenant’s borders by introducing the doctrine of limited (or definite) atonement.107 A limited atonement – intrinsic to double predestination when viewed as a decretum absolutum – implies a multiplicity of histories, thereby enlisting humans in a psychologistic (and necessarily ‘gloomy and pessimistic and unfriendly’) historicism which requires anthropological evidence for a hidden election.108 While Barth denies the presumption of a 101

102 103

104 105 106 107 108

Barth does not follow the typical polemics with regard to the federal theology, either, according to Scott (‘The Covenant in the Theology of Karl Barth’, p. 187). Barth, CD IV/1, p. 55. Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth, pp. 30–32 (cf. pp. 67–70 for the application of the actualist motif to the doctrine of revelation). On the formal nature of solus Christus, see Barth, CD IV/1, pp. 55–56. Barth, CD IV/1, p. 56. Barth, CD IV/1, p. 56. Barth, CD IV/1, pp. 57–58. Barth, CD IV/1, p. 58; IV/2, p. 520; cf. Barth, The Theology of the Reformed Confessions, pp. 122–23, 138, 142–43. Barth’s sharp criticism regarding the decretum absolutum and the consideration of election within the broader doctrine of providence is found in CD II/2, p. 78 (following Barth’s rather cautious historiography of the development of predestination within the Lutheran and, at greater length, the Reformed tradition, on which see pp. 60–76, 78).

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‘cheap universalism’, he even more starkly decries the division of God’s selfdetermination into two movements – toward fellowship with the redeemed, away from pollution by the damned reprobate. ‘The sum of the Gospel’ as God’s election to be for and with and in the people of God – Israel, Jesus, Church, and world – necessitates a universal objectivity to the atonement.109 Third, and following from Barth’s concern about any restrictions placed upon the inclusive embrace of the covenant, he affirms that the character of the covenant as self-determination of God’s own life is entirely gracious and in no wise miserly or embittered.110 Barth suggests that the federal theologians affirmed this truth in their confessional and dogmatic considerations of theology proper even as their covenantal and soteriological innovations ruptured this ontological simplicity. By introducing a ‘covenant of works’ alongside and undergirding the parallel ‘covenant of grace’, they created ‘an established dualism’ which necessarily affects theology proper and anthropology.111 The ‘covenant of works’, in Barth’s estimation, severs anthropological confidence from grace, encouraging natural efforts at human self-management and healing.112 More importantly, however, Barth suggests that the federal tradition never came to grips with the radically dualistic doctrine of God implied in their bicovenantal paradigm: the ‘covenant of works’ introduces a hidden God who cannot strictly be identified with the loving God revealed in Jesus Christ and his Father.113

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For Barth’s doctrine of election, see esp. Barth, CD II/2, pp. 13–14 (as well as the perceptive analysis offered in Bruce L. McCormack, Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its Genesis and Development, 1909–1936 [Oxford: Clarendon, 1995], pp. 455–63; Matthias Göckel, Barth and Schleiermacher on the Doctrine of Election: A Systematic-Theological Comparison [New York: Oxford University Press, 2007], pp. 195–97); on his articulation of an universal objectivity to election and reconciliation, see Barth, CD IV/1, p. 295; IV/2, pp. 275–76, 281, 433, 516, 520, 702, 756; IV/3.1, pp. 354, 478 (contra p. 339); IV/3.2, pp. 489–90, 526, 563, 675 (contra p. 532); Barth, Christ and Adam, pp. 12, 52, 76–78 (as well as the insightful analysis in George Hunsinger, ‘A Tale of Two Simultaneities: Justification and Sanctification in Calvin and Barth’, in John Calvin on the Interpretation of Scripture: Papers presented at the 10th and 11th Colloquiums of the Calvin Studies Society at Columbia Theological Seminary [CSS 10 and 11; Grand Rapids: CRC Product Services, 2006], pp. 234–35); regarding his tendency toward universal salvation, see Barth, CD II/2, pp. 486–87; IV/3.1, p. 478; IV/3.2, p. 918. Barth, CD IV/1, p. 61. Barth, CD IV/1, p. 59. Barth offers a careful narrative of the development of the ‘covenant of works’ (CD IV/1, p. 58). Barth, CD IV/1, p. 62–63. Jüngel, ‘Gospel and Law: The Relationship of Dogmatics to Ethics’, in Karl Barth: A Theological Legacy (trans. Garrett E. Paul; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), pp. 112–13, 115.

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Fourth, then, Barth suggests that the ‘theology of biblical histories’ suggested by the federal theologians actually privileges the ‘covenant of works’ over the ‘covenant of grace’, thereby implying affirmation of infralapsarianism and in so doing rendering God’s self-identification in Jesus moot.114 The law shapes the form of the gospel, therefore, in a manner which conflicts with Barth’s christocentric concentration, the formal use of the solus Christus principle.115 The political ramifications of the Law’s primacy are particularly apparent at this point, wherein divine command is most available in nature (and not in the particular events of grace). Fifth, Barth’s own account of God’s self-constitution requires refutation of the federal theologians’ attempt to unite God’s eternally triune communion and yhwh’s embrace of creaturely time in divine-human fellowship. Thus Barth criticizes the so-called ‘covenant of redemption’ (or pactum salutis) in three ways, suggesting that it renders God’s election arbitrary, implies tritheism in its use of the concept of ‘contract’ or ‘pact’, and fails to ensure the fellowship of God and humanity by not involving any human agent. Barth’s proposal, as one might expect, directly responds to these three concerns. First, he terms election a self-constituting activity of God, thus decrying the claim that God might have determined Godself otherwise.116 Second, Barth speaks of God’s threefold existence as comprising three ‘modes of being’ (Seinsweise) and denies the propriety of using contractual language, which so often implies subordinationism under either feudal or capitalist construals, for depicting the intratrinitarian communion of eternity.117 Finally, most pertinently, Barth identifies the second eternal agent of election (the logos asarkos) as the logos incarnandus – that is, the to-be-incarnatedSon.118 With this theanthropic ontology rooted in eternal self-constituting 114

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On the phrase ‘theology of biblical histories’, see Barth, CD IV/1, p. 58; on Barth’s charge that federal theology necessitates infralapsarianism, see CD IV/1, p. 64; on Barth’s nuanced affirmation of supralapsarianism, see CD II/2, pp. 127–45 (esp. pp. 139–40, 143). Sung Wook Chung, Admiration and Challenge: Karl Barth’s Theological Relationship with John Calvin (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), pp. 193–94. Barth, CD IV/1, pp. 64–65. Barth, CD IV/1, pp. 65–66. This is certainly the most underdeveloped – and patently problematic – charge brought by Barth. His depiction of the to-be-incarnated-Son is worth quoting in full: ‘In this free act of the election of grace there is already present, and presumed, and assumed into unity with His own existence as God, the existence of the man whom He intends and loves from the very first and in whom He intends and loves all other men and all other men with Himself. In this free act of the election of grace, the Son of the Father is no longer just the eternal Logos, but as such, as very God from all eternity He is also the very God and very man He will become in time’ (CD IV/1, p. 66). The precise nature of Barth’s doctrine of the preexistence of Christ has been heavily debated as of late, with the suggestion that Barth later points toward the primacy of God’s electing selfconstitution with regard to God’s Trinitarian life stringently affected by Bruce L.

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election, humanity has been brought into the divine life from before time began. Barth’s thorough-going criticism and metaphysically revisionary counterproposal regarding the federal theology and the broader law/gospel distinction latent in his Reformation heritage does not negate, however, the existence of certain tensions within his own proposal. Even within the summative essay ‘Gospel and Law’, Barth mixes his strong polemical argument with concessions: occasionally affirming a condemning role for the law prior to the gospel.119 He further argues that the law demands perfect human obedience – ‘God doubtless demands a total keeping of all his commandments’ – which seemingly renders it morally inconsumable.120 This Barth explicitly affirms, leading to his claim that the law is impotent to justify miserable sinners.121 The most charitable reading which can be given to this seeming discrepancy (wherein he appears to use law as a category which precedes the Gospel), however, interprets the term ‘law’ in this context to refer to forced human efforts at self-aggrandizement and moral self-help rather than the graced form of a gratefully corresponding echo to the gospel’s harmonic reconciliation of divine-human communion. Finally, Barth’s affirmation of ‘lesser lights’ and ‘secular parables of truth’ seems to imply that his principled christocentricism cannot extensively – consistently – deny the existence of divine truth in secular packaging, that is, visible spiritually in, with, and under even the crudest of natural, sinful material conditions.122

McCormack (‘Grace and Being: The Role of God’s Gracious Election in Karl Barth’s Theological Ontology’, in Webster (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, pp. 92–110; McCormack, ‘Seek God where he may be found: a response to Edwin Chr. van Driel’, SJT 60, no. 1 [2007], pp. 62–79). McCormack’s proposal has been opposed sharply by Edwin Chr. van Driel (‘Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ’, SJT 60, no. 1 [2007], pp. 45–61) and Paul D. Molnar (Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity: In Dialogue with Karl Barth and Contemporary Theology [London: T&T Clark, 2002], pp. 63–64, 81), in as much as it undercuts the doctrine of divine perfection. Most helpful, however, has been the nuanced proposal of Kevin W. Hector (‘God’s Triunity and Self-Determination: A Conversation with Bruce McCormack, Paul Molnar, and Karl Barth’, IJST 7, no. 3 [2005], pp. 246–61), where the eternal Logos is characterized as logos incarnandus (with McCormack, see pp. 260–61) but the self-constitution of God as triune is considered simultaneous to the eternal election of grace (contra McCormack, see p. 261). 119 120 121

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Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church, pp. 84–85. Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church, p. 92. Furthermore, Barth denies the representative nature of Adam’s sin as construed by the federal tradition, yet affirms the representative, mythic function of Adam and thus the universality of depraved humanity (Christ and Adam, p. 50). Barth, CD IV/3.1, pp. 110, 115–24. See the assessment that Barth misleadingly simplifies and skews Calvin’s view of natural theology in Chung, Admiration and Challenge,

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The existence of certain tensions within Barth’s own corpus as noted here, however, does not concern my broader exposition of his use of the Christ’s faith as a covenantal, soteriological, and ethical doctrine.

c. Resurrecting Moral Ontology Barth’s christological concentration, though, does not ignore or preclude the concrete realm of human moral agency. Rather, Barth describes the realm within which humans live and move as moral agents – that is, he sketches a ‘moral ontology’ so as to characterize the contours of morality following a distinctly Christian account of creaturely being.123 As noted earlier, Barth begins by noting the free and gracious work of God in electing humans for fellowship, such that the ascent of humanity necessarily follows and in no wise attains autonomy from the descent of divinity (thus, IV/2 must follow IV/1).124 Yet this subordination of human moral agency underneath and after the gracious divine initiative never absolves humanity from the moral demands of the Law. As noted in Chapter 3, the importance of faith within Barth’s theology has been wrongly minimized by Douglas Harink; his misappropriation of Barth affects my current concern as well, insofar as Harink wrongly juxtaposes God’s agency with that of humans in his interpretation of Barth’s doctrine of justification as rooted in his Pauline theology. Harink suggests that Paul’s doctrine of justification may be interpreted in one of two ways: anthropologically or christologically. The anthropocentric story of creation-fall-redemption easily distorts theology into a psychologistic ‘dynamics of faith’ which results in mere ‘history of religions’ study.125 Harink’s genealogy of the anthropocentric story shows the migration of justification by faith away from its initial contrast with justification by works (or faith and works), and also past any contact with Jesus as explicit object: thus sola fide has eclipsed solus Christus.126 Harink finds this soteriological

pp. 67–68. Biggar helpfully suggests that Barth distinguishes between creaturely esse outside Christ (affirming this) and creaturely bene esse outside Christ (denying this), though his distinction perhaps breaks down in its failure to note the theological coinherence of being and beauty/goodness in Barth (The Hastening that Waits, p. 162). This ontological distinction grounds Barth’s affirmation of ‘what could reasonably be called a version of natural law’ (Biggar, The Hastening that Waits, p. 164); cf. Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation (trans. Edward T. Oakes; San Francisco: Ignatius, 1992), p. 143. 123 124

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Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation, pp. 1–2, 4, 214–30. On the relation of descent and ascent (with structural implications for the skeleton of CD IV), see Barth, ‘Extra Nos—Pro Nobis—In Nobis’, pp. 509–10. Harink, Paul among the Postliberals, pp. 29–30. Harink, Paul among the Postliberals, p. 30; his denial of any faith/works contrast in Barth is based on texts such as CD II/1, p. 385, but fails to account for Barth’s distinction (without separation) of the two in CD IV/2, p. 538.

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sketch lacking,127 and he enlists Karl Barth’s doctrine of justification as the dogmatic basis for his counterproposal, the christological story of ‘God’s faithfulness in relation to Jesus’ faithfulness’.128 Harink then claims that justification extends beyond the forensic sphere to the socio-political and apocalyptic realms, and thus can best be termed ‘rectification’.129 His use of Barth is of concern here, for he suggests that justification is based on Jesus’s faith, that of the church, and only individual faith in Jesus in a tertiary sense.130 He says that Barth’s doctrine of justification can best be discerned in his second commentary on Romans and characterizes this as a ‘postProtestant’ approach to justification due to its apocalyptic nature and movement beyond a faith/works contrast.131 Barth’s doctrine of justification, however, can more adequately be characterized as Protestant – ‘radically Protestant’ according to Bruce McCormack.132 He shows that Harink’s account fails to note the shift to a forensic framework in the Church Dogmatics, though he admits that Barth continued to denounce an extensive contrast between faith and human work.133 McCormack’s pertinence for my purposes, however, relates to his demonstration that Barth adjusted, but never dismissed, the traditional doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. He sees Barth’s development of imputation in his revisionary account of election as ‘filled out’ in the covenant of grace.134 For Barth, then, the righteous life of Christ counts as the grounds for advocacy before the throne of divine judgment; reconciliation really – not merely possibly – occurs within the life of Christ.135 Reconciliation determined by Christ’s life occurs singularly and thus cannot be

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He criticizes the anthropocentric story for failing to depict adequately the narrative of Paul’s conversion recounted in Gal. 2 (Paul among the Postliberals, pp. 30–32), being unable to root a faith/works contrast in Paul’s early preaching as found in 1 Thess (Paul among the Postliberals, pp. 32–38), and denying Paul’s proclamation that Jewish Christians ought to continue obeying Torah (Paul among the Postliberals, pp. 38–40). Harink, Paul among the Postliberals, p. 41. Harink, Paul among the Postliberals, p. 44. Harink, Paul among the Postliberals, p. 55. Harink, Paul among the Postliberals, p. 63 (for his use of the term ‘post-Protestant’, see pp. 60, 62). McCormack, ‘Justitia aliena’, in McCormack (ed.), Justification in Perspective, pp. 169, 178. McCormack, ‘Justitia aliena’, in McCormack (ed.), Justification in Perspective, pp. 176 fn. 29 (regarding Barth’s movement to a forensic framework), 195; cf. Barth, CD IV/1, p. 589, where Barth classifies faith as human work (albeit a divinely given action of humans). McCormack, ‘Justitia aliena’, in McCormack (ed.), Justification in Perspective, p. 192. McCormack, ‘Justitia aliena’, in McCormack (ed.), Justification in Perspective, 179; cf. Barth, CD IV/2, pp. 502–03.

