Exploring Kenotic Christology: The
Self-Emptying of God
Edited by C. Stephen Evans
Ars Disputandi
Volume 7 (2007)
: 1566–5399
Ivor J. Davidson
,
Exploring Kenotic Christology: The
Self-Emptying of God
Edited by C. Stephen Evans
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006; xii + 348 pp; hb. £ 50.00; :
0–19–928322–2.
[1] A principle of divine kenosis or condescension in some sense lies at the
heart of any incarnational Christology: for God to elect to be graciously present
among us in the person of Jesus Christ, divine humility of an unfathomable order
is involved. Quite how that principle should be understood, and quite what
should be done with it in intellectual and practical terms, are matters on which
theologians have differed widely. ‘Kenotic’ Christologies of a modern sort first
took shape in the nineteenth century, as an attempt to speak of what it meant for
a divine identity to live a genuinely human life as a finite historical individual,
Jesus of Nazareth. Such approaches varied a good deal, but all assumed that
in some way or other God the Son must have divested himself of certain divine
properties, prerogatives or functions, or even limited his divine being, for the
purpose of existing in human form.
[2]
‘Kenoticism’ of this type had its critics from the start. Viewed from the
right, it was said to compromise vital aspects of orthodoxy: it undermined the
unity and immutability of God; then again, it eroded, implicitly or explicitly, the
reality that divinity was manifest in flesh. Viewed from the left, however, it did not
go far enough: it continued to hold to an untenable mythology of a divinely preexistent Christ; it betrayed a lingering docetism at odds with the Grundaxiom that
Christology must begin ‘below’. Partly in deference to such criticisms, partly as a
consequence of other impulses, later-twentieth-century kenotic projects sought to
formulate their proposals in broader ways—to envision kenosis as an expression
of a more general divine disposition in regard to creation; to picture divine selffulfilment as lying precisely in self-sacrifice rather than immutability as classically
conceived; to emphasize the ethical import of a ‘Christic’ pattern of life expressed
symbolically (but not necessarily definitively) in Jesus. Kenosis became a conveniently malleable motif, capable of being pressed in diverse directions according
to the putative dictates of a late-modern context. New versions of old questions
emerged in turn, about the metaphysics of divine self-giving in creating, being
present, suffering and dying; about the degree to which the radical Jesus attested
in the gospels is actually God in person as distinct from a mere cipher for divinity;
and – not least – about the dangers of deploying an ideal of self-abnegation as a
tool of social control.
c January 22, 2007, Ars Disputandi. If you would like to cite this article, please do so as follows:
Ivor J. Davidson, ‘Review of Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God,’ Ars Disputandi [http://www.
ArsDisputandi.org] 7 (2007), paragraph number.Ivor J. Davidson: Review of Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God
[3]
Recent years have witnessed a renaissance of interest in kenotic Christologies among philosophers of religion in particular. The editor and several of
the contributors to this volume – C. Stephen Evans, Stephen T. Davis and Ronald
J. Feenstra in particular – have been among the most notable of writers on the
subject in the North American context. Here they have come together with other
theologians and biblical scholars to give further consideration to the theme. The
papers collected in this work were first presented at a meeting held at Calvin
College in May 2002, then revised for publication. There are eleven substantive
chapters plus an introduction and conclusion. Most are strongly in favour of one
form or another of kenotic Christology, though some are more explicit than others
as to what this form might in fact be, and two (by Sarah Coakley and Edwin Chr.
van Driel) are overtly critical of modern styles of kenoticism, albeit appreciative
of the issues with which they seek to grapple. Overall, the thrust of the book is
to contend that a kenotic Christology can be biblically grounded, theologically
orthodox, philosophically coherent and spiritually evocative.