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divided into various actions, yet it can be analyzed as involving multiple ‘aspects’ such as justification and sanctification.136 Barth affirms the primacy of divine condescension (justification) prior to human ascent (sanctification), allowed by his removal of both aspects of reconciliation from the strictly subjective realm (ordo salutis).137 Contrary to Harink’s inventive and reductionist typology, Barth’s moral ontology does not preclude him from insisting on the moral necessity of human obedience corresponding to the electing initiative of Jesus Christ. Barth actually interprets Rom. 1.17 (‘from faith to faith’) as the soteriological movement from God’s faithfulness to acts of human faithfulness in submissive correspondence.138 The divine omnicausality does not involve monocausality or sole causality; thus the divine election to be in fellowship with humans through Christ actually calls forth real partnership with concrete implications for creaturely responsiveness.139 That faith is a divine gift – even exercised ultimately by Christ – does not negate the concurrent reality that faith is a human work – so that Christ’s faith was also exercised humanly as enabled by God. Though he strictly maintains an asymmetrical and irreversible ordering of gospel and law, his delightful embrace of the Reformed tradition (especially Calvin) owes much to its emphasis on the ‘horizontal’ dimensions found within the ‘vertically’ (apocalyptically) actualized gospel.140 Barth will eventually go so far as to term humans the ‘partners’ of God, while continuing to maintain the ontological limits developed within his Chalcedonian pattern.141 The assumed humanity of Christ singularly affects that which necessarily will mark humanity, forming the corresponding faithful witness to this Jesus: the Gospel of the faithful Jesus enables the law – following in the wake of Jesus’s faith.142

136 137 138 139

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Barth, CD IV/2, pp. 499–503, 572. McCormack, ‘Justitia aliena’, pp. 182–83; cf. Barth, CD IV/1:507–8. Barth, ‘Extra Nos—Pro Nobis—In Nobis’, p. 503. On the distinction between omnicausality and monocausality, see Barth, ‘Extra Nos— Pro Nobis—In Nobis’, p. 511; Barth, CD IV/1, p. 89; IV/4, p. 22; contra the denial of compatibilism in Biggar, The Hastening that Waits, pp. 5–6. For the argument that Barth misconstrues Calvin’s relation of Law and Gospel, however, see I. John Hesselink, ‘Law and Gospel or Gospel and Law? Calvin’s Understanding of the Relationship’, in Robert V. Schnucker (ed.), Calviniana: Ideas and Influence of Jean Calvin (SCES 10; Ann Arbor, Mich.: Edwards Bros., 1988), p. 32; contra James B. Torrance, ‘Interpreting the Word by the Light of Christ or the Light of Nature? Calvin, Calvinism, and Barth’, in Schnucker (ed.), Calviniana, p. 258. Barth, CD II/2, p. 125; III/1, p. 184; III/3, pp. 64–65; IV/3.1, p. 941; Wolf Krötke, ‘Gott und Mensch als “Partner”: Zur Bedeutung einer zentralen Kategorie in Karl Barths Kirchlicher Dogmatik’, in Karin Bornkamm and Eberhard Jüngel (eds.), Zur Theologie Karl Barths: Beiträge aus Anlass seines 100. Geburtstags (ZTKB 6; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1986), pp. 158–75. Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation, p. 112.

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d. The Faith of Christ Having investigated the broader covenantal framework and moral ontology strewn across Barth’s dogmatic canvas, his particular use of Christ’s faith can now be considered. As noted initially, he affirms two functions for the Mediator’s own faith: (1) vicarious faith; (2) form and enablement for human faith. His twofold doctrine of the Christ’s faith appears within his extension of the Reformed tradition’s Christology in giving attention to the life of Christ, narrativally and metaphysically construed.143 As with the tradition, Barth focuses upon the munus triplex as marking Christ’s work and, hence his necessary ontological identity. As king, priest, and prophet, Jesus acts faithfully – perfectly enacting the humiliating determination of God to be for and with humanity along with simultaneously, though ontologically subsequent, the exaltation of miserable humanity into gratifying and radiant fellowship with the triune God. Barth equates the faith of Jesus with the obedience of Jesus, at least as typically construed within the Reformed tradition (i.e., under the rubric of his ‘active obedience’). Jesus fulfills the covenant of grace by offering total obedience in faith to God’s demands for flawless and consistent submission. While Barth does not endorse terming this the fulfillment of a preexistent Law,144 he does affirm the idea that the Word enacts humanity’s ideal form in his very journey thereby emphasizing the dynamic character of the humanity of Christ.145 Thus he can celebrate this faith as ‘heart and star of the Gospel which says ‘yes’ to God’s glory and man’s misery, rightly assessing and responding to the nexus of human plight and responsibility.146 Barth links this affirmation of Christ’s belief to exegesis of the Pauline corpus (Rom. 3.22; Gal. 2.16), claiming that ‘He quite simply believed’ in the Father’s condemnation and promised deliverance of humanity.147 His faith fits him to bear punishment and sin – as he has none of his own – and fulfills the positive demands of the law.148 Thus Barth’s refashioned doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness should be premised upon the faith of

143

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146 147 148

Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church, p. 74; Barth’s reliance upon and exposition of the thirty-seventh question of the Heidelberg Catechism is helpfully noted by Philip W. Butin, ‘Two Early Reformed Catechisms, the Threefold Office, and the Shape of Karl Barth’s Christology’, SJT 44, no. 2 (1991), pp. 207–08 (esp. fn. 38) (with particular reference to CD §64). See also McCormack, For Us and Our Salvation, p. 32. Barth, CD II/2, pp. 513–20, against the notion of such a preexistent natural ethic. Barth, CD IV/2, pp. 70–72, 81, 142–47, 167, 271, 292–93, 350, 486, 516, 762, 822; Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, pp. 77, 81. Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church, pp. 81–82. Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church, p. 74. Barth, Christ and Adam, pp. 61–62, 73 (on being fit for sacrifice), and pp. 60–61, 64–65 (on fulfilling the positive demand of the Law).

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Christ, his appropriate stance toward yhwh which met the demands of the covenant on the behalf of sinful humanity. The faith of the Messiah calls forth human witness which is best termed an ethical ‘correspondence’.149 This corresponding submission to the Father is, like that of the imago Dei himself, most visible in the act of prayer.150 Both the faith of Jesus and its vocal expression in prayer and confession give texture and form to the nature of human activity which Christians are to imitate, thereby sketching the borders of newfound freedom’s expression. Barth does eventually affirm the imitation of Christ, though this must follow from ontological consideration of Christ’s singularly decisive activity as Reconciler.151 Finally, Barth maintains that the Christian exists in Jesus and comes into existence in him- or herself, marking the ontological transition which must be construed according to the Chalcedonian logic and ethically depicted under the rubric of correspondence rather than by incarnational or identical extension or even mere ethical repetition.152 Jesus is the covenantal Mediator and only as such also the example for faithful human living: ‘He is an individual in such a way that others are not only beside Him and along with Him, but in their most critical decision about their relationship to God, they are also and first of all in Him’.153 Barth’s doctrine of the Christ’s faith may be characterized as an ontologically-restructured form of Reformed Christology, affirming both its representative and exemplary functions. His polemic against the federal theology demonstrates the distinct way he applied the doctrine of the covenant to the Christ’s life and its soteriological import. As with both Thomas and federal theology, Barth used the munus triplex within his Christology and extended the attention given to Jesus’s humanity within his own theological milieu. His Christology, however, was the first to include explicit attention to the faith of the Christ, an inclusion within his dogmatic system which has

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Barth, CD II/2, pp. 575–76. Barth, CD III/4, p. 94; Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church, p. 75. On the imitation of Christ, see esp. Barth, CD IV/2, pp. 533, 599–600, 778–83; Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church, p. 82. For Barth’s articulation of differences between the humanity of Jesus and Christians, see Barth, CD IV/2, pp. 27–28; Barth, ‘Gospel and Law’, in Community, State, and Church, p. 74. Imitation of Jesus cannot take the form of univocal action insofar as the difference between Creator and creature must be attended to dialectically (David Clough, Ethics in Crisis: Interpreting Barth’s Ethics [BS; Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005], pp. 31, 87–88, 112–18). Barth, CD IV/2, p. 307. Even sanctification occurs doubly (in Christ and in ourselves), on which see Hunsinger, ‘A Tale of Two Simultaneities’, in John Calvin on the Interpretation of Scripture, p. 241 (though this incurs certain losses, on which see pp. 243–44). Barth, Christ and Adam, p. 13.

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heavily influenced much of my own proposal. He attended to the ontological and moral shape of God’s eternal election of humanity to reside within Jesus’s own faithful identity and to be marked for witness in their own corresponding posture of faith and prayer. Jesus’s faith, then, is elected for humanity’s inclusion and partnership just as the Christ is elected to be pro nobis, con nobis, and in nobis.

V. Comparative Analysis and Contemporary Import Three systems have been sketched, each showing different possibilities for invoking the Christ’s faith within the dogmatic loci of Christology, soteriology, and covenant theology. While I have inserted the notion within the doctrinal structures of Thomas Aquinas and the federal theology, with varying degrees of accompanying revision within their respective systems, Karl Barth’s theology has been shown to affirm already the importance of Jesus’s faith. As noted initially, these are but three available theological models which I have chosen. My interest in these three follows from several notable similarities: first, each is a live option in contemporary ecclesial theology; second, they all follow the metaphysics sketched in Chapter 4; third, these three emphasize the humanity of Jesus to an as-yet-unforeseen degree within their particular theological milieu and thus present themselves as likely dogmatic matrices for insertion of a doctrine which expands consideration of Jesus’s human activity; and, fourth, each roots the economic activity of the incarnate Son in the eternal, immanent life of the triune God. First, these three models all present contemporary ecclesial options for the practice of dogmatic theology. While Thomas and Barth are both long gone, and the classic texts of the federal theology have stood for centuries, recent theological works have followed their leading and (in varying degrees) continued their project. Thomas’s theology has stood the test of time as a touchstone of sorts within the Roman Catholic Church, and the story of twentieth-century Roman Catholic theology can largely be told as an extended argument over the proper interpretation of Thomas Aquinas.154 Barth’s theology has endured in the guise of a ‘school’ or among ‘disciples’ per se, but has led to confessional change within American Presbyterianism and academic theological reinvigoration (again, particularly in

154

See, e.g., Kerr, After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism. The far-reaching effect of Thomistic scholarship as surveyed in this definitive text is apparent by comparing its contents with Kerr’s more recent monograph, Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians: From Neoscholasticism to Nuptial Mysticism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007). The books are structured differently and by no means coterminous in content, yet the broad overlap is obvious. See also the judicious comments on official Roman use of Thomism in Cessario, A Short History of Thomism, pp. 2, 12.

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Anglo-American theological circles).155 The United Presbyterian Church of the United States of America (UPCUSA) largely followed Barth’s doctrine of Scripture, as well as his emphasis upon reconciliation as the soteriological category, in their ‘Confession of 1967’.156 It should be noted that this is the only major confessional text which explicitly affirms the faith of Christ as a tenet of ecclesial belief.157 Finally, the federal theology has continued within the more confessionally rigorous denominations of the Reformed and Presbyterian world: the Christian Reformed Church and the Presbyterian Church of America, to name the two most influential. For these (and other) denominations, the Westminster Standards or the Three Forms of Unity continue to exert secondary authority and, thus, maintain an ecclesial witness for the federal theology. This tradition has also received recent dogmatic and exegetical reinvigoration, particularly due to its enfranchisement at the Westminster Seminaries in the United States.158 Given the lively debate regarding these three systems within the broader arena of dogmatic theology, the particular projects of Thomas, federal theology, and Barth seem to be worthy objects of critical appropriation for ecclesial theology. These three systems also embrace the metaphysics suggested in the first part of Chapter 4, with varying degrees of self-awareness and consistency. That is, all three affirm the radical nature of divine transcendence so that

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On the use of Barth in ‘postliberal theology’, see, e.g., the cautious link noted by George Hunsinger, ‘Postliberal Theology’, in Kevin J. Vanhoozer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology (CCR; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 45; as well as the careful narrative sketched by Paul J. DeHart, The Trial of the Witnesses: The Rise and Decline of Postliberal Theology (CCT; Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), ch. 1. On Barth’s influence and recent proposals within contemporary systematic theology, see the historical analysis of Gary Dorrien, The Barthian Revolt in Modern Theology: Theology without Weapons (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000), p. 163–67. See the ‘Confession of 1967’ (cited in Book of Confessions, pp. 321–30). The doctrine of Scripture is found in ‘Confession of 1967’, I.C.2 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 325). For one perspective on the influence of Barth’s view of the ‘covenant of grace’ in framing this confession (as well as the adoption of a ‘book of confessions’), see Edward A. Dowey, A Commentary on the Confession of 1967 and An Introduction to The Book of Confessions (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), pp. 242–44 (though Barth is not explicitly mentioned). For Barth’s influence on C67’s structural use of reconciliation, see Jack Rogers, Presbyterian Creeds: A Guide to The Book of Confessions (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985), pp. 202, 208–09. ‘Confession of 1967’, I.B (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 324): ‘Out of Israel, God in due time raised up Jesus. His faith and obedience were the promise of the perfect child of God’. See, e.g., the dogmatic works of Horton, Covenant and Eschatology; Horton, Lord and Servant; as well as the trenchant historical study found in myriad works by Richard A. Muller, Lyle D. Bierma, and Carl R. Trueman.

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divine and human action must be considered non-competitively. Kathryn Tanner has nobly documented this feature within the texts of Thomas and Barth,159 showing that both interpreted God’s transcendence in a qualitative manner following the self-determining freedom of God. Thomas and Barth worked within the Augustinian tradition, then, by affirming the idea of concursus with regard to divine providence and human action. Similarly, the federal theology traveled within this Augustinian stream though some within its party tended towards (or blatantly embraced) a more deterministic and, thus, monocausal view of divine providence and human action.160 Thus the covenant theology of these three systems is vital to considering the potential inclusion of the Christ’s faith precisely because they already acknowledge the incarnational metaphysics necessary to maintain an orthodox, twonatures Christology which emphasizes the dynamic humanity assumed by the eternal Son. Third, these three systems deserve special consideration because they affirmed the importance of Jesus’s humanity in a unique manner, each within its own cultural and theological milieu. Thomas used Aristotelian anthropology to further his affirmations about the humanity assumed by the Word, thereby claiming things which are certainly passé today but which were revolutionary within their immediate ecclesial and educational context. Thomas also included a lengthy discussion of the ‘mysteries of the life of Christ’ within his Summa that attended to the narrative of Jesus’s life in dogmatic fashion. Likewise, the federal theology allowed biblical history to attain a certain prominence which even Barth lauded as hitherto unattained, thereby granting to the workings of history a particular value and theological attention which paralleled the rise of modern historical study and nevertheless extended the Reformation principles of sola Scriptura and solus Christus. The federal theologians also combatted the Lutheran Christology and sacramentology by insisting on the distinction between Christ’s two natures so as to maintain the singular locality of the ascended Jesus. Then

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Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology, pp. 72–73, esp. p. 93 (on Thomas), pp. 79–80, esp. pp. 94, 96 (on Barth). In this vein, the account of Placher is probably overstated regarding the federal theology’s embrace of a quantitative view of divine transcendence insofar as he acknowledges neither the distinction between the institution of covenants (unilateral) and the conditions of the covenants (bilateral), nor the Augustinian view of predestination behind the ‘gospel-obedience’ to be rendered within the ‘covenant of grace’ (Domestication of Transcendence, p. 159); however, his broader argument regarding the movement away from a qualitative distinction between God and creation in the seventeenth century has been ably supported (Domestication of Transcendence, esp. pp. 128–45; cf. Henri de Lubac, Augustinianism and Modern Theology [trans. Lancelot Sheppard; MCT; London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1969; repr. New York: Herder & Herder, 2000], p. 262). On this shift toward univocity, see the literature cited in Chapter 4.