[4]
The greatest problem with the work is that it nowhere makes clear
exactly what, according to its proponents’ common opinion, a contemporary
kenotic Christology ought to look like. The biblical scholars, Gordon D. Fee and
Bruce N. Fisk, simply state their support for the logic of kenosis as scriptural
without committing themselves to any particular dogmatic account of it. Fee
offers a rapid survey of the New Testament’s depiction of Christ’s humanity as no
less vital than his divinity, and talks of the overall picture as suggesting some form
of kenotic position. Fair enough. But whether what we might call the essential
‘twofoldness’ of the biblical story is best characterized in terms of ‘ambiguity’ is
debatable, and quite how that duality is to be spoken of has of course been the
crux all along. Whether modern kenoticism of one kind or another offers the right
approach to the matter we are not told. Fisk’s chapter sketches a comparison of
Phil. 2:6–11 with the world of Graeco-Roman fiction, and asks how the portrayal
of Christ’s self-humbling might have sounded to Paul’s contemporaries. The
question is of interest, but sheds little light on the conceptual issues regarding
kenotic theory as such. Edward T. Oakes, SJ expounds Balthasar’s theology of
Holy Saturday, and sets Balthasar’s contribution against the background of the
descensus ad inferos tradition in Western thought. He says little, however, about
his subject’s relationship to other accounts of Christological kenosis in modernity.
In a useful chapter on ‘Kenosis and Feminist Theory’, Ruth Groenhout offers a
response to the common charge that Christological self-emptying is necessarily
a negative image for women. Groenhout argues that a certain conception of
self-sacrifice is in fact highly congenial to an ethic that is truly feminist—and
such a right conception of self-sacrifice can, in Christian terms, only be secured
with central reference to Jesus Christ. This is valuable—but its force is to uphold
the practical legitimacy of Christological kenosis in general, not of any particular
account of it.
[5] Within the more focused attempts to advocate the philosophical and theological validity of a kenotic theory of the incarnation in the modern sense, there is
also a lack of clarity and consistency as to what form such an account should take.
Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), http://www.ArsDisputandi.orgIvor J. Davidson: Review of Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God
Individual contributors implicitly or explicitly adopt specific versions of kenosis,
and one essay (by Thomas R. Thompson) seeks to trace the various trajectories
of nineteenth-century (and some later) kenoticism. In general, though, there is
a tendency to treat ‘kenotic Christology’ as a reasonably stable category, which
can be regarded as possessing a certain set of basic characteristics in spite of all
the acknowledged diversity – indeed, inconsistency – represented in the modern
period. This may be defensible, but oddly enough the characteristics in question
are nowhere precisely specified. We hear of a ‘family of theories’ (p. 313) whose
distinguishing features are never summarized in so many words as the shared
perspective of its advocates.
[6]
In turn, there is some ambiguity as to whether kenotic Christology in a
specific sense is proposed as an alternative to more traditional models of ontological incarnation, or as one especially fruitful way of faithfully interpreting a classical
inheritance. Evans seems to favour the latter position at times (p. 195), and he and
his fellow-enthusiasts certainly maintain that a kenotic account can be thoroughly
compatible with the parameters established by Scripture and confessional tradition. Davis in particular labours (a little pedantically, I think) to demonstrate that
kenosis thus construed is ‘orthodox’, insisting that he has never been ‘an enemy of
non-kenotic theories of the Incarnation’ (p. 137). Evans acknowledges the shared
view of the authors that kenotic theorizing, like other styles of Christology, deserves to be advanced tentatively and with humility (p. 5). Even so, in their shared
conclusion to the book, Davis and Evans seek to ‘issue a challenge to traditional
theories of the Incarnation. . . ’ (p. 24). To these two writers at least, it is plainly
the case that a ‘full-fledged’ kenotic model ‘offers the best hope of an account of
the Incarnation that is genuinely orthodox and yet does complete justice to the
biblical portraits of Jesus’ (p. 321). As van Driel puts it, there is indeed ‘a polemic
twist’ (p. 265) directed against most of the post-Chalcedonian Western tradition
in the end, even if Chalcedon’s parameters are still affirmed as vital.
[7]
The general tone of exploratory enquiry is of course welcome, and there
is no simplistic dismissal of classical tradition. The contributors are aware that
they are dealing with a complex legacy when they speak of kenotic theory in its
modern varieties, and they do not pretend that they can address all of the issues
cast up by that lineage. Even so, it would have served the interests of clarity to
offer a more specific analytical exposition of what might be deemed essential to a
kenotic model in the twenty-first century, to trace out its specific inspiration and
relationship to other historical expressions of kenotic logic, and then to set out
a series of candid arguments as to why that model, as agreed by its advocates,
should be deemed preferable – for preferable it evidently seems to be – to some
other account of the incarnation’s entailments. As the writers well know, there is
a long way from Thomasius to Balthasar, from Mackintosh to Macquarrie.
[8]
Evans himself proposes a fairly broad and simple sketch of kenosis
(pp. 195–9): there is genuine divine divestment of certain qualities, genuine
change in God, in the choice to live a finite human existence; the fact that God is
able freely to restrict himself amplifies rather than violates the principle of divine
perfection. So far, so good. But it is not clear that this presentation of divine
Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), http://www.ArsDisputandi.orgIvor J. Davidson: Review of Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God
self-emptying would quite go far enough for all of Evans’ colleagues. Thompson,
for his part, ends his survey of nineteenth-century contributions with the startling
proposal that the best way forward for a twenty-first-century kenoticist might lie
in the approach of W. F. Gess, in whose account the pre-existent divine Word literally becomes flesh, directly identical with the human, rational soul of Jesus, only
gaining consciousness of a divine origin and mission via a gradual process of human spiritual development (p. 111). When Thompson and (Cornelius) Plantinga
later speak of a consistent kenotic Christology as positing the view that the Logos
‘became flesh in a human rational soul’ (p. 188, emphasis added; cf. also p. 169) it is
presumably this Gessian construal that is in mind. Yet, having acknowledged in
his essay that Gess’ Christology was widely criticized in its own time for failing
to secure the reality of divinity in Christ (p. 87), Thompson offers no defence of
his would-be exemplar against that charge; the task is merely deferred for future
study. Such an enigmatic conclusion not only leaves the reader guessing at one
crucial point; it begs the question of whether such a version of radical kenosis
could be affirmed by some of the other contributors to the book.
[9]
Evans, Davis and Feenstra each imply that in becoming incarnate the
Word is not quite transformed into something else as such (though transformation
‘of some kind’ is spoken of by Evans: p. 197); rather, the Word voluntarily gives
up, or does not make use of (both are said at different points) divine attributes
that otherwise are his. This is a much more careful position than that of Gess—or,
apparently, of Thompson. However, confusion over the distinction between kenosis and metamorphosis abounds elsewhere: Oakes begins his chapter on Balthasar
with the supposition that the ‘becoming’ spoken of in the incarnation of the Word
must mean that the infinite was ‘turned into’ the finite (pp. 218–19)—a construal
that might be news to a lot of orthodox Christologists. Classical theologians over
rather a long time laboured to safeguard the point that ‘assumption’ did not, in
fact, equal ‘transformation into’ at all, no matter what the pressure to suppose
otherwise.
[10]
It is of course entirely up to the authors to assume and defend whatever
versions of kenotic Christology they believe to be persuasive, and there is no
reason in principle why they should not espouse a range of different positions
within a spectrum. What is disappointing, however, is the failure to delineate as
clearly as possible the boundaries that that spectrum might take as adopted by a
group of writers who see themselves as both kenoticist and faithful to Chalcedon.
The motivations and metaphysics of modern kenotic Christologies simply vary
too much to be designated a common framework without further explication.