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Karl Barth reassessed the value of Jesus’s own being a Jew in the midst of a vastly departicularized theological liberalism. While Barth neither suggested a thoroughgoing postsupersessionism, nor denounced the anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime in a manner which pleased even himself, he did reinvigorate theological consideration of the particularity of God’s workings within cultural history by reassessing the election of Israel within Christ.161 In considering viable doctrinal locations for the Christ’s faith, then, dogmatic systems which espouse a vigorous appreciation for the humanity of the Mediator deserve special attention. Fourth, each of these three dogmatic approaches emphasizes the eternal roots of the economy of salvation. The character of the Son as revealed in Christ Jesus accurately manifests the eternal being of the second person of the Trinity, faithfully going public with the intra-trinitarian relations that mark the fellowship of the one triune God. Thus, the faith of the Christ would be construed by each of these dogmatic systems as the economic echo of eternal filiation which marks the Son in relation to his Father. Each of these traditions employs different dogmatic foci to sustain this axiomatic claim that the works ad extra reveal the life ad intra. Thomas Aquinas employs the traditional Western categories of Trinitarian missions which flow forth from – and, in fact, manifest – the intra-trinitarian processions.162 Thus, the Son’s filiation results in temporal and mediatorial submission and loyalty to the Father’s corresponding paternity-based guidance and calling. While maintaining this Western framework, the federal theology also employed the pactum salutis, or ‘covenant of redemption’, to ground the covenants of salvation within the actual life and being of the eternal God. Thus, the Son consents to trust the Father unceasingly for the sake of receiving the

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For Barth’s apologetic remarks regarding his complicated response to the ‘Jewish question,’ see Eberhard Busch, Unter dem Bogen des einen Bundes: Karl Barth und die Juden, 1933–1945 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1996), pp. 523–37; critical analysis has been forthcoming from Katherine Sonderegger, That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew: Karl Barth’s ‘Doctrine of Israel’ (University Park, Pa.: Penn State University Press, 1992), pp. 171–75; but see the more appreciative comments in Eberhard Busch, ‘The Covenant of Grace Fulfilled in Christ as the Foundation of the Indissoluble Solidarity of the Church with Israel: Barth’s Position on the Jews During the Hitler Era’, SJT 52, no. 4 (1999), p. 501, as well as the overreaching yet broadly persuasive argument that Barth inconsistently opposed Nazi anti-Semitism and, nevertheless, provided an implicit Christological argument against anti-Semitism in Mark R. Lindsay, Covenanted Solidarity: The Theological Basis of Karl Barth’s Opposition to Nazi Antisemitism and the Holocaust (IST 9; New York; Peter Lang, 2001), pp. 67, 177, 281 (on rhetorical and political inconsistency along with problematic silence), and p. 244 (on his underdeveloped and implicit dogmatic arguments against anti-Semitism). ST 42.2, ad 3; 45.6, reply (on the application of this axiom to the doctrine of creation, the first divine work ad extra); cf. Gilles Emery, Trinity, Church, and the Human Person: Thomistic Essays (Naples, Fl.: Sapientia, 2007), pp. 122–26.

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salvation of the elect at the behest of the Father’s honor and justice.163 Finally, then, Karl Barth employs his reconfiguration of the doctrine of divine election to sustain the identity of the God revealed in Jesus Christ and the eternal determination of God’s own life and being.164 Election is ‘the sum of the gospel’ in as much as this divine decision is rooted in the eternal (particularly pretemporal) life of God and results in the faithful revelation of God among history. In this regard, therefore, these three dogmatic systems stand sharply opposed to the tenor of much modern theology in its reticence to speak of the immanent triune life.165 Cast in the terms of modest epistemology and even rigorous christocentrism – as opposed to some abstract ‘theocentrism’ – the modern mood limits the life of God to that revealed in the narratives of Israel, Jesus, and church.166 The Western tradition, with its supposed ‘hubris’ in speaking of the internal life of God, has fallen on hard times as of late; ironically, Karl Barth’s doctrine of God has been used as a springboard for such iconoclastic approaches to the immanent Trinity. Yet Barth’s radical polemic at points does not mark a distance between his own concern to root the history of salvation within the eternal life and being of the God of the gospel; in fact, Barth’s affirmation of the logos asarkos demonstrates this humble concern to maintain speech about eternity.167 Thus, Barth – like Thomas and the federal theology before him – markedly differs from the onslaught of Trinitarian minimalism which marks so much of the recent renaissance.168 This concern to root the economic life of God in the eternal being of God, furthermore, points to a further merit of the topic of Christ’s faith: this economic focus may poignantly depict the manifestation of the Son’s filiation (and, concurrently, the Father’s paternity) in ways hitherto untapped by much of the contemporary Western Trinitarian tradition.169 Thus, affirmation of the Christ’s faith within these three traditions – each with this concern to root economy in eternity – might augment their 163

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Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, p. 215; cf. the penetrating analysis of John Owen’s analysis of the eternal triunity and the pactum salutis as the root of the economy of the covenants in Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man (GT; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2007), p. 87. Barth, CD IV/1, pp. 203–04; IV/2, pp. 345–47. As shown by the analysis of Paul D. Molnar, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity. See, e.g., the thoroughly consistent account of Jenson, ST, vol. 1, p. 189. For a convincing account of Barth’s doctrine of God as a critical appropriation of the classical Western tradition, see George Hunsinger, ‘Mysterium Trinitatis: Karl Barth’s Conception of Eternity’, in Disruptive Grace, pp. 186–209. For this assessment of the recent Trinitarian revival, and its juxtaposition with the Trinitarian theology of Thomas, see Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics, esp. Ch. 6: ‘Biblical Exegesis and Sapiential Naming of the Divine Persons’ (pp. 165–96). contra Tanner, Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity, pp. 52, 76 fn. 23.

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insistence on confessing the immanent life of God as reflected in the prism of Jesus’s life before the Father and in the Holy Spirit. Finally, then, this chapter has demonstrated in three varying ways the importance of linking the substitutionary (or vicarious) faith of Jesus with his instigatory faith – that is, the faith which he models and of which he calls forth imitation from his disciples. To put it in classical terms, each model has struggled with the link between participatio and imitatio. Within Thomas’s scheme, the sacramental appropriation of Christ’s faith drives the virtueshaped life of ecclesial piety which leads one to extend Christ’s mysteries within the Church. In a different fashion, the federal theology affirms the justification of sinners in part owing to the imputation of Christ’s righteousness – righteousness conferred upon Jesus due to his life of perfect faith in God – to the believer. It also continues to assert that this justification is always accompanied by real empowerment for personal obedience, that is, the faith exercised within the covenant of grace may mimic (at least in large part) that rendered by Jesus within the covenant of works. Finally, and in his own way, Karl Barth suggested that humans are identified with the Christ – and his life of faith – as well as with their own corresponding acts of faithful witness in prayer and confession. Each has charted a unique course in linking participatio with imitatio, precisely due to its exegetical and dogmatic importance. Drawing on their ruminations, then, I will address the link between dogmatic Christology and ecclesial ethics by noting the necessity of the Christ’s faith as a bridge concept in my final chapter.

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6 the function of christ’s faith: from faith to faith

That the Christ exercised faith implies that Christology must attend to the humanity of Jesus, dynamically actualized throughout the extent of his incarnate life. Furthermore, the Christ’s faithful life manifests certain parallels to other lives of faith, the communion of the ‘saints’ found in Old Testament prefigurations as well as the witness of contemporary disciples. Thus, a dogmatic analysis of the Christ’s own faith necessarily addresses the question of Christian ethics: how does the Christ’s faith relate to Christian faith? Yet, as seen in Chapter 5, the relationship of Christology and ethics cannot be considered apart from the broader covenantal – soteriological – contexts within which Christ and Christians exist. The Christ’s faith has been ignored or denied due to the worry that it incoherently relates to orthodox Christology and undermines Reformation soteriology, according to Morna Hooker.1 She clarifies the soteriological concern by pointing to unease about the concept of imitatio Chrisi as a particular hindrance to broad acceptance of the doctrine.2 The action of God for us may be minimized if Christ’s own human activity is teased out along creaturely lines similar to our own – especially by predicating the receptive actions of faith to the singular Redeemer. That is, Hooker notes that the

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2

The term ‘Reformation soteriology’ comes from Hooker, ‘ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ’, p. 322, and is employed presently to refer to theologies of Christian salvation which affirm the solas of the Reformation (in regard to soteriology: solus Christus, sola fide, sola Scriptura, sola gratia, soli Deo Gloria). Hooker, ‘ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ’, p. 323. Concern regarding the relationship of imitatio and Reformation soteriology has also been analyzed by Berkouwer, Faith and Sanctification (trans. John Vriend; SD; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), pp. 135–37.

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faith of Christ strikes many as a doctrine which suggests a purely or overwhelmingly ethical gospel, opposed to the gospel of the Reformation.3 As John Webster comments, ‘For above all, the language of imitation appears to detach moral obligation from the objective accomplishment of human righteousness in Christ, and so to cut the Christian life adrift from election and justification’.4 To address the ethical implications of the Christ’s faith, then, I will contextualize the praxis of faith within broader soteriological categories: vicarious representation and ethical imitation. Intrinsic to Christ’s human representation, the faith of Jesus grounds the principles of justification solus Christus and sola fide. While maintaining a fundamental asymmetry, locating ontology prior to ethics, participatio Christi does not eliminate imitatio Christi. By affirming the praxis of imitation, the life of Jesus receives due attention as the basis for moral wisdom and faithful discernment. Two Protestant soteriologies may coherently integrate the doctrine (shown in Chapter 5), and the coherence of the claim has been addressed along Christological and anthropological lines (as in Chapters 2, 3, and 4).5 Now, finally, the necessity of the doctrine must be demonstrated, and this dogmatic argument introduces the ethical application of the Christ’s faith by linking obedience to its root principle – faith. This sixth chapter, therefore, will address three dogmatic issues: the necessity of the Christ’s faith owing to a broader theological principle (only that loyalty which comes from faith pleases God), the necessity but not sufficiency of Christ’s vicarious faith, and the analogous-imitative function of Christ’s faith as pattern for Christian ethics. The compatibility of two soteriological motifs will be sketched within the borders of Reformation soteriology, wherein Christ’s faith serves both vicarious and exemplary functions in the economy of salvation. Finally, the theological role of faith – in the lives of Christ and his followers – provides an ideal context for extending a dogmatic account of Christian ethics which carefully attends to Christ’s humanity and its revelation of vere homo. In this regard, several dogmatic axioms will be suggested to link appropriately the Christ’s faith and that of his disciples, demonstrating the coherence of imitatio Christi and Reformation soteriology.

3

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Hooker, ‘ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ’, p. 323: ‘imitation has been ruled out because it appeared to place too much emphasis both on the earthly Jesus, and on the ability of believers to follow his example’. For an account which denies the coherence of imitatio and Reformation soteriology along these lines, see Helmut Thielicke, Theological Ethics, vol. 1: Foundations (trans. William H. Lazareth; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), pp. 171–94. Webster, ‘Christology, Imitability, and Ethics’, p. 312. I have also sketched a modified version of Thomas’s soteriology – a Pre-Reformation, Augustinian theology – which may coherently affirm the Christ’s faith, though this does not (like the case studies of federal theology and Karl Barth) demonstrate the futility of concerns over the compatibility of Christ’s faith and Reformation soteriology.

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I. The Necessity of Faith The importance of faith is attested throughout the Scriptures and across every Christian theological tradition. Faith marks the human response to the creation and redemption enacted by the triune God; with nuances and provisos excepted, all major ecclesiastical and doctrinal traditions acknowledge this judgment. Yet, as Chapter 1 surveyed, few theologians have confessed that Jesus himself exercised faith in God. While the epistemological, developmental, and metaphysical parameters which make such a claim coherent arise within Christology itself, the necessity of this doctrine follows from a broad principle about human relations with God: Obedience pleases the triune God only insofar as it flows from faith in God. The Scriptural roots of this thesis may be found in two moral discussions which address the communal life of faith: Romans 14 and Hebrews 11. By briefly analyzing each text, the necessity of faith as a prerequisite for obedience may be gleaned. The apostle Paul addressed the archetypal importance of faith within his discussion of the dietary concerns of Jewish and Gentile believers – that is, the ethnic, socio-religious differences which marked their piety on the issue of eating certain foods – in the fourteenth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans.6 Concluding his plea for magnanimity and tolerance within the church, he states, ‘those who have doubts are condemned if they eat, because they do not act from faith; for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin’ (Rom. 14.23). Paul juxtaposes two human attitudes – doubt and faith – as the two contexts for dietary praxis.7 At least as a matter of pragmatic principle, Paul suggests a diversity of acceptable practices to be celebrated by welcome of the Other (see Rom. 14.13, 22b). Diversity in discipleship, then, does not necessarily demonstrate sinful failure. Yet Paul continues to affirm one ethical maxim: whatever dietary praxis follows must flow from the convictions of trusting faith. According to Rom. 14.22, ‘the faith that you have, have as your own conviction before God’. That is, one’s approval of certain liberties ought to be exercised free of the conscience’s condemnation. Paul’s argument culminates with the principled statement that ‘whatever does not proceed from faith is sin’ (Rom. 14.23). Paul’s principle involves three claims. First, dietary and other religious praxis (see Rom. 14.5-6) cannot be identified with faith itself.8 That such 6

7

8

On likely background to Paul’s paraenesis, see John M. G. Barclay, ‘ “Do We Undermine the Law?” A Study of Romans 14:1–15:6’, in Dunn (ed.), Paul and the Mosaic Law, pp. 288–89. The verb diachrino¯menos is also contrasted with faith in Mt. 21.21; Mk. 11.23; Rom. 4.20; Jas. 1.6; Jude 22. Moo, Epistle to the Romans, p. 855, points to Rom. 14.16, where ‘your good’ is distinguished from faith itself.

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action ‘proceed from faith’ implies their distinction from it. Thus, Paul’s parenesis involves debate regarding the particular moral praxis which fittingly witnesses to the resurrected Messiah; the continuing necessity of the Old Testament ritual laws can be debated without necessarily endangering the command to trust in yhwh. Second, Paul suggests that one’s stance toward God will necessarily express itself in concrete acts of (dis)obedience. That is, the moral character of actions inheres in the acts themselves, owing to the attitude within which they are undertaken. An appropriate moral action – say, not exercising one’s own liberty to follow certain dietary praxis out of concern for other believers with weaker consciences – may nonetheless be judged wicked if it follows from doubt toward God (perhaps a nagging concern that God simply cannot or will not sanctify the weak who might be tempted by one’s use of Christian liberty).9 Surely the moral character of acts is not loosed from exterior principles of right or wrong (the moral law or the ‘law of Christ’),10 but the character of human action necessarily involves its theological context. Third, the appropriate theological context for any human action is that of faith (see 14.22-23). Herman Ridderbos states: ‘For a Christian not a single decision and action can be good which he does not think he can justify on the ground of his Christian conviction and his liberty before God in Christ’.11 Christian obedience must always be sola fide, extrinsically founded upon Christ’s person and work. The apostle Paul claims in his Epistle to the Galatians that the negotiations of ethnic diversity within the church are circumscribed (or, perhaps, annulled altogether) by the greater concern that love flow from faith (Gal. 5.6). The actual relation of ethnic identity and moral responsibility (as relates to the particularities of the Mosaic torah) are not germane to my discussion. Yet Paul’s analysis of faith and obedience – love – must be noted: faith works itself out into love.12 Faith and love are distinct activities, yet they are intimately and organically related. Faith works or proceeds into love; trust in

9

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On the ‘strong’ and the ‘weak’, see the perceptive account of Francis Watson, ‘The Two Roman Congregations: Romans 14:1–15:13’, in Karl P. Donfried (ed.), The Romans Debate (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2nd ed., 1991), p. 206. Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 2, p. 20: ‘the imitation of Christ lies in the practice of the moral virtues, the rule for which is to be sought only in the [Mosaic] law’. Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (trans. J. R. DeWitt; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), p. 291; cf. Calvin, The Epistles of Paul to the Romans and Thessalonians, pp. 301–02. On the possibility of either a middle or passive construal of the participle based on the verb energeô, see K. W. Clark, ‘The Meaning of energeo and katargeo in the New Testament’, JBL 54 (1935), pp. 93–101.