Some versions of kenosis are strongly ontological in nature; others are far more
functionalist. The book reveals the perils of not determining as clearly as possible
the distinctions between the two. In the one case, the Word surrenders (for one
period or another, or perhaps for ever) certain properties that are basic to divine
being; in the other, the Word does not exercise (again, for one period or another,
or perhaps for ever) certain divine functions that may be something other than
essential. The latter view, illustrated perhaps most famously by Charles Gore,
is much closer to a classical account of the incarnation. Quite how close, of
Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), http://www.ArsDisputandi.orgIvor J. Davidson: Review of Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God
course, depends on what it means not to exercise divine functions, and what the
relationship of such functions to ‘natures’ might be. Here again styles vary. The
advocates of a literally depotentiated divinity (‘a kenotically weakened Son’, p. 188,
emphasis added) may well favour something rather a long way from the Christ
whose divine nature is said to maintain its properties ‘without confusion, without
change, without division, without separation’.
[11] As they have always done, kenotic Christologies invite questions about
what it means to determine divine attributes. What is essential and what is not,
and how do we know? Can ‘true’ deity be differentiated from ‘full’ deity, and if
so, how? In some places here, it appears to be suggested that God’s attributes
have to be rethought so profoundly in the light of the incarnation that we question
whether omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence and so on are in fact basic to
God at all (deliverances of Anselmian method rather than of Scripture); in others,
it is said that such qualities remain basic-unless-otherwise-not-exercised, and a
kenotic God, as glimpsed in incarnation, is ‘greater’ specifically in Anselm’s terms
than a God who is, say, impassible and immutable. At one moment, the kenosis of
taking flesh in Jesus of Nazareth appears to involve constitutive change for God;
at another, self-emptying is what God is doing all the time in relating to creation,
and the incarnation is the definitive instantiation of a general state of affairs for
divinity.
[12] One of the keys to greater clarity would, of course, be a more substantive exposition of the trinitarian relations that are disclosed in the action of
taking on and living an incarnate existence. Here, too, however, there are some
disappointments. Thompson and Plantinga try to argue that kenosis is not only
most compatible with, but even dependent for its viability upon, what they want
to call a ‘social’ understanding of the Trinity. The questions which their argument
begs are too extensive to be easily summarized in a few lines, but not the least
is the authors’ tendency to perpetuate now-widely-challenged misconceptions
about the relationship between ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ versions of triune personhood, and their failure to address the possibility that one might well speak of the
‘becoming’ of the Son in obedience to the Father through the Spirit in ways that
do not necessarily presuppose a crudely analogical association between human
inter-relationality and the fellowship that inheres between divine persons. In any
event, Thompson’s and Plantinga‘s chapter remains more of an attempted defence of social trinitarianism than an explanation of why it should be that kenotic
Christology requires such a thing. It is not clear, in the end, why the contention
that it is ‘one and the same Son’ who became incarnate should necessitate the
actual form of ‘social’ model that is envisioned.
[13]
In their concluding chapter, Davis and Evans speak of the powerful spiritual significance of a view of God as one who is intrinsically self-surrendering
in love for the world. All this is quite right, and serves to demonstrate the rich,
indeed essential, possibilities of kenosis as a theological theme. What it does not
do, I believe, is explain convincingly why one particular kenotic understanding
of incarnational metaphysics is so obviously to be preferred to other approaches.
Here the more critical contributions of Coakley and van Driel deserve a very seArs Disputandi 7 (2007), http://www.ArsDisputandi.orgIvor J. Davidson: Review of Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God
rious hearing. As these two authors suggest, there may be plenty of ground for
holding that everything that truly is biblical and vital about the manifestation of
the divine freedom to be human can be said quite well without taking a kenoticist
route in the modern sense, or allowing a certain philosophical quest for coherence between allegedly competing entities to dominate Christology’s enterprise.
Patristic and medieval accounts may provide resources for saying some of what
later kenoticists wish to say, but in a pointedly different register. ‘The kenotic theologian is mistaken if she thinks that her classical colleague stands embarrassed
when the New Testament tells us about a Jesus who grows in knowledge and
grace, who is at times ignorant, hungry, tired, or frustrated’ (van Driel, p. 286; an
incidental point: van Driel confuses Constantinople II and III on p. 290).
[14]
It is a pity that the book does not offer more extended space to such
arguments, or consider why it might be that the sorts of answers which the
nineteenth century generated were not considered necessary earlier (it will hardly
do to suppose that pre-modern theologians were somehow all closet docetists, or
philosophically naïve). Could it in fact be the case, as Coakley suggests, that
modern kenotic Christology – as distinct from the no-less-thoughtful accounts of
kenosis offered by earlier thinkers – ‘rests on a mistake’? The collection contains
some thought-provoking material, but a more sustained and organized dialogue
between the enthusiasts and the critics of kenoticism as a specifically demarcated
– and frankly modern – theory would have made for richer stimulus overall.
Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), http://www.ArsDisputandi.org
'via Blog this'
Self-Emptying of God
Edited by C. Stephen Evans
Ars Disputandi
Volume 7 (2007)
: 1566–5399
Ivor J. Davidson
,
Exploring Kenotic Christology: The
Self-Emptying of God
Edited by C. Stephen Evans
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006; xii + 348 pp; hb. £ 50.00; :
0–19–928322–2.
[1] A principle of divine kenosis or condescension in some sense lies at the
heart of any incarnational Christology: for God to elect to be graciously present
among us in the person of Jesus Christ, divine humility of an unfathomable order
is involved. Quite how that principle should be understood, and quite what
should be done with it in intellectual and practical terms, are matters on which
theologians have differed widely. ‘Kenotic’ Christologies of a modern sort first
took shape in the nineteenth century, as an attempt to speak of what it meant for
a divine identity to live a genuinely human life as a finite historical individual,
Jesus of Nazareth. Such approaches varied a good deal, but all assumed that
in some way or other God the Son must have divested himself of certain divine
properties, prerogatives or functions, or even limited his divine being, for the
purpose of existing in human form.
[2]
‘Kenoticism’ of this type had its critics from the start. Viewed from the
right, it was said to compromise vital aspects of orthodoxy: it undermined the
unity and immutability of God; then again, it eroded, implicitly or explicitly, the
reality that divinity was manifest in flesh. Viewed from the left, however, it did not
go far enough: it continued to hold to an untenable mythology of a divinely preexistent Christ; it betrayed a lingering docetism at odds with the Grundaxiom that
Christology must begin ‘below’. Partly in deference to such criticisms, partly as a
consequence of other impulses, later-twentieth-century kenotic projects sought to
formulate their proposals in broader ways—to envision kenosis as an expression
of a more general divine disposition in regard to creation; to picture divine selffulfilment as lying precisely in self-sacrifice rather than immutability as classically
conceived; to emphasize the ethical import of a ‘Christic’ pattern of life expressed
symbolically (but not necessarily definitively) in Jesus. Kenosis became a conveniently malleable motif, capable of being pressed in diverse directions according
to the putative dictates of a late-modern context. New versions of old questions
emerged in turn, about the metaphysics of divine self-giving in creating, being
present, suffering and dying; about the degree to which the radical Jesus attested
in the gospels is actually God in person as distinct from a mere cipher for divinity;
and – not least – about the dangers of deploying an ideal of self-abnegation as a
tool of social control.
c January 22, 2007, Ars Disputandi. If you would like to cite this article, please do so as follows:
Ivor J. Davidson, ‘Review of Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God,’ Ars Disputandi [http://www.