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God’s ability to tend the future frees one to love others in the meanwhile, negating the individual’s need to ‘get mine’.13 Faith in the all-sufficient Christ and his ‘Amen’ to every promise of God must fuel the exercise of liberty and the works of love. In Barth’s terms, the gift of God elicits the command of God in its own right. This testimony of the apostle Paul finds corroboration in the Epistle to the Hebrews, wherein the relation of faith and obedience is analyzed at great length in the eleventh and twelfth chapters. Hebrews 11 surveys accounts of human faith in yhwh gleaned from the Old Testament narratives, the ‘great cloud of witnesses’ (Heb. 12.1a).14 The unifying thread of these disparate accounts is stated: ‘without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him’ (Heb. 11.6). ‘Pleasing God’ and ‘approaching God’ are either synonyms or interrelated links in a chain of divine-human fellowship. Faith is a necessary prerequisite for pleasing God, as Paul states in Rom. 14.23.15 Yet the writer to the Hebrews clarifies the dual nature of such belief, expounding two aspects of this necessary human attitude. First, one must believe that God exists. While the exact contours of the individual’s theology vary (whether trinitarianly developed or merely anticipatory, as in the Old Testament accounts of devotion to yhwh), one must identify the existent God as the only person in whom one should trust. Second, one must believe that God rewards those who seek God. Again, belief in the beneficence of the triune God, undoubtedly, takes manifold forms (witness the soteriological accounts offered by Thomas, federal theology, and Barth), yet a common kernel underlies faith’s pluriform expressions. Harold Attridge suggests that the writer gleaned this theme from the Psalms; even if this particular source theory flounders, the panoply of moral examples which follow in Hebrews 11–12 demonstrate a cross-covenantal spectrum (culminating in Jesus).16

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For two helpful construals which follow the middle rendering of energoumene¯, see J. Louis Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 33a; New York: Doubleday, 1997), pp. 473–74; Dunn, The Theology of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, p. 114. For a reductionistic argument that Hebrews 11 does not present exemplars, but merely depicts the Old Testament characters as witnesses to expanding theological knowledge, see S. M. Baugh, ‘The Cloud of Witnesses in Hebrews 11’, WTJ 68, no. 1 (2002), p. 132. Baugh’s account creates fissures where none need exist, separating knowledge of God from that of humanity; for a more helpful refractory analysis of Hebrews 11, see Calvin, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews, p. 187. Calvin, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews, pp. 162–63; Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants, vol. 2, pp. 26–28. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 318; O’Collins and Kendall, ‘The Faith of Jesus’, p. 422. For the diverse construals of faith’s object (that is, whether knowledge of Christ is explicit or implicit), see Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (trans. Chrysostom Baer; South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 2006), p. 237.

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The writer to the Hebrews suggests a twofold touchstone for defining faith and right obedience: belief in God and in the good pleasure of God to reward those who approach God. The consistency with which Hebrews links faith explicitly to God as its object has led to debate regarding the nature of Christ-focused faith: does Hebrews posit Jesus as an object of faith? Disputing both theocentric and explicitly Christocentric construals of faith in Hebrews, Attridge claims that ‘explicit specification of the content of faith is quite lacking in Hebrews’.17 Yet this ambiguity regarding the exact nature of faith’s object in no way reduces faith from being defined as knowledgeable trust.18 The twofold content of faith never disappears: Christian faith always focuses upon the antecedent God and this God’s good pleasure to bless those who seek God. Luke Timothy Johnson notes that the second claim follows from the first tenet: only an all-powerful God can reward anybody.19 The faithful person, therefore, trusts that God is both able (all-powerful) and willing (personally disposed) to reward those who seek God. Johnson points out that the writer then reasons backwards throughout Hebrews 11, inferring the exercise of faith from the annals of righteous persons in the Old Testament narratives. For example, whereas the Old Testament never calls Abel, Enoch, and Noah, persons of ‘faith’, the writer here infers this prerequisite because he discerns the necessary result: these persons each pleased God; thus, they must have exercised faith.20 That Abel, Enoch, or Noah exercised faith in precisely the same way as later Israelites are highly unlikely, given the nature of progressive revelation. Even less likely is the possibility that these prediluvian characters knew God with the specificity accorded to Jesus’s own human knowledge of yhwh. Thus, the twofold content of faith, attested in Heb. 11.6, allows for great diversity with regard to theological depth.21 Yet the unchanging maxim stands: faith in this all-powerful and gracious God must undergird obedience if it is to please God. This principle is strictly theological, owing to its revelation in the Word of God; it does not follow straightforwardly from observation of the way the human psyche works. That is, while anthropological analysis may hint at the natural or social necessity of

17

18 19 20 21

Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 314. For the explicitly christocentric argument, see Scott D. Mackie, ‘Confession of the Son of God in Hebrews’, NTS 53, no. 1 (2007), pp. 125–28. For the theocentric view of faith in Hebrews, construing it exclusively along ethical lines related to God the Father or yhwh, see Grässer, Der Glaube im Hebräerbrief, pp. 63–66. Grässer, Der Glaube im Hebräerbrief, pp. 130–33. Johnson, Hebrews, p. 284. Johnson, Hebrews, pp. 281–82, 284–85. Calvin, Institutes, II.xi.5; contra Paul Blackham, ‘The Trinity in the Hebrew Scriptures’, in Metzger (ed.), Trinitarian Soundings in Systematic Theology, pp. 45–46 (esp. p. 47 fn. 26); Thomas, ST, 1a.2ae.103.2 and especially 2a.2ae.2.8.

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some trust – be it epistemological, moral, or imaginative – the necessity of Christian faith for pleasing God remains a revealed truth, accorded positive status and thus gleaned by dogmatic theology.22 God determines that a particular faith pleases God, thus constituting the character of true humanity (as well as divinity). Jesus pleased yhwh, as attested by the divine declaration at the Son’s baptism in the Jordan River (Mk. 1.11; cf. accounts of the transfiguration). A dogmatic Christology will follow the example of the writer to the Hebrews by inferring the necessary prerequisite for this declaration of the Son’s pleasing the Father. That is, the vindication of the Son’s obedience requires it to be rooted in trust that the Father is both all-powerful (able to vindicate the crucified Son) and graciously disposed to resurrect the Son (willing to share authority, glory, and honor with the Son). Jesus had to exercise faith or else Jesus did not please the Father. Thus, the theological principle that divinely accepted obedience requires faith as its font necessitates the faith of Jesus Christ. Having only now made good on the second promise of this study’s subtitle – ‘a dogmatic argument for the . . . necessity of the Christ’s faith’ – the soteriological character of this faith will now be considered. In so doing, the coherence of Reformation soteriology and imitatio Christi will be demonstrated by noting their asymmetrical relationship.

II. Reformation Soteriology: From Vicarious Faith to Imitated Faith Reformation soteriology affirms those theological principles typically referenced by certain Protestant catch-phrases: solus Christus, sola fide, and sola gratia, to name those germane to the present discussion. Christian salvation must be rooted in the work of Christ alone, appropriated exclusively by faith, itself enabled only by the gracious calling of the triune God. The nature of the work of Christ, then, occupies pride of place in distinguishing a Reformational theology from its substitutes. As the theology of the Reformation churches developed throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, solus Christus was rendered functionally equivalent to the

22

For provocative discussions of the relationship of faith, imagination, and natural human activity, see Placher, Unapologetic Theology; see also the argument that ‘heart’ in the Old Testament may best be construed as the ‘paradigmatic imagination’, in Green, Imagining God, pp. 109–10. While such accounts may aptly depict human faculties and potentially highlight the sharp contrast between pagan and Christian loyalty by noting their similar socio-psychological frameworks, they do not ground the doctrine of sola fide.

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doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer.23 That is, the Christian is justified because a double exchange occurs: Christ assumes the sinner’s guilt, and Christ’s righteousness becomes the believer’s own. The Heidelberg Catechism clearly articulates this double imputation: Q.60 How are you righteous before God? Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. In spite of the fact that my conscience accuses me that I have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God, and have not kept any one of them, and that I am still ever prone to all that is evil, nevertheless, God, without any merit of my own, out of pure grace, grants me the benefits of the perfect expiation of Christ, imputing to me his righteousness and holiness as if I had never committed a single sin or had even been sinful, having fulfilled myself all the obedience which Christ has carried out for me, if only I accept such favor with a trusting heart.24

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Bruce L. McCormack, ‘What’s At Stake in Current Debates over Justification? The Crisis of Protestantism in the West’, in Husbands and Treier (eds.), Justification, p. 83: ‘At the heart of the Reformation understanding of justification lay the notion of a positive imputation of Christ’s righteousness. That was the truly distinctive element in the Reformation understanding . . .’; cf. A. T. B. McGowan, ‘Justification and the ordo salutis’, in McCormack (ed.), Justification in Perspective, pp. 153–54; as well as summations of the post-Reformation consensus in this regard found in Schmid, Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, pp. 424–41, and Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 548–51. Admittedly, Lutheran and Reformed theologians occasionally have minimized the imputation of Christ’s active righteousness, or at least strongly emphasized the forgiveness of sins so as to appear to deny active imputation: e.g., the ‘Summary Statement’, in Empie and McCord (eds.), Marburg Revisited: A Reexamination of Lutheran and Reformed Traditions, pp. 151–52; Heidelberg Catechism, q. 1 (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 59), which ties Christian comfort exclusively to forgiveness. Heidelberg Catechism, q. 60 (cited in Book of Confessions, pp. 67–68). Also worth noting is Heidelberg Catechism, q. 56, which answers a question regarding ‘forgiveness of sins’ by adding affirmation of a positive imputation of Christ’s righteousness (cited in Book of Confession, p. 57): ‘he [God] graciously imparts to me the righteousness of Christ so that I may never come into condemnation’. Likewise, English-speaking Reformed churches have emphasized this double imputation (see, e.g., Westminster Confession of Faith, xiii.1 [cited in Book of Confessions, p. 187]: ‘by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous . . . by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them’). Whereas the Augsburg Confession did not include specific affirmation of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness (rooted in his active obedience) to the believer (see AC, iv, cited in The Book of Concord, pp. 38– 41), the Formula of Concord does make an affirmation of this Protestant principle (see FC, iii.2, cited in The Book of Concord, p. 495).

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This sketch of Reformation soteriology provides the dogmatic context for considering the first function of the Christ’s faith. God justifies those who have been cleansed by Christ’s ‘expiation’ and have received ‘his righteousness and holiness’. Christian justification, then, finds its material ground in the forgiveness of sins and the righteousness of Christ before the just demands of yhwh. This imputed righteousness includes the obedience and faith exercised by Jesus during his earthly life and ministry, that which was commanded by the Father in his law and fulfilled by the Son in his perseverance.25 God demands perfect loyalty; whereas sinners have failed to complete this probationary task, the divine Son assumed humanity and accomplished this filial vocation on behalf of his Father’s adopted children. As noted in the previous section, faith grounds obedience; therefore, the Christ’s active obedience – that loyalty expressed to the Father and imputed to all Christians – is best characterized as the whole nexus of human response to God found in the life of Jesus Christ: from faith to love, hope to prayer, submission to perseverance.26 Pertinent to the present study, however, Christ’s active obedience requires affirmation of his belief on the Christian’s behalf: alien to their person, yet imputed to their identity. The imputation of Christ’s righteousness has been criticized recently by New Testament scholars who have dismantled many classic exegetical proof-texts for this central doctrine. For example, whereas Martin Luther thought Rom. 1.16-17 suggested that the ‘righteousness from God’ was 25

26

The instrumentality of imputation safeguards the distinction between Christ’s person and those ‘united to him’, necessary due to the Chalcedonian pattern and the emphasis on the integrity of Christ’s human nature (and, thus, his human faith which is vindicated/justified). Thus, while ‘union with Christ’ points to the intimacy between Christ and the redeemed, imputation maintains integrity and asymmetry (contra proposals which construe humans as partakers of Christ’s divine righteousness); see the masterful account of Mark A. Garcia, ‘Imputation and the Christology of Union with Christ: Calvin, Osiander, and the Contemporary Quest for a Reformed Model’, WTJ 68, no. 2 (2006), pp. 244–48; contra Jenson, ST, vol. 1, pp. 83–84, 226–27; vol. 2, pp. 296–98, 311–12, 340–46. Differentiating between theosis, deification, participation, and union with God is beyond the extent of this study, though the present claim merits repetition: any such scheme must follow the Chalcedonian pattern and locate the Christian’s being within that of the Christ’s humanity. Heppe clarifies that this imputed righteousness is not the essential righteousness pertaining to Christ’s divinity; rather, Christ’s human obedience merits this imputed righteousness (Reformed Dogmatics, pp. 550–51); contra the Formula of Concord, III.1 (cited in The Book of Concord, p. 495): ‘the whole Christ, according to both natures, is our righteousness, solely in his obedience that he rendered his Father as both God and a human being’. Whereas the Lutherans do not differentiate between the Son’s filial relation to the Father qua divine Son and qua incarnate Mediator, the necessity of human obedience was demonstrated in Chapter 2. Thus, while Jesus obeyed as both God and human, Christian justification arises due to the merits incurred by his human filial submission.

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given to the believer; scholars such as N. T. Wright have suggested that dikaiosune tou theou refers to God’s own character as faithful and righteous.27 Other scholars have disputed the covenantal parameters for the imputation of Christ’s perfect righteousness by criticizing a presupposition of the doctrine – namely, that God requires perfect obedience as a prerequisite for divine blessing.28 While this chapter will not present a demonstration of the doctrine’s Scriptural and theological roots, one biblical motif will be examined which may undergird the doctrine, highlighting the nature of Christ’s obedience as rooted in his own faith in the Father. Walter Moberly has demonstrated figural links between the testing of Abraham and the temptation of Jesus as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew; his biblical-theological analysis suggests that the testing of Abraham is recapitulated and fulfilled in Jesus.29 The value of Moberly’s work issues from his clarification of the sonship of Jesus marked by trusting patience, completing a duty initiated yet unfulfilled in the Old Testament relationship between yhwh and Israel. Moberly’s account moves from Old Testament to New Testament, demonstrating the figural link between the aqedah (Genesis 22) and the temptations of Jesus according to the Gospel of Matthew.30 Moberly depicts the import of Genesis 22 as describing, What true religion entails: a trusting obedience of God which means relinquishing to God that which is most precious (sacrifice Isaac, the beloved son); a self-dispossession of that on which one’s identity and hopes are most deeply based (sacrifice Isaac, the long-awaited bearer of God’s promise and Abraham’s hopes for the future); a recognition

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28 29 30

N. T. Wright, What St. Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), pp. 96–98, 104–11. Wright’s broader revisions to the doctrine of justification are best gleaned from his recent essay ‘New Perspectives on Paul,’ in McCormack (ed.), Justification in Perspective, pp. 243–64. For an analysis of the dangers in moving simplistically between exegetical and biblicaltheological revisions to dogmatic reconfiguration regarding the Protestant doctrine of justification, see R. Michael Allen and Daniel J. Treier, ‘Dogmatic Theology and Biblical Perspectives on Justification; A Reply to Leithart’, WTJ 70, no. 1 (2008), pp. 105–10. For an analytic defense of imputation in the second generation of the Protestant Reformation (and, thus, different from Luther’s directly exegetical argument), see John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536 Edition) (trans. Ford Lewis Battles; Richmond, Va.: John Knox, 1975), p. 62. Harink, Paul among the Postliberals, pp. 63–64. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, pp. 227–29. For analysis of Christ’s temptation in Gethsemane (not discussed here), see Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, pp. 211–15; cf. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.16.xii; Barth, CD IV/1, pp. 265–72.

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that response to God may be as costly, or even more costly, at the end of one’s life as it was earlier on (Abraham must relinquish his future as once he relinquished his past); a recognition that the outcome of obedience is unknown and cannot be predicted in advance (a test is not ‘only’ a test, but is a real test); and a recognition that the religious community to which one belongs and which tells this as one of its foundation stones can only become complacent at the expense of the essence of its identity.31 Abraham has thereby shown ‘trusting obedience’ by submitting to God’s will even as an apparent disjunction surfaces between God’s promise and God’s painful test. Limited knowledge of the future is met by trust that the Lord will reward those who follow their divinely revealed path. By noting the canonical parallels between Abraham’s testing and that of Jesus, Moberly clearly discerns the character of Christ’s sonship: faith which undergirds his enduring submission to the Father’s will. The Gospel of Matthew, according to Moberly, should be read parallel to the aqedah, as the evangelist book-ended his text with the wilderness temptations of Christ and Jesus’s eventual vindication: the glorious resurrection.32 The temptations involve the divine testing of the Son: ‘not what Jesus may do for others (i.e., messiahship), but what relationship with God means for himself (i.e., sonship)’.33 Each temptation offers a just dessert of the Son, things which the Son of God rightly possesses, but these results are offered on terms which involve autonomous self-assertion and demonstrate impatience. Thus, they fail to contextualize human action in receptive trust. Repudiating such temptations, Jesus’s sonship manifests itself in ‘unqualified trust in God’ which leads to ‘faithfulness when tested’.34 Because Jesus trusts the Father to fulfill his promises, the Son need not overreach or use improper means to attain a lingering, good end.35 Though Jesus begged 31 32 33

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Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, p. 182. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, p. 188. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, p. 201; contra Robert J. Sherman, King, Priest, and Prophet: A Trinitarian Theology of the Atonement (TTFC; London: T&T Clark, 2004), p. 111. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, pp. 205, 207. On Jesus’s invocation of Psalm 91 in his response to the second temptation, see Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew (BTCB; Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006), p. 54. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, p. 205: ‘If Jesus being Son means that he is obedient to God in such a way that he will not seek to use God’s power for his own ends, and if God’s promises of protection cannot be invoked in such a way as to undermine the trust which they are meant to enhance, then the promised gift of dominion cannot be attained by any means other than that which intrinsically leads to it, which is unswerving allegiance to the giver’.