ArsDisputandi.org] 7 (2007), paragraph number.Ivor J. Davidson: Review of Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God
[3]
Recent years have witnessed a renaissance of interest in kenotic Christologies among philosophers of religion in particular. The editor and several of
the contributors to this volume – C. Stephen Evans, Stephen T. Davis and Ronald
J. Feenstra in particular – have been among the most notable of writers on the
subject in the North American context. Here they have come together with other
theologians and biblical scholars to give further consideration to the theme. The
papers collected in this work were first presented at a meeting held at Calvin
College in May 2002, then revised for publication. There are eleven substantive
chapters plus an introduction and conclusion. Most are strongly in favour of one
form or another of kenotic Christology, though some are more explicit than others
as to what this form might in fact be, and two (by Sarah Coakley and Edwin Chr.
van Driel) are overtly critical of modern styles of kenoticism, albeit appreciative
of the issues with which they seek to grapple. Overall, the thrust of the book is
to contend that a kenotic Christology can be biblically grounded, theologically
orthodox, philosophically coherent and spiritually evocative.
[4]
The greatest problem with the work is that it nowhere makes clear
exactly what, according to its proponents’ common opinion, a contemporary
kenotic Christology ought to look like. The biblical scholars, Gordon D. Fee and
Bruce N. Fisk, simply state their support for the logic of kenosis as scriptural
without committing themselves to any particular dogmatic account of it. Fee
offers a rapid survey of the New Testament’s depiction of Christ’s humanity as no
less vital than his divinity, and talks of the overall picture as suggesting some form
of kenotic position. Fair enough. But whether what we might call the essential
‘twofoldness’ of the biblical story is best characterized in terms of ‘ambiguity’ is
debatable, and quite how that duality is to be spoken of has of course been the
crux all along. Whether modern kenoticism of one kind or another offers the right
approach to the matter we are not told. Fisk’s chapter sketches a comparison of
Phil. 2:6–11 with the world of Graeco-Roman fiction, and asks how the portrayal
of Christ’s self-humbling might have sounded to Paul’s contemporaries. The
question is of interest, but sheds little light on the conceptual issues regarding
kenotic theory as such. Edward T. Oakes, SJ expounds Balthasar’s theology of
Holy Saturday, and sets Balthasar’s contribution against the background of the
descensus ad inferos tradition in Western thought. He says little, however, about
his subject’s relationship to other accounts of Christological kenosis in modernity.
In a useful chapter on ‘Kenosis and Feminist Theory’, Ruth Groenhout offers a
response to the common charge that Christological self-emptying is necessarily
a negative image for women. Groenhout argues that a certain conception of
self-sacrifice is in fact highly congenial to an ethic that is truly feminist—and
such a right conception of self-sacrifice can, in Christian terms, only be secured
with central reference to Jesus Christ. This is valuable—but its force is to uphold
the practical legitimacy of Christological kenosis in general, not of any particular
account of it.
[5] Within the more focused attempts to advocate the philosophical and theological validity of a kenotic theory of the incarnation in the modern sense, there is
also a lack of clarity and consistency as to what form such an account should take.
Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), http://www.ArsDisputandi.orgIvor J. Davidson: Review of Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God
Individual contributors implicitly or explicitly adopt specific versions of kenosis,
and one essay (by Thomas R. Thompson) seeks to trace the various trajectories
of nineteenth-century (and some later) kenoticism. In general, though, there is
a tendency to treat ‘kenotic Christology’ as a reasonably stable category, which
can be regarded as possessing a certain set of basic characteristics in spite of all
the acknowledged diversity – indeed, inconsistency – represented in the modern
period. This may be defensible, but oddly enough the characteristics in question
are nowhere precisely specified. We hear of a ‘family of theories’ (p. 313) whose
distinguishing features are never summarized in so many words as the shared
perspective of its advocates.