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off premature glorification as offered by the tempter, the resurrection does eventually vindicate the Son by rewarding his patient trust and longsuffering obedience.36 The Son was tested and proven faithful, his trust vindicated only after extensive suffering and the pangs of death. The Father was well pleased with the Son’s confession, for the faithful submission of Jesus to yhwh’s demands fulfills the original mandate given to Adam and Eve, then to Noah, and to Israel.37 The Christ’s faith, therefore, stands in the place of the faltering loyalty of God’s people, serving as the material ground of their justification. The primary function of the Christ’s faith is vicarious, insofar as it mediates between fallen humanity and the holy God by cloaking sinners with enacted holiness. The active obedience of Christ may best be construed as the dual response of Jesus: his faith and the obedient love which flows from this trust. Moberly does not develop an account of imputation per se, though his articulation of divine sonship may, undoubtedly, support such an analytic endeavor. Christ’s faithful obedience merits his own vindication; that is, his real testing (which Moberly does term ‘probation’) necessarily precedes and forensically grounds his own justification.38 Whereas Moberly states that Jesus ‘mediates’ access to his relation with the Father, providing for inclusive sonship, a dogmatic account may extrapolate that Christ’s faith undergirds the justification of Christians as well.39 The imputation of Christ’s righteousness, therefore, may be tied to the biblical-theological account of the divine testing and the demonstration of Jesus’s sonship by means of his faith and obedience. While an argument for construing this along the lines of imputation has not been offered here, the vicarious nature of Christ’s faith has been inferred from Moberly’s suggestive study. Before considering the application of Jesus’s sonship and his faith to Christian ethics, the relationship between the vicarious and analogicalimitative functions of Christ’s faith must be articulated. As Hooker has noted, some within the Reformation traditions have contrasted participatio Christi and imitatio Christi, suggesting that imitation necessarily moralizes the gospel.

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Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, p. 190; cf. Ulrich Luz, The Theology of the Gospel of Matthew (NTT; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 37. On later recurrences of the primal command to subdue the earth (Gen. 1.28, 12.2f; 17.2, 6, 8; 22.16ff; 26.3f; 26.24; 28.3; 35.11f; 47.27; 48.3f; Exod. 1.7; 32.13; Lev. 26.9; Deut. 1.10f; 7.13f; 8.1; 28.63; 30.5, 16; Jer. 3.16; 23.3; Ezek. 36.11; Zech. 10.8), see N. T. Wright, ‘Adam, Israel, and the Messiah’, in The Climax of the Covenant, pp. 21–23. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith, p. 240; cf. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, pp. 433–34. Moberly shows how Matthew links Christ and the ‘children of God’, in The Bible, Theology, and Faith, p. 224.

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T. F. Torrance has consistently articulated the vicarious nature of the Christ’s humanity as essential to the gospel.40 Rather than focusing singularly upon the death and resurrection of Christ, Torrance argues that Jesus’s whole life and activity are vicarious.41 In his own attempt to affirm the active obedience of Christ by construing it along incarnational lines drawn from Athanasius and other patristic sources, Torrance claims that Christ assumed fallen humanity so that Christians might become what he is. Furthermore, the elevation of humanity is identified specifically with Christ’s own vivified humanity. That is, humans do not become God-like by identifying with Christ’s divinity; rather they are united with Christ’s humanity as such.42 Thus, Jesus’s faith, conversion, baptism and repentance, and worship embody and constitute true humanity.43 Each activity of the mediator itself mediates before the Father, that is, the vindication of humanity is grounded coextensively with the perfection of Christ’s own humanity. Torrance affirms the extensive nature of Christ’s vicarious work to counter the moralism of pietists and Enlightenment liberalism, which separate accounts of human morality from a Christian ontology.44 Both T. F. Torrance and J. B. Torrance pursued Reformed theology in the wake of modern liberalism such that, as Webster states, ‘[t]heir suspicion of imitatio Christi is ultimately directed towards styles of Christianity which privilege human moral activity in such a way that nothing ultimately significant happened within the frontiers of the ministry of Jesus’.45 Their affirmation of Christ’s vicarious humanity, therefore, must be praised for its forthright condemnation of mere imitatio. To note but one influential example, Friedrich Schleiermacher acknowledged that Christ’s work calls the Christian into imitation and explicitly denied any representative work

40

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42 43

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T. F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), pp. 138–41, 188–90; T. F. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, pp. 95–98; J. B. Torrance, Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace, pp. 62–64, 74–77; J. B. Torrance, ‘The Vicarious Humanity and the Priesthood of Christ’, p. 69–84. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, p. 80; cf. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, p. 378; Jüngel, ‘The Mystery of Substitution: A Dogmatic Conversation with Heinrich Vogel’, in John B. Webster (ed.), Theological Essays II, pp. 156–61. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, pp. 39–42, 70–71. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, pp. 82–84, 91, 98 (on faith); pp. 84–86 (on conversion); p. 85 (on baptism and repentance); pp. 86–89 (on worship). On the modern separation of ethics and ontology, see Stephen D. Long, The Goodness of God: Theology, Church, and Social Order (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2001), part one; cf. Sherman, King, Priest, and Prophet, pp. 155–57, 200–01. Webster, ‘Christology, Imitability, and Ethics’, p. 314 (where Webster refers to Ernst Käsemann, who exhibits similar concerns to the Torrances).

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on behalf of sin-plagued believers.46 While Schleiermacher attempted to navigate between ‘supernatural’ and ‘empirical’ renditions of the doctrines of redemption and reconciliation, Walter Wyman suggests that the Berlin theologian negated the importance of Christ’s passion and rendered his perfect God-consciousness of merely functional import; thus, Schleiermacher’s Christ was simply a moral example to be imitated (against supernaturalism) as the singular examplar (against empiricism).47 Herman Bavinck has cataloged this so-called modern turn to moralistic atonement theory, that is, the double shift to depict extensively Christ’s work as exemplary in nature and human righteousness as entirely intrinsic.48 Bavinck was not impressed: ‘Just as it is one-sided, with Alting, to see the fruit of Christ’s work only in the redemption from eternal death, so it is equally one-sided, with Ritschl, to limit that fruit to the spiritual-ethical dominion of Christ over sin and the world this side of heaven’.49 Stanley Grenz has suggested that imitatio be construed as the principal message of Christianity.50 While Grenz and pietists may intend to restrict their emphasis to the doctrine of sanctification (as opposed to an extensive application to soteriology as in Schleiermacher), nonetheless, placing imitatio in the foreground of salvation necessarily overreaches the limits of magisterial Reformation views of sanctification by downplaying the eschatological nature of human perfection and the enduring importance of solus Christus. Grenz ignores the cautious observation of James Gustafson that the ‘Christian life is not less moral because it is not primarily moral’.51 The theological characterization of the Christian – as united with Christ – must be undertaken well before such imperatival maxims are emphasized,

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Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, p. 456: ‘If we are to express ourselves with any accuracy we cannot say, either, that Christ fulfilled the divine will in our place or for our advantage. That is to say, He cannot have done so in our place in the sense that we are thereby relieved from the necessity of fulfilling it. No Christian mind could possibly desire this, nor has sound doctrine ever asserted it. Indeed, Christ’s highest achievement consists in this, that He so animates us that we ourselves are led to an ever more perfect fulfillment of the divine will . . . Neither can He have fulfilled the divine will in any way for our advantage, as if by the obedience of Christ, considered in and for itself, anything were achieved for us or changed in relation to us’ (cf. pp. 64, 378, 565). Walter Wyman, ‘Sin and Redemption’, in Jacqueline Mariña (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher (CCR; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 130; contra Jacqueline Mariña, ‘Christology and anthropology’, in Mariña (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher, pp. 160–61. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, pp. 353–61. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3, p. 380. Stanley Grenz, Revisioning Evangelical Theology: A Fresh Agenda for the Twenty-First Century (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1993), pp. 17, 31, 48–52. James M. Gustafson, Christ and the Moral Life (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 183.

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because ontology necessarily precedes morals (Eph 2:7-10).52 In the grammar of Christian doctrine, the past perfect tense of the regula fidei must precede the present indicative of imitatio Christi. Thus, Torrance’s reassertion of the Reformation insistence on extrinsic righteousness – which elicits faith and, indirectly, empowers intrinsic holiness – is to be applauded.53 Torrance proceeds one step further, however, by denying any discernable moral space for Christian ethical action. He does this by construing the covenant between God and humanity as, strictly speaking, unilateral: wherein only God’s action is required.54 Thus, Torrance suggests that evangelical preaching will emphasize that human faith does not actualize the gospel.55 He claims that Christian faith is not a condition for the elevation of our humanity; rather, Christ’s faith alone undergirds the justification of the ungodly. As Christian faith is never the material ground for justification, Torrance construes the ‘covenant of grace’ as dependent solely upon Christ’s faith in our stead; his account, therefore, tends toward universalism by starkly minimizing any role for Christian faith (even beyond Barth’s ‘reverent agnosticism’).56 More importantly, Torrance renders sola fide positively mute, leaving it to exercise only a deconstructive dogmatic function. John Webster has argued that Torrance does not maintain the soteriology of Karl Barth, insofar as Torrance flattens the relation of Christ and Christian to vicarious representation and nothing else. Webster states: Alongside this vicarious humanity model, however, there is a significantly different account of the relationship between Christ and humanity, in which Jesus Christ is an exemplar. And so Barth can write, for example, that ‘Jesus Christ founded calling upon God the Father – and made it binding upon his people – by doing it first himself, and in so doing giving a prior example of what he demanded of them. . . . He took them up into the movement of his own prayer’ (ChrL, p. 64).

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54 55 56

cf. Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians—1519 (ed. Jaroslav Pelikan; LW 27; St. Louis: Concordia, 1964), p. 263: ‘It is not the imitation that makes sons; it is sonship that makes imitators’. Similar construals of extrinsic and intrinsic righteousness are articulated by Berkouwer, Faith and Sanctification, pp. 32–33, 40–41, 43. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, pp. 28, 74. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, pp. 90, 94–95, 98. For criticism of even Barth’s account of Christian faith, see G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Justification (trans. Lewis B. Smedes; SD; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954), p. 198. Kathryn Tanner proposes that the (singular) covenant is initiated unilaterally but maintained bilaterally – a distinction which Torrance fails to note (Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity, p. 84 fn. 37).

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Here the two models combine: Christ’s vicarious invocation elicits further invocation.57 Torrance fails to maintain that Christ’s faith elicits covenantal reciprocation or true partnership from his followers, as well as vicariously representing them before the Lord. By maintaining strictly unilateral relations between Christ and Christian, Torrance has denied the traditional interpretation of sola fide.58 He has morphed sola fide into a redundant articulation of solus Christus, precisely because he has denied any ontological and moral space for an instrumental ground to human justification.59 Though sola fide has typically been construed as a negation of self-autonomy or works righteousness, the dogmatic axiom also asserts a positive claim: faith grasps Christ with his benefits.60 While Torrance’s affirmation of the vicarious function of the Christ’s faith must be applauded, the vacuous moral ontology which he posits must be resisted, and, thus, his denial of any imitative function of the Christ’s faith must be denied. The Reformed confessions maintain the importance of both Christian faith and Christ’s active obedience. The Heidelberg Catechism’s initial statement regarding justification involves the affirmation and identification of its instrumental ground: ‘Only by true faith in Jesus Christ’.61 Barth clarifies the relation of Christ’s faith and the Christian’s faith in his interpretation of the Heidelberg Catechism: ‘the whole of ethics rests on this article of the forgiveness of sin. It is the ground of the command given man.’62 57

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John Webster, ‘The Christian in Revolt: Some Reflections on The Christian Life’, in Nigel Biggar (ed.), Reckoning with Barth: Essays in Commemoration of the Centenary of Karl Barth’s Birth (London: Mowbray, 1988), p. 129. Space does not permit analysis of the (in)coherence between the covenant theology of Karl Barth and the federal theologians with such a bilateral view of the covenant’s progress (though not instantiation, which is unilateral). Suffice it to say that Barth’s criticisms of federal theology are substantial and not without merit, yet the federal theology can be realigned with greater attention given to the ontological link between covenant and theology proper in a way which answers Barth’s concerns. contra the distinction drawn in the Augsburg Confession, iv (cited in The Book of Concord, pp. 38–41); cf. Philip Melanchthon, Apology of the Augsburg Confession, iv.69–70 (cited in The Book of Concord, p. 131). Tanner similarly undermines the positive import of sola fide by claiming that God’s giving never stops due to human failure to receive – a claim that is true in ontological/ providential though not covenantal/soteric terms (Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity, p. 86). Heidelberg Catechism 60 (cited in Book of Confessions, pp. 67–68). Karl Barth, The Heidelberg Catechism for Today (trans. Shirley C. Guthrie; Richmond, Va.: John Knox, 1964), p. 87. Barth refers to Heidelberg Catechism, q. 56, where the answer expands ‘forgiveness of sins’ to include affirmation of the imputation of Christ’s active obedience (cited in Book of Confessions, p. 57).

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There is a command for humanity, that is, an imitatio; however, the imitatio is not the primary referent to ‘substitution’ and ‘reconciliation’. While the Pauline witness, undoubtedly, includes ecclesial activity within the realm of reconciliation as an agent marshaled for God’s own purposes, nonetheless, such churchly praxis cannot be strictly identified with the hapax of Christ’s own reconciling substitution (2 Cor. 5.18f.).63 Christ’s substitution for sinners does not merely offer a quantitatively superior example of kenotic service to the needy (though it does that); rather Christ’s assumption of fallen humanity and his vicarious, faithful loyalty also takes the place of the elect’s flawed obedience. Thus, Christ’s act of substitution is qualitatively different from any Christian ministry or praxis: the church ministers (diakonian) the message of reconciliation, whereas Christ embodies and constitutes that reconciliation personally.64 His materiallydecisive, singular substitution, however, does not compete with Christian acts of belief, gratitude, and prayer. Reformation soteriology affirms the simultaneous, non-competitive importance of the material and instrumental grounds for justification. Human action present in justification and sanctification arises from the gospel itself. As Webster says: ‘Evangelical sanctification is not only the holiness that the gospel declares but also the holiness that the gospel commands, to which the creaturely counterpart is action. Holiness is indicative; but it is also imperative; indeed, it is imperative because it is the indicative holiness of the triune God’.65 The instrumental means of grace and requisite acceptance in faith are refractory and secondary, whereas the faith of Christ is regenerative and primary. The faith of the Christian, then, may not be separated from or conflated with that of Christ, but must be construed according to a fundamental asymmetry that marks the order of grace. Christ’s faith precedes and transcends, yet elicits and supports Christian faith. The Christ’s faith functions in two ways: as vicarious ground for human justification and as model for analogical imitation by those who are united with Christ. Wollebius said: ‘the former is perfect righteousness which he provides in our room and in order to merit life. The latter [Christian imitation] is imperfect and is provided for the sake of testifying thankfulness for redemption’.66 A dogmatic account of the Christ’s faith, therefore, must inform Christian ethics precisely because the human life of Christ not only includes Christians redemptively but also invokes their own corresponding

63 64

65 66

Webster, ‘Christ, Church, and Reconciliation’, in Word and Church, pp. 220–22. Jüngel, ‘The Mystery of Substitution’, in Webster (ed.), Theological Essays II, p. 155; cf. Webster, ‘Evangelical Ecclesiology’, in Confessing God, pp. 172–74, on the danger of conflating such witness under the rubric of incarnational ministry. John Webster, Holiness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 87. Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, p. 463.

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acts of faithfulness.67 The contours of imitation must now be considered, avoiding the errors of slavish moralism or nascent antinomianism, by attending to the ontological differences between Christ and Christians.

III. Jesus’s Faith as Pattern for Christian Ethics The faith of the Christ necessarily serves as a model for Christian ethical action. The principle of imitatio Christi must be affirmed as a necessary outgrowth or result of vicarious inclusion within the representative humanity of Jesus. Thus, Christian ethics flows from the work of Christ. As John Webster puts it, imitatio Christi serves as a usable dogmatic construct when grounded in a transcendental Christology, that is, an account of vicarious substitution as developed earlier.68 An account of imitatio Christi which honors Reformation soteriology must, therefore, articulate the analogous correspondence between Christ’s and Christians’ human action along with an analysis of the link between sola fide and obedience. Analogical imitation affirms the correspondence and divergence between Christ and his followers, shirking both the univocal conflation of Schleiermacher and the equivocal distinction of Torrance. Whereas Chapter 4 highlighted the ontological necessity of analogy, this ethical analogy derives primarily from covenantal contours, as three dogmatic axioms will demonstrate. I will introduce these broader arguments by giving attention to Hebrews 12, where the Christ’s faith is explicitly mentioned as an object for ethical imitation. Hebrews 12 focuses attention upon one saint – Jesus Christ – for the purpose of witnessing to God’s provision for those who patiently endure while under duress.69 Jesus is affirmed as the prototypical believer, an original whose impression is meant to shape all who follow in his path (Heb. 12.2).70 The paradigmatic status of the Mediator compounds when Heb. 12.7 references ‘children,’ thus tying its imagery to that of Heb. 2.10 (where

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Though not heirs of the Protestant Reformation, Roman Catholic theologians O’Collins and Kendall also suggest that ‘to find in Jesus the supreme exemplar for the life of faith in no way excludes believing in him as the risen Lord of our lives’ (‘Faith of Jesus’, p. 423); however, they do not articulate the ways in which Christ’s faith serves a different purpose than that of Christians. Their use of analogy is limited to differentiating the content of faith. Webster, ‘Christ, Church, and Reconciliation’, in Word and Church, p. 218. On the relation between Hebrews 11 and 12, see Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, p. 240 fn. 141; James C. Miller, ‘Paul and Hebrews: A Comparison of Narrative Worlds’, in Gabriella Gelardini (ed.), Hebrews: Contemporary Methods—New Insights (BIS 75; Leiden: Brill, 2005), p. 262. For the rendering of arche¯gon as ‘original’ or ‘prototype’, see N. Clayton Croy, ‘A Note on Hebrews 12:2’, JBL 114, no. 1 (1995), pp. 117–19.

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Jesus is the pioneer of ‘many children’).71 The relationship of Christ to Christian, therefore, should be explicated along filial and paradigmatic lines: both are sons of the Most High God, while Christ exerts a unique role as moral exemplar.72 Thus, Jesus is to be ‘looked at’ and ‘considered’ throughout the journey of the Christian life (Heb. 12.2-3).73 The faith of Christ must be imitated, according to the parenesis of Hebrews 11–12. Regarding the nature of this faith which is to be imitated, several nuances emerge in Heb. 12.1-17.74 First, the life of faith endures through immense suffering and persecution (Heb. 12.2b-4; cf. 10.32-34). Suffering should cause one neither to abandon faith nor to segregate some events from the realm of God’s working. That is, suffering does not necessitate abdication or dualism. Within a finite and fallen world, suffering serves as the context for moral training and perfection.75 Faith persevering amidst ever-intensifying troubles manifests poignantly the unlimited ability of yhwh to tend to the needs of the people of God. Second, faith perseveres through pointed suffering due to its pursuit of a blessed telos, the reward which God has promised (Heb. 11.6). In the case of the Savior, Jesus endured the pains of the cross and the utter abandonment of sinful humanity ‘for the sake of the joy that was set before him’ (Heb. 12.2b).76 The believer is to look to Jesus, then, as fellow sufferer and the enthroned and glorified one; he patterns the means and also exemplifies the end. In this respect, the reader of Hebrews stands in a drastically different context than the Old Testament exemplars cited in Heb 11, insofar as the consummation of enthronement has proleptically occurred in Jesus’s ascension to the Father’s right hand (cf. Heb. 11.13, 39). The triumph of the Risen One should vindicate his faith, and thereby enlighten Christian understanding of his own trust’s future-oriented nature by clarifying its telos. Third, the faith of Jesus is differentiated from that of other believers, for he is not only the originator and forerunner but also the ‘perfecter of

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Johnson, Hebrews, p. 321. On the soteriological links between this text and Heb. 3.1, see Johnson, Hebrews, p. 317: ‘This “race” is a matter of moral and religious transformation in which the “faithful” Jesus (3:1) and believers are intimately linked.’ On the filial ties between Christ and Christians, see John Dunnill, Covenant and Sacrifice in the Letter to the Hebrews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 209–26. Thomas, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 270. Grässer, Glaube, p. 60; Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, pp. 171–72. Johnson, Hebrews, p. 321. Johnson, Hebrews, p. 317; Calvin, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews, p. 188; contra J. Swetnam, Jesus and Isaac: A Study of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the Light of the Aqedah (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1981), p. 184, who renders Heb. 12.2 as contrasting endurance and pursuit of joy.

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faith’.77 His own faith is materially decisive, insofar as he brings the journey of faithfulness to its perfection. Peterson rightly claims, therefore, that his faith is qualitatively, as well as quantitatively, superior to that of other believers.78 While proposals have been offered to clarify the nature of this singular perfection, the text of Hebrews 12 does not offer much exegetical fodder (cf. Heb. 5.7-9); thus, broader dogmatic principles will be considered and related to this text’s claims. The witness of Heb. 12.1-11 points to the imitation of Christ’s faith, yet the soteriological function of imitation does not translucently link Jesus with contemporary ethical decisions. Programs of imitation have diverged in moral content throughout history, and continue to be dismissed in theory as well.79 Though soteriological criticisms of imitatio have been dismissed, confusion regarding the actual nature of such imitation must also be considered. Novelist Richard Russo aptly depicts this struggle intrinsic to the pursuit of imitatio Christi: ‘Oh, dear me, it is complicated. No surprise that people are always trying to simplify life. What’s that question our evangelical brethren are always asking? “What would Jesus do?” What, indeed?’80 While space does not permit a sketch of the material shape such imitation would follow, several programmatic axioms will be offered by which the faith of Jesus must be differentiated from, yet related to the faith of his followers. First, Christian faith – unlike that of Christ – witnesses to the preceding gift of salvation from sin. While the eternal Son received from the Father, his manner of reception in no way involved the gift of mercy or forgiveness (Heb. 7.26-27). Christian ethics must never forget its place within the economy of salvation. The errors of modern ethics (liberal and pietist), undoubtedly, flow from such forgetfulness: For Christianity, the root problem consists of the severing of human acting from a more fundamental and God-given understanding of

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As widely noted in commentaries, Heb. 12.2 continues to be mistranslated: there is no first-person plural pronoun affixed to pisteos. The TNIV translates accurately: ‘Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith’; the NRSV wrongly limits the reference: ‘Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith’. Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, p. 173. Contrast, e.g., the countercultural sociopolitical concerns (chapters on family, friends, body, money, work ethic, and honor codes) in F. Scott Spencer, What Did Jesus Do? Gospel Profiles of Jesus’ Personal Conduct (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2003), with the monastic Jesus found in Thomas, ST, 3a.40. While Spencer’s portrait of Jesus fails to address the relation of Son to Father, the Jesus of Thomas and many medievals was an otherworldly religious figure beyond the pale of imitation by the masses of Christians for socioeconomic reasons. Richard Russo, Empire Falls (New York: Knopf, 2001), p. 172.

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human being, an understanding that offers a clear vision of humanity’s origin and end and thus supplies a framework for guiding its ongoing life. In the biblical narrative, God presents Christian theology with a sacred and unique insight into the nature and purpose of human life. . . . Christ’s victory reestablishes our true human ontology and telos.81 Thus, Christian imitation of the Redeemer must remain mere witness, that is, correspondence to the antecedent grace of God as found in Jesus Christ. Whereas Christ offered himself as the cultic sacrifice to atone for sin, ‘the sacrifice now required of Christians refers to their joyous, thankful, and generous self-giving toward God and others in everyday life’.82 Christian love and service, then, cannot be immediate in the same way which Christ’s life proceeded, rendering salvation in ipso. While even Christ’s life was not autonomous, strictly speaking, Christian faith will extend this dependence upon the Father also to the Son’s own life insofar as God showers redemptive grace upon other graces to Christians.83 Thus, the faith of Jesus will not be directly imitated, because Jesus’s human activity proceeds in a different manner from that of all others. Barth states, ‘In all these things He goes before us once for all; not in His humanity as such, for in this respect He makes us like unto Himself; but in the way in which He is a man, that is, in virtue of His unique relation to God; and in the fact that we need His humanity in order to like Him as men’.84 The difference between paradigm and pupil will best be construed as correspondence or response, relating Christian faith analogically to Christ’s own response to the Father. That is, Christ receives from the Father grace upon grace, for his human life was marked by fullness which had not been humanly merited. Yet as Christ was not condemned under God’s judgment due to his own sins, he never experienced redemption directly. His experience of redemption (1 Cor. 1.30) flows indirectly from his assumption of our sinful guilt, that is, his vicarious service as Mediator. Again, as Barth states, Christ was like us yet in a different manner. The primary content of the imitation of Christ must be the Son’s faithful submission to the Father (Heb. 2.11; cf. 12.7), what Barth terms his ‘unique relation to God’. While the relations between Father and varying children differ – with the eternal Son enjoying an intimate (and immanent)

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Sherman, King, Priest, and Prophet, pp. 157, 160. Sherman, King, Priest, and Prophet, p. 174 (see also pp. 203–05). contra Gene Outka, ‘Following at a Distance: Ethics and the Identity of Jesus’, in Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interpretation (ed. Garrett Green; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), pp. 149–50 (cf. p. 158), where Jesus is classified as autonomous. Barth, CD III/2, pp. 49, 71–72.

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union unparalleled by that of any adopted child – the essential anthropological depiction of both Christ’s faith and that of the Christian is theological, that is, rooted in their respective relationships to God the Father.85 Thus, widely divergent ministries to other needy humans find common ground due to their shared roots in faith in the Father’s good pleasure to bless those who seek him.86 Christ’s atonement and Christian proclamation of such to others both flows from faith in God’s blessing. Nevertheless, whereas Christ enjoys an immediate relationship to the Father in the Spirit, Christians commune with the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.87 Thus, the Christian’s faith must be inclusive of Christological content as well as its enduring patrological focus. In this manner, faith which follows Christ will necessarily root itself in his atoning work, gratefully responding to this victory and trusting for the future consummation of his kingdom’s fulfillment. Christian faith, therefore, analogically relates to that of the Mediator. Second, human faith flows from the vivifying work of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit enables Jesus in a manner analogous to the Spirit’s blessing of Christians (Heb. 2.4; cf. 9.14).88 As noted earlier, the Son’s relation to the Father is qualitatively distinct from that of all adopted children: ‘Human nature in Him is determined by a relation between God and Himself such as has never existed between God and us, and never will exist. He alone is the Son of Man and the Son of God. Our fellowship with God rests upon the

85

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Linda Zagzebski, ‘The Incarnation and Virtue Ethics’, in The Incarnation: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of God (ed. S. T. Davis et al.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 330; Gustafson, Christ and the Moral Life, pp. 185, 244–45. Rooting imitation in faithful submission to the Father allows various manifestations of service, solidarity, and welcome to maintain unity in spirit, whereas proposals to root imitation primarily in such ministries fail to acknowledge the qualitative distinction between Christ’s ministry of reconciliation and that of his followers and typically loose such service from its theological moorings; for such errors, see Jeremy Moiser, ‘Dogmatic Thoughts on the Imitation of Christ’, SJT 30, no. 3 (1977), p. 211. Tanner, Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity, p. 53; cf. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II.15.v; III.1.iii; Barth, CD III/2, p. 49; IV/1, pp. 203–04; IV/2, pp. 343–44. The incarnate Son communes with the Father in the Spirit, as will be noted below, so that even the incarnate Son does not commune with the Father directly, strictly speaking. Nevertheless, the direct/indirect contrast helpfully distinguishes between the Son’s hypostatic union with God and, thus, intratrinitarian communion, and the Christian’s adopted union with God in Christ and, thus, extratrinitarian fellowship with the Trinity. Regarding Heb. 9.14 as possibly referring to the Holy Spirit, see Johnson, Hebrews, p. 236 (where he downplays the importance of Heb. 9.8 in construing Heb. 9.14 pneumatologically).

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fact that He and He alone is one with God’.89 His humanity also receives a quantitatively superior blessing from the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit. To put this in eschatological terms, Christ was perfected during his earthly life and ministry (Heb. 2.10; 5.9), whereas Christians are promised perfection following their earthly sojourn. As Christians enjoy communal, not personal, identity with the Word, their human conformity to the divine perfection does not occur at the point of assumptio but involves a lifetime of mortificatio and vivificatio and the lingering expectation of apocalyptic glorificatio.90 The enduring failures – not temptations – of Christians distinguish their enjoyment of the Holy Spirit’s enablement from that of the human Christ. As noted in Chapter 4, the Holy Spirit rested upon the Son, maturing his human nature in such a manner that he never sinned.91 Though the Spirit also rests on them, Christians continue to sin throughout their earthly journey, at times shirking the promises of God and pursuing other loves. In this regard, the constancy of faith differs quantitatively between Savior and the saved. As the events of Maundy Thursday made clear, Jesus always trusts the Father, while disciples often deny their Master by ‘what we have done’ (i.e., bearing false witness) and ‘what we have left undone’ (i.e., stay awake to pray). Thus, the Holy Spirit vivifies both Christ and Christians, though with varying depth and delays of development. Undergirding this claim, of course, is a non-competitive construal of divine and human action wherein the providential beneficence of the triune God elicits free human action: perfectly, in Jesus’s case; imperfectly, in that of his followers.92 Thus, the correspondence of faith responds to God’s preceding grace as well as actualizes only due to the Spirit’s enlivening agency.93 While the degree and consistency of this enablement differ between the Savior and the redeemed, the logic of faith continues unabated. ‘[S]elfdenial, like redeeming love, is the outcome of confidence in the goodness and mercy of God, and of imitation or even following after Jesus’.94 That is, the faith of Jesus and all Christians focuses upon the reliability of God the

89 90 91 92

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Barth, CD III/2, p. 49; cf. pp. 50–51. Tanner, Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity, pp. 55–56. Barth, CD III/2, pp. 51–52. Tanner, Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity, pp. 45–46, 71–72; Barth, CD IV/2, pp. 514–21. Webster, ‘Christology, Imitability, and Ethics’, pp. 323–24; contra Stephen E. Fowl, ‘Some Uses of Story in Moral Discourse: Reflections on Paul’s Moral Discourse and Our Own’, ModTheo 4, no. 4 (1988), p. 308 fn. 45. Gustafson, Christ and the Moral Life, p. 183; contra Tanner, Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity, p. 61, where a false dichotomy is posed between works flowing from faith or from the ‘overflowing of Christ’s virtues to us’.