[6]
In turn, there is some ambiguity as to whether kenotic Christology in a
specific sense is proposed as an alternative to more traditional models of ontological incarnation, or as one especially fruitful way of faithfully interpreting a classical
inheritance. Evans seems to favour the latter position at times (p. 195), and he and
his fellow-enthusiasts certainly maintain that a kenotic account can be thoroughly
compatible with the parameters established by Scripture and confessional tradition. Davis in particular labours (a little pedantically, I think) to demonstrate that
kenosis thus construed is ‘orthodox’, insisting that he has never been ‘an enemy of
non-kenotic theories of the Incarnation’ (p. 137). Evans acknowledges the shared
view of the authors that kenotic theorizing, like other styles of Christology, deserves to be advanced tentatively and with humility (p. 5). Even so, in their shared
conclusion to the book, Davis and Evans seek to ‘issue a challenge to traditional
theories of the Incarnation. . . ’ (p. 24). To these two writers at least, it is plainly
the case that a ‘full-fledged’ kenotic model ‘offers the best hope of an account of
the Incarnation that is genuinely orthodox and yet does complete justice to the
biblical portraits of Jesus’ (p. 321). As van Driel puts it, there is indeed ‘a polemic
twist’ (p. 265) directed against most of the post-Chalcedonian Western tradition
in the end, even if Chalcedon’s parameters are still affirmed as vital.
[7]
The general tone of exploratory enquiry is of course welcome, and there
is no simplistic dismissal of classical tradition. The contributors are aware that
they are dealing with a complex legacy when they speak of kenotic theory in its
modern varieties, and they do not pretend that they can address all of the issues
cast up by that lineage. Even so, it would have served the interests of clarity to
offer a more specific analytical exposition of what might be deemed essential to a
kenotic model in the twenty-first century, to trace out its specific inspiration and
relationship to other historical expressions of kenotic logic, and then to set out
a series of candid arguments as to why that model, as agreed by its advocates,
should be deemed preferable – for preferable it evidently seems to be – to some
other account of the incarnation’s entailments. As the writers well know, there is
a long way from Thomasius to Balthasar, from Mackintosh to Macquarrie.
[8]
Evans himself proposes a fairly broad and simple sketch of kenosis
(pp. 195–9): there is genuine divine divestment of certain qualities, genuine
change in God, in the choice to live a finite human existence; the fact that God is
able freely to restrict himself amplifies rather than violates the principle of divine
perfection. So far, so good. But it is not clear that this presentation of divine
Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), http://www.ArsDisputandi.orgIvor J. Davidson: Review of Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God
self-emptying would quite go far enough for all of Evans’ colleagues. Thompson,
for his part, ends his survey of nineteenth-century contributions with the startling
proposal that the best way forward for a twenty-first-century kenoticist might lie
in the approach of W. F. Gess, in whose account the pre-existent divine Word literally becomes flesh, directly identical with the human, rational soul of Jesus, only
gaining consciousness of a divine origin and mission via a gradual process of human spiritual development (p. 111). When Thompson and (Cornelius) Plantinga
later speak of a consistent kenotic Christology as positing the view that the Logos
‘became flesh in a human rational soul’ (p. 188, emphasis added; cf. also p. 169) it is
presumably this Gessian construal that is in mind. Yet, having acknowledged in
his essay that Gess’ Christology was widely criticized in its own time for failing
to secure the reality of divinity in Christ (p. 87), Thompson offers no defence of
his would-be exemplar against that charge; the task is merely deferred for future
study. Such an enigmatic conclusion not only leaves the reader guessing at one
crucial point; it begs the question of whether such a version of radical kenosis
could be affirmed by some of the other contributors to the book.
[9]
Evans, Davis and Feenstra each imply that in becoming incarnate the
Word is not quite transformed into something else as such (though transformation
‘of some kind’ is spoken of by Evans: p. 197); rather, the Word voluntarily gives
up, or does not make use of (both are said at different points) divine attributes
that otherwise are his. This is a much more careful position than that of Gess—or,
apparently, of Thompson. However, confusion over the distinction between kenosis and metamorphosis abounds elsewhere: Oakes begins his chapter on Balthasar
with the supposition that the ‘becoming’ spoken of in the incarnation of the Word
must mean that the infinite was ‘turned into’ the finite (pp. 218–19)—a construal
that might be news to a lot of orthodox Christologists. Classical theologians over
rather a long time laboured to safeguard the point that ‘assumption’ did not, in
fact, equal ‘transformation into’ at all, no matter what the pressure to suppose
otherwise.