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Creator and on the merciful wishes of this divine Lord.95 The Holy Spirit enlivens the personal appropriation of faith’s tenets as propounded in Heb. 11.6. So, while Christ may exemplify faith in an unstinting and, perhaps, intimidatingly robust manner, the concurrence between the Holy Spirit’s work within him and the normal logic of faith within the faltering believer continues, nonetheless. Gustafson correctly points to the norming function of Christ to help Christians ‘discern what God is enabling’ and how trust in God relates to loving service of humans.96 Third, Christian imitation of Jesus must be contextualized by imitation of other moral norms as well, because his particular moral vocation is analogous to that of exemplory contemporary disciples. ‘Christ is not allsufficient as a source of moral guidance. He did not mean to be, and he was not meant to be’.97 While Christ cannot provide the entirety of a Christian ethic, other moral norms may be cross-referenced to ascertain wise paths of faithful action. Two reasons undergird this pragmatic maneuver: a sociocontextual observation and a theological distinction. Ethical thought requires a diversity of exemplary objects insofar as human life can only be analogously cross-referenced for imitation. That is, the changing circumstances of religious and social culture require wise discernment and moral improvisation; Jesus lived in a milieu quite different from the twenty-first century, so many of his actions will be nontransferable.98 Similarly, the authors of the New Testament plumbed the life of Jesus for nuggets of insight – theological and moral – which would be pertinent to their own ministry contexts; as these documents were penned by authors in contexts quite unlike our own, many of their preoccupations also will not directly shape contemporary ethics. Thus far, the contextual differences between Jesus’s life and faith and our own have been construed along strictly anthropological lines. These socio-contextual differences may be negotiated by looking to other faithful norms, cross-referencing their manners of witness, and analyzing the redemptive substance of their pluriform testimony. 95

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Though Heb. 3.14 may suggest that the logic of faith relates to both Christ and his partners (metochoi), see the convincing assessment of E. Nardoni, ‘Partakers in Christ (Hebrews 3:14)’, NTS 37, no. 4 (1991), pp. 456–72. The logic of Jesus’s faith is best seen by interpreting Heb 12:2-3 within the paraenetic nexus of Heb 11–12, especially as an implication of Heb 11:6. Gustafson, Christ and the Moral Life, p. 265. Gustafson, Christ and the Moral Life, p. 187. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine, pp. 128–29, 335–44; Brett P. Webb-Mitchell, Christly Gestures: Learning to Be Members of the Body of Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), pp. 128–30; Gerard Loughlin, Telling God’s Story: Bible, Church, and Narrative Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 84; Tanner, Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity, p. 83; see the account of improvisatory ethics in Samuel Wells, Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2004).

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Triangulation is required for a distinctly theological reason as well: Christians are disciples, followers, and, therefore, not pioneers of the faith. Thus, triangulation serves as a formal principle by which the material differences noted above may be navigated; triangulating imitation provides a hermeneutical matrix within which Christian witness ought to commence and forever remain. The manner of the disciple’s relationship to God must be distinguished from that of Jesus. While Christians are adopted children, the eternal Son is filially related to his Father by essence. Furthermore, while Jesus enjoyed perfect communion with the Father from all eternity past, Christians do so only as reconciled sinners, having been saved by the blood of the Lamb. The vocation of the disciple also differs from that of Christ himself. Witsius distinguished between Christ’s humanity and his mediation, suggesting that only the former should be imitated.99 That is, Christ’s obedience to the law may be considered apart from his messianic vocation, at least in theory. In such a strategy, Christ is analyzed as the perfect follower of yhwh. To do so, one may see similarity between Christ’s obedience and that of his disciples. Robert Sherman states: If we see ourselves in such a narrative, we should not be too quick to identify ourselves with the character of Christ, seeking to imitate him in some univocal fashion. Rather, we should identify ourselves with the disciples, recognizing how the conditions and obligations of their lives have been changed because of what Christ has accomplished for them, and because of the Spirit’s continuing power and guidance.100 Thus, triangulation provides needed nuance to the task of ethical imitation, patterning the life of faith after its pioneer as well as previous followers. The apostle Paul hastened imitation of himself and other Christian exemplars as a means to imitation of Christ (Phil. 2.19-30; 3.16; 1 Cor. 4.16; 11.1; Gal. 4.12; 1 Thess. 1.6; 2.14; 2 Thess. 3.7, 9), and the Apocalypse of John similarly enjoins Christians to imitate the saints that they might thereby follow Christ as well (Rev. 3.4-5, 21).101 The Epistle to the Hebrews explicitly

99

100 101

Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants, vol. 2, p. 34; cf. Stanley Hauerwas, The Peacable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), p. 76: ‘We are not called to be the initiators of the kingdom, we are not called upon to be God’s anointed. We are called upon to be like Jesus, not to be Jesus’. Sherman, King, Priest, and Prophet, p. 212. For a penetrating analysis of the ‘witness’ language in the seven letters to the churches as it applies to imitation and ethics, see Brian K. Blount, Can I Get a Witness? Reading Revelation through African American Culture (Louisville: Westminster John Knox,

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affirms this triangulation by prefacing its account of Jesus’s faith with a bevy of other examples (Heb. 11.4-12.1), twice affirming the principle of imitation of Jesus by imitation of forerunning disciples (Heb. 6.12; 13.7). In the sixth chapter of the Epistle, the writer exhorts his audience to further diligently their journey of salvation through acts of service and love, evidencing their maturity by continuing in the faith (Heb. 6.9-11). Diligence should be manifested by means of becoming ‘imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises’ (Heb. 6.12). The writer immediately identifies Abraham as a predecessor in the journey of faith (Heb. 6.13), pointing to Abraham’s patient endurance as worthy of mimetic repetition within the lives of Christians. In this regard, the moral principle of 6.12 predates the expansive treatment given to Abraham in Hebrews 11, where he is located among the other moral examples found throughout the Old Testament Scriptures. Again, the principle of contextualization requires that nonliteral repetition be employed for the sake of imitating saints who lived in cultural contexts long gone.102 Yet the writer expands this principle of triangulation to include imitation of his own contemporaries, that is, the leaders of the Hebrew communities to which he writes: ‘Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith’ (Heb. 13.7). The writer suggests that the ecclesial location of Christian ethics shapes the way in which Christians imitate Christ, by mediating this imitation through following their leaders as well as the examples found in Scripture. While this triangulation mediates imitatio Christi by the witness of other saints and texts, the connection between Christ’s faith and that of his followers is not negated. As Gene Outka states, ‘We find impassable differences between Jesus and all those who aspire to be his followers; and we discern fitting patterns of obedience despite the radical disjunctive’.103 Ecclesial 2002), pp. 47–48; for broader analysis of how the testimony of Jesus includes that of the churches according to the Apocalypse, see Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (NTT; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 72–73, 87–88; Sigve K. Tonstad, Saving God’s Reputation: The Theological Function of Pistis Iesou in the Cosmic Narratives of Revelation (LNTS337; London: T&T Clark, 2006), pp. 179–82, 185–94. 102

103

On the witness of Israel as context for triangulating Jesus’s own testimony, see Hauerwas, The Peacable Kingdom, pp. 77–79. The munus triplex as formed among Israel and typologically fulfilled in Jesus himself may provide appropriate categories for continuities and discontinuities between Christ and the people of God, according to Geoffrey Wainwright, For Our Salvation: Two Approaches to the Work of Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), pp. 178–80, 182–84; pace the near identical repetition of Christ’s munus triplex proposed by Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, pp. 425–75 (§41–45). Outka, ‘Following at a Distance: Ethics and the Identity of Jesus’, in Green (ed.), Scriptural Authority and Narrative Interpretation, p. 145.

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formation attends to the means of grace in order to render Christ’s presence in evocative ways; that is, attendant study of saints and Scriptures will critically appropriate the life of Christ within them. Fundamental asymmetry – the primacy of Christ as moral exemplar, the vere homo – shapes the way Christ is imitated by means of imitating his faithful-yet-imperfect witnesses. ally appropriate the life of Christ within them. Fundamental asymmetry – the primacy of Christ as moral exemplar, the vere homo – shapes the way Christ is imitated by means of imitating his faithful-yet-imperfect witnesses. The principle of triangulation must be mentioned last precisely because the primacy of Christ and the sinfulness of humanity preclude any obfuscation of Reformation soteriology. That is, Christian saints may never be elevated to a status befitting only Christ; solus Christus has ethical implications as well. Whereas Christ’s entire life was sinless and serves flawlessly as material content for ethical imitation (construed along cross-contextual lines), the lives of any disciple, apostle, or saints are neither spotlessly pure, nor always ethically useful paradigms.104 Even the most devout and loyal followers of Christ consistently mar their witness with acts of faithlessness. The witnesses adduced in Hebrews 11 point to this reality: Abraham, to choose only the most famous example, lied about his wife’s identity to avoid danger in Egypt (Gen. 12.13; 20.2).105 Surely this false testimony flows directly from his failure to trust God to protect him even when appearances are grim and dangers seem unmanageable. Yet Abraham’s sins do not preclude him from serving as an object of Christian imitation; his faith at other times serves as the example par excellence (Gen. 15.6). The primacy of Christ as the ‘royal man’ necessitates that his life (as interpreted in the Gospels) exercise an extensive witness not found in other faithful saints. Yet Christ’s vocation, unlike these others, will always be only analogous to that of the contemporary Christian. While other disciples will have widely divergent callings, thereby expressing their faith in diverse actions and contexts, none will be summoned to redeem the sinful world. Thus, though the faith of Christ will outshine that of his followers, the flowering of such faith will oftentimes be less directly applicable to the Christian due to Christ’s unique mediatory role and, hence, his singular way of loving his fellow creatures. Imitation of Christ will focus on Jesus, especially regarding trust and loyalty – faith itself – and will look to other witnesses of Christ’s faith for moral guidance as to how faith works itself out in loving service, welcome, and testimony.

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See, e.g., Barth, CD II/2, pp. 366–93, where the simultaneous election and reprobation of both Saul and David are analyzed at length. Isaac continues in the lying failures of his father (Gen. 26.6), yet he too, nonetheless, serves as a witness of faith in Hebrews (11.20).

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The Christ’s faith should be imitated analogously by Christian disciples. Such ethical praxis witnesses to the preceding grace of God, realistically acknowledges the varying provisions of the Holy Spirit, and triangulates faith’s testimony by means of considering Christ’s paradigmatic faith among the broader panoply of ‘saints’ within the Scriptures and the contemporary ecclesial context. More importantly, the imitation of Christ’s faith in no way excludes his vicarious representation as construed in the soteriology of the Protestant Reformation; his action pro nobis precedes and grounds his action in nobis, maintaining the fundamental asymmetry which follows from solus Christus. Both these soteriological functions – the vicarious and the imitative-exemplar – require the inclusion of faith in Christ’s human activity, for valid human relations to God the Father always root themselves in faith. Thus, Christ’s vicarious obedience pro nobis flowed from his unstinting trust in the Father’s blessing; similarly, his patient and enduring loyalty calls forth nonidentical repetition by those who would be his witnesses today.

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This dogmatic study demonstrates the coherence and necessity of the Christ’s faith. The argument has extended basic Christological and soteriological concerns and shown their logical and textually mandated implications by suggesting that the salvific necessity of Jesus’s human life should be secured by means of affirming the Christ’s faith. ‘Without faith it is impossible to please God’ (Heb. 11.6). Jesus Christ pleased God the Father, as demonstrated by the declarations at his baptism and transfiguration (Mt. 3.17; 17.5). Affirming that the Son truly became flesh, then, this study has addressed the entailment that the Son exercised human faith throughout his earthly journey. To that end, the dissent of Thomas Aquinas was debunked in two moves. First, by disputing Thomas’s doctrine of the perpetual possession of the beatific vision by the incarnate Christ, the human ignorance of Jesus was established. Second, faith was defined as involving both knowledge and trust. Thus, contra Thomas, the Christ need not lack faith due to his broad knowledge. The metaphysical coherence of the Christ’s human faith was demonstrated by articulating a radical version of divine perfection within which a Reformed version of the two natures was then articulated. The Christ’s assumption of a fallen human nature was suggested, and his dependence upon the vivifying work of the Holy Spirit was also demonstrated. Having shown the coherence of the faith of Jesus, the covenantal and ethical necessity of the claim was then demonstrated. First, three accounts of covenant theology were analyzed – Thomas Aquinas, federal theology, and Karl Barth – showing how they may benefit from appropriating some version of the doctrine (with necessary modifications noted). Finally, the theological necessity of faith for all human obedience was seen to necessitate the Christ’s faith, and the vicarious and imitative functions of 211

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this faith were analyzed within the sphere of Christian ethics. The human Christ truly exercised faith, and this trust of Jesus necessarily stood in the place of Christians as well as demonstrated their vocation as people of faith. John Calvin had it right in his hymn ‘I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art’: ‘Thou art the life, by which alone we live, And all our substance and our strength receive; Sustain us by Thy faith and by Thy power, And give us strength in every trying hour’.1 The Christ’s faith marked his life with persevering trust and obedient service. His perfection as vere homo grounds his vicarious work as ‘our substance’ as well as his ethicalimitative role as ‘our strength’. Only the truly human Messiah fulfilled the true vocation of humanity. To coherently affirm the dynamic humanity of Jesus and its soteriological importance, the faith of Christ must be confessed. Including this doctrine in the hymnody and witness of the church is both coherent and necessary, as well as a boon to dogmatic theology and biblical studies. Jesus is many things, to be sure, but he must be confessed as the faithful one, truly God and truly human. The faithful one vicariously believes – for he is our righteousness (1 Cor. 1.30) – and as the righteous one he summons forth our own faith. A spacious account of the life of Jesus Christ depicts his journey as undertaken in humble submission, marked by deep faith in the midst of the world’s terrors and misery. This faith of the Messiah perfectly fulfills the vocation of the Second Adam, thereby manifesting the firstfruits of the new creation and the pure testimony of the imago Dei. Jesus Christ has been faithful as a human; therefore, he has perfected humanity. He has fulfilled the divine law, righteously meeting every test with loyalty and trust. He has vanguished the foes of self-trust and autonomy by ever pointing to the gracious precedence of the triune God and, specifically, the ministry of the life-giving Holy Spirit. The Son has thus shown his perfect filiation in his manifold submission and trust before the Father’s calling and command. Eternity manifests itself in the economy whereby this Son’s personal trust in the Father shapes human identity henceforth; the Son raised and ascended to the Father’s right hand trusted persistently for ‘whoever would approach him must believe’ (Heb. 11.6). Thus, the faithful savior lives humanly, dynamically, and trustingly. In so doing Jesus of Nazareth embodies the covenantal response hearkened by the one true God’s law. And in this manner, and by such a course and journey, Christ Jesus demonstrates the true texture and shape of humanity and fulfills the law’s demand. A Christology attuned to the cardinal role of faith within covenantal theology will relate these two loci, the person and work of Christ

1

Calvin, John, ‘I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art’, in The Presbyterian Hymnal: Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs (trans. Elizabeth Lee Smith; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox): p. 457 (emphasis mine).

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Jesus. This study has pressed dogmatic theology to sustain its basic Christological affirmation when pressed with the question, ‘Did Jesus Have Faith’? The centrality of faith for all humans summoned forth by yhwh must be considered in the wake of a dogmatic account of the humanity assumed by the eternal Son of God. In this regard, this book points to the way in which faith is the morally – indeed covenantally – appropriate way of acknowledging the ontological shape of contingent human life before the face of the all-giving ‘Father of lights’ (Jas 1.17). Yet soteriology cannot be simply conflated with Christology, in as much as the life of Jesus Christ finds its correlative echo in the faith and prayers of his followers. Thus, contra Harink and Torrance, imputation and imitation need not be viewed as competitive; in fact, the faith Christ has for the sake of his people justifies them, freeing them from themselves that they might trust him all the more. Justification by Christ’s faith alone, then, is mediated by the summons of Christian faith and itself enriches and sustains this faith in the Messiah. Furthermore, contra Hays and Harink, the Christ’s faith does not conflict with an emphasis upon the need for disciples to believe, somehow providing a Christological narrative to oppose a modern anthropological gospel. The Christ’s faith grounds human standing before the judgment of the ‘day of the lord’ for those who are named by the Messiah as his people. In this regard, sola fide continues to guard the singular role of faith in receiving the person and benefits of Christ as one’s own. While the Reformation affirmed faith alone as the instrument for justification, it was equally insistent that only faith was an instrument for this justification based on the perfect work of Christ Jesus, the ‘one man’s obedience’ (Rom. 5.19). The church’s confession that the life of Christ Jesus manifests the perfection of human fellowship with God, in fact, requires the attestation of the Christ’s faith if his humanity is not to implode or expand the constraints of human identity. The Christ’s faith functions also to limit soteriology and eschatology by tying the person and work of Christ together, and by doing so rigorously within the bounds of creatureliness. Thus, the faith of Jesus consummates human dependence upon the life-giving grace of the triune God. Covenantal fellowship attains hypostatic depth in his being and, thus, his works; this asymmetrical union of divine and human sustains the possibility of his standing in the gap on behalf of humanity as it grounds the exemplary function of his moral life. This book has demonstrated one dogmatic rubric under which the life of Jesus may be shown to be salvifically constitutive and, therefore, both demonstrative for a distinctively Christian anthropology and evocative for Christian ethics. Further work should surely be done to derive more extensive ethical principles from the soteriological context sketched here; indeed, the principle of triangulation for imitatio Christi might serve as a paradigm for a canonically ruled, contemporary ethics. Wisely teasing out such details surely honors the contingency and 213

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complexity inherent in human flesh and sociality, an emphasis of the anthropological insights culled from attending to Christ’s own human form. While the disputed pistis Christou texts have not been examined here, the wider logic of the gospel has been shown spacious enough to envelop the newer interpretation of this phrase as referring to the Christ’s faith. Without jettisoning orthodox Christology and the major tenets of Reformation soteriology, the faithful submission of the human Jesus actually manifests the creaturely contours of his journey into the realm of temptation, his active pursuit of obedience in trust, and his continued return to the Father. While the subjective genitive interpretation may not be exegetically convincing in any particular case, rebuttal of this newer interpretation may no longer arise from simple dogmatic reticence. Furthermore, adoption of the subjective genitive need not ground a move toward ‘post-Protestant’ readings of the apostle Paul in as much as the subjective genitive coheres beautifully with the imputed active obedience of Jesus Christ, perhaps the distinctive doctrine of Reformation accounts of justification. Obviously, further exegetical study regarding these disputed texts ought to proceed unabated, yet it should be shaped by the dogmatic architecture sketched here. The Christ’s faith manifests his earthly life as the ultimate expression of human fellowship with the Holy Trinity: obedient to the Father, united to the eternal Son, enlivened by the life-giving Spirit. ‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us’ (John 1.14); divine assumption of human flesh is followed necessarily by incarnate journey and human fellowship. Thus, a dogmatic account of the human Christ and of the Christ’s work gains much from considering his faith and its fruits of obedience and love, so that the life of Christ may be affirmed as salvifically constitutive and anthropologically authentic. As demonstrated in this book, to speak of Jesus’s human life requires navigation of a number of dogmatic loci: anthropology, epistemology, covenant, Christological ontology, atonement, and ethics. The Christ’s faith, then, must be viewed within an appropriate dogmatic architecture if its exegetical and theological implications are to be perceived as the lovely hues of the gospel of the Word made flesh. When the delightful coherence – what Thomas would call the ‘fittingness’ – of the multi-faceted truth is made evident, this doctrine may be more faithfully handled in dogmatics, exegesis, and proclamation of the gospel.

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index Abelard, Peter 43 Achtemeier, Paul 12, 14 Adam, A. K. M. 140 Albert the Great 42 Allen, R. Michael 30, 127, 133, 154, 192 Alting, J. H. 196 Ames, William 160 Anatolios, Khaled 58 Aquinas, Thomas 3–7, 17, 22, 28–31, 35, 36–54, 56, 59, 61–2, 65–74, 78–84, 86–8, 91, 101, 103–4, 109–15, 120, 124–5, 128–9, 143–54, 163, 165, 176–80, 182, 184, 187–8, 201–2, 211, 214 Aristotle 42, 109 Armstrong, Brian 155 Ashley, Benedict 52, 61 Athanasius 31, 38, 58, 121 Attridge, Harold 187–8 Augustine of Hippo 5, 39, 41–2, 46, 53, 58, 69–70, 74–8, 82, 83, 87–8, 94, 97–8, 101–2, 109–12, 115–16, 124 Ayres, Lewis 109, 136 Badcock, Gary D. 140 Baker, J. Wayne 162 Balthasar, Hans Urs von 23, 172 Baltzer, Klaus 159 Barclay, John M.G. 185 Barnes, Michel 109 Barr, James 9–10, 18, 34 Barron, Robert 117 Barth, Karl 3, 5–7, 15–19, 24, 26, 31–2, 61, 63–9, 72, 73, 89, 92, 95–7, 99–100, 105, 113, 117, 119, 122, 129, 131, 137, 143–4, 154,

156, 165–82, 184, 187, 197–8, 203–5, 209, 211 Basil the Great 38 Bathrellos, Demetrios 121, 128–30 Bauckham, Richard 109, 140, 188, 208 Bauerschmidt, Frederick C. 145, 148, 153 Baugh, S. M. 187 Bavinck, Herman 29–31, 57, 65–6, 68, 73, 99–100, 181, 195–6 Berkouwer, G. C. 130, 132, 139, 156, 158–9, 164, 183, 197 Beza,Theodore 92, 154, 161 Bierma, Lyle D. 178 Biggar, Nigel 172 Blocher, Henri 132–4, 159 Blount, Brian K. 207 Bonney, William 71 Borodine, Myrrha 43 Bouillard, Henri 36 Bourassa, F. 111 Bovon, Francois 57 Brown, Raymond 70, 71 Brunner, Emil 59 Bucanus, Willhelm 94, 160 Buchanan, James 99 Buckley, Michael 114 Bullinger, Heinrich 154, 168 Bultmann, Rudolf 71, 98 Burrell, David 43, 110–11, 113–14 Busch, Eberhard 180 Butin, Philip W. 175 Calvin, John 5, 19, 28–30, 32, 59–60, 62, 69–70, 72–3, 83–9, 92, 94, 100, 107, 109, 113, 118, 125, 132–5, 154–5, 158–9, 161–2, 169, 171, 174, 186–8, 192, 201, 204, 212

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INDEX Galtier, Paul 121 Garcia, Mark A. 191 Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald 43 Gaston, Lloyd 158 Gavrilyuk, Paul 116 Gockel, Matthias 169 Gomarus, Franciscus 162 Gorman, Michael 13–15, 20 Gowan, Donald 108 Graafland, Cornelis 87 Grasser, Erich 188, 201 Green, Joel 60 Green, Garrett 104 Gregory the Great 39, 58 Gregory of Nazianzen 58, 64, 127 Gregory of Nyssa 40, 61, 129, 137 Grenz, Stanley 136, 196 Griffiths, Paul 110 Guillet, Jacques 23 Gundry, Robert 99 Gunton, Colin 23, 28, 107, 109–11, 114–16, 121, 127, 136 Gustafson, James M. 196, 204–6

Caponi, Francis J. 151 Cessario, Romanus 31, 36, 101, 150, 177 Charry, Ellen 43 Chenu, M.-D. 36, 82 Childs, Brevard 109–11 Chrysostom, John 117–18 Chung, Sung Wook 170 Clark, K. W. 186 Clark, R. Scott 156, 161 Cocceius, Johannes 156, 161 Colish, Marcia 42 Congar, Yves 36, 43 Crisp, Oliver 123, 127–8, 132–4 Cross, Richard 114–15, 124 Crowley, Paul G. 151 Croy, N. Clayton 200 Cyril of Jerusalem 67, 104 Daley, Brian 39 Dalferth, Ingolf 106 Damascene, John 121 Danielou, Jean 36 Davidson, Ivor 59 Davies, Brian 43, 115 DeHart, Paul J. 178 de Lubac, Henri 36, 146, 152, 179 Del Colle, Ralph 139–40 Derrida, Jacques 116 Dever, Mark 85, 92 Dodd, C. H. 118 Dorrien, Gary 178 Dowey, Edward A. 84, 178 Dulles, Avery 98, 101, 103–5 Dunn, James D. G. 12, 14–15, 98–9, 134, 139 Dunnill, John 201 Dupre, Louis 114

Hagner, Donald 63 Hall, Pamela M. 147 Hanby, Michael 75–7 Hardy, R. P. 76 Harink, Douglas 2, 16, 23–4, 95, 97–9, 172–4, 192, 213 Harnack, Adolf von 109, 136 Harrison, Carol 75–6 Hart, David Bentley 114 Hart, Trevor A. 138–9 Hauerwas, Stanley 24, 113–14, 193, 208 Haussleiter, Johannes 9 Hawthorne, Gerald 137 Hays, Richard 9–15, 20, 24, 35, 213 Hector, Kevin W. 120, 140, 171 Heinzer, Felix 123 Helm, Paul 19, 86, 92, 113, 115–16 Heppe, Heinrich 29–30, 93, 94, 161, 190–1, 199 Herbert, A. G. 9–10 Hesselink, I. John 174 Hilary of Poitiers 57 Hodge, A. A. 157 Hoekema, A. A. 156 Hofer, Andrew 149 Hofius, Otfried 134 Holmes, Christopher 111

Ebeling, Gerhard 17–18 Edmondson, Stephen 30, 107 Eutyches 121 Fairbairn, Donald 119, 121, 123 Fishbane, Michael 108 Fitzmyer, Joseph A. 134 Florovsky, Georges 119 Ford, David F. 34 Forde, Gerhard O. 111, 127 Fowl, Stephen E. 205 Franks, Christopher 115 Fretheim, Terence 108

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INDEX Holmes, Stephen 123 Hooker, Morna 2, 4, 25, 183–4, 194 Horton, Michael 23–5, 30, 60–1, 107, 116, 119, 158, 161, 163–4, 178 Howard, George 9–10 Hugenburger, Gordon P. 157 Hughes, Christopher 43 Hughes, Graham 102 Hughes, P. E. 41 Hunsinger, George 112–14, 119, 168, 176, 178, 181 Hutter, Reinhard 43, 83 Iersel, Bas van 58 Jenkins, John 45, 48, 78–9 Jensen, Robert W. 110, 112, 121–2, 136, 181, 191 John Paul II 153 Johnson, Luke Timothy 10–15, 20, 100, 102, 188, 201, 204 Johnson, William Stacy 97, 99 Jordan, Mark D. 42, 145–6, 148 Jungel, Eberhard 72, 98–9, 111, 119, 167, 169, 195, 199 Kapic, Kelly 119, 126, 164 Kasemann, Ernst 12, 118, 195 Keating, Daniel 67 Kendall, Daniel 6, 7, 21–2, 67, 187, 200 Kendall, R. T. 32, 85, 92, 154 Kerr, Fergus 42, 110, 114, 146, 177 Kettler, Christian 18 Kittel, Gerhard 9 Kline, Meredith G. 159 Knight, George 109 Knoppers, Gary N. 159 Krotke, Wolf 174 Kuhn, Ulrich 149 LaBonnardiere, A.-M. 77 LaCugna, Mowry 111 Lampe, G. W. 139 LaPorte, Jean-Marc 145 Larsson, Edvin 12 Lash, Nicholas 33 Leontius of Byzantium 39 Lessing, Gottfried 72 Levering, Matthew 48, 51, 62, 115–16, 136, 148–50, 181

Lillback, Peter 19, 158, 161 Lindars, Barnabus 62–3, 65, 101–3 Lindsay, Mark R. 180 Lombard, Peter 17 Lonergan, Bernard 39 Long, Stephen D. 195 Longenecker, Richard 11 Loughlin, Gerard 206 Louth, Andrew 119 Luther, Martin 72, 109, 111, 191, 197 Luz, Ulrich 194 McCarthy, Dennis J. 159 McCormack, Bruce 30, 62, 95, 124, 169–70, 173–5, 190 McCoy, Charles 155 MacFarland, Ian 119 McGlasson, Paul 107 McGowan, A. T. B. 190 McGrath, Alister 155 McIntyre, John 104 Mackey, James 23 Mackie, Scott D. 188 Macleod, Donald 19, 127–8 Madigan, Kevin 58 Mahoney, Edward 42 Maloney, Raymond 38–9 Marina, Jacqueline 196 Marshall, Bruce D. 62, 124, 136, 158 Martin, Francis 148 Martyn, J. Louis 187 Mascall, Eric 123 Mastricht, Peter van 93 Meconi, David Vincent 124 Meeks, Wayne 32 Melanchthon, Philip 198 Meyendorff, John 61, 68 Milbank, John 36, 42, 46, 114, 146 Miller, James C. 200 Moberly, Walter 23–4, 192–4 Moiser, Jeremy 204 Molnar, Paul D. 171, 181 Moo, Douglas 12, 15, 99, 134, 185 Muhlen, Heribert 130 Muller, Richard 19, 32, 83, 84, 86–7, 115, 154–6, 178 Murphy, Francesca 43 Murray, John 19–20, 100, 156–7 Nardoni, Enrique 206 Nestorius 125

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INDEX Nichols, Aidan 36 Noth, Martin 108 Oberman, Heiko 53 O’Collins, Gerald 6–7, 21–2, 67, 187, 200 Olevianus, Caspar 162 Origen 72, 100 Outka, Gene 203, 208 Owen, John 29–31, 56, 58–60, 120, 131, 137, 159–60 Pannenberg, Wolfhart 17–18, 33 Pauw, Amy Plantinga 156 Perkins, William 161–2 Pesch, Otto Hermann 36–7, 41, 45 Peterson, David 63–4, 67, 200–2 Philo 108 Pickstock, Catherine 42, 46, 114 Pitkin, Barbara 84, 87 Placher, William 71, 106, 109, 111, 114, 116, 179, 189 Plato 109 Polanus, Amandus 160 Powell, Samuel M. 136 Przywara, Erich 43 Rahner, Karl 23, 106, 140 Ridderbos, Herman 71–2, 186 Ritschl, Albrecht 136, 196 Robertson, O. Palmer 157 Rocca, Gregory 43, 45 Rogers, Eugene F. 136 Rogers, Jack 139, 178 Rohls, Jan 106 Rolston, Holmes 154 Rowe, C. Kavin 140 Rowe, W. V. 109 Russo, Richard 202

Silva, Moises 64 Sobrino, Jon 21–2, 32–3 Somme, Luc 43 Sonderegger, Katherine 180 Soskice, Janet Martin 46, 110–11, 114–15 Soulen, R. Kendall 62 Spence, Alan 131 Spencer, F. Scott 202 Spencer, Stephen 44 Steinmetz, David 19, 83 Stendahl, Krister 158 Strecker, Christian 99 Stubbs, David 2 Suarez, Francisco 114 Swetnam, James 64 Tanner, Kathryn 45, 61, 65, 113, 124, 137, 179, 181, 198, 204–6 Telford, W. R. 58 Thielicke, Helmut 184 Thompson, Marianne 117 Thusing, Wilhelm 23 Tischpke, Theophil 151 Tonstad, Sigve K. 208 Torrance, James B. 16–19, 155, 162, 174, 195 Torrance, Thomes F. 9–10, 16–19, 158, 195, 197–8, 200, 213 Torrell, Jean-Pierre 36, 41, 61, 149, 152 Treier, Daniel 34, 192 Trueman, Carl 67, 139, 154, 178 Turretin, Francis 29–30, 55–6, 58, 64–6, 92–4, 100, 157–60, 186 Ursinus, Zacharias 158, 161, 163

Sakenfeld, Katharine 99 Schenk, Richard 148 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 68, 95, 140, 195–6, 200, 208 Schmid, Heinrich 94, 190 Schoot, Henk J. M. 148 Schwobel, Christoph 120 Scott, J. L. 167 Scotus, Duns 114–16 Seitz, Christopher 107, 109 Shepherd, Victor 85 Sherman, Robert J. 193, 195, 203, 207

242

Valkenberg, W. G. B. M. 37 vanAsselt, William J. 156, 161 vanDriel, Edwin Chr. 171 VanDrunen, David 156 Vanhoozer, Kevin 35, 206 Van Nieuwenhove, Rik 149 Velde, Rudi te 114, 146 Vos, Geerhardus 157, 161, 164 Wainwright, Geoffrey 208 Wallis, Ian 14 Walsh, Liam 31 Watson, Francis 186 Watson, Thomas 129–30

INDEX Wawrykow, Joseph P. 150 Webb-Mitchell, Brett P. 206 Webster, John 12, 26–7, 32, 34, 95–7, 115, 120, 127–8, 166, 172, 174, 184, 195, 197–200, 205 Weinandy, Thomas G 122–3, 125, 127–8, 136, 139, 141 Weinfeld, Moshe 159 Weir, David A. 155, 158 Wells, Samuel 206 Wendel, Francois 83 Westfall, Cynthia 102 Wickham, Lionel 39 Williams, A. N. 43 Williams, Rowan 139

Willis, E. David 53 Wistius, Herman 138, 144, 158–9, 161, 207 Wolfe, Alan 105 Wollebius, Johannes 160, 199 Wright, N. T. 192, 194 Wyman, Walter 196 Wyschogrod, Michael 148 Yeago, David S. 140 Yoder, John Howard 24 Zachman, Randall 85–6, 118 Zagzebski, Linda 204 Zwingli, Huldrych 154, 168

243