[10]
It is of course entirely up to the authors to assume and defend whatever
versions of kenotic Christology they believe to be persuasive, and there is no
reason in principle why they should not espouse a range of different positions
within a spectrum. What is disappointing, however, is the failure to delineate as
clearly as possible the boundaries that that spectrum might take as adopted by a
group of writers who see themselves as both kenoticist and faithful to Chalcedon.
The motivations and metaphysics of modern kenotic Christologies simply vary
too much to be designated a common framework without further explication.
Some versions of kenosis are strongly ontological in nature; others are far more
functionalist. The book reveals the perils of not determining as clearly as possible
the distinctions between the two. In the one case, the Word surrenders (for one
period or another, or perhaps for ever) certain properties that are basic to divine
being; in the other, the Word does not exercise (again, for one period or another,
or perhaps for ever) certain divine functions that may be something other than
essential. The latter view, illustrated perhaps most famously by Charles Gore,
is much closer to a classical account of the incarnation. Quite how close, of
Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), http://www.ArsDisputandi.orgIvor J. Davidson: Review of Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God
course, depends on what it means not to exercise divine functions, and what the
relationship of such functions to ‘natures’ might be. Here again styles vary. The
advocates of a literally depotentiated divinity (‘a kenotically weakened Son’, p. 188,
emphasis added) may well favour something rather a long way from the Christ
whose divine nature is said to maintain its properties ‘without confusion, without
change, without division, without separation’.
[11] As they have always done, kenotic Christologies invite questions about
what it means to determine divine attributes. What is essential and what is not,
and how do we know? Can ‘true’ deity be differentiated from ‘full’ deity, and if
so, how? In some places here, it appears to be suggested that God’s attributes
have to be rethought so profoundly in the light of the incarnation that we question
whether omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence and so on are in fact basic to
God at all (deliverances of Anselmian method rather than of Scripture); in others,
it is said that such qualities remain basic-unless-otherwise-not-exercised, and a
kenotic God, as glimpsed in incarnation, is ‘greater’ specifically in Anselm’s terms
than a God who is, say, impassible and immutable. At one moment, the kenosis of
taking flesh in Jesus of Nazareth appears to involve constitutive change for God;
at another, self-emptying is what God is doing all the time in relating to creation,
and the incarnation is the definitive instantiation of a general state of affairs for
divinity.
[12] One of the keys to greater clarity would, of course, be a more substantive exposition of the trinitarian relations that are disclosed in the action of
taking on and living an incarnate existence. Here, too, however, there are some
disappointments. Thompson and Plantinga try to argue that kenosis is not only
most compatible with, but even dependent for its viability upon, what they want
to call a ‘social’ understanding of the Trinity. The questions which their argument
begs are too extensive to be easily summarized in a few lines, but not the least
is the authors’ tendency to perpetuate now-widely-challenged misconceptions
about the relationship between ‘Western’ and ‘Eastern’ versions of triune personhood, and their failure to address the possibility that one might well speak of the
‘becoming’ of the Son in obedience to the Father through the Spirit in ways that
do not necessarily presuppose a crudely analogical association between human
inter-relationality and the fellowship that inheres between divine persons. In any
event, Thompson’s and Plantinga‘s chapter remains more of an attempted defence of social trinitarianism than an explanation of why it should be that kenotic
Christology requires such a thing. It is not clear, in the end, why the contention
that it is ‘one and the same Son’ who became incarnate should necessitate the
actual form of ‘social’ model that is envisioned.
[13]
In their concluding chapter, Davis and Evans speak of the powerful spiritual significance of a view of God as one who is intrinsically self-surrendering
in love for the world. All this is quite right, and serves to demonstrate the rich,
indeed essential, possibilities of kenosis as a theological theme. What it does not
do, I believe, is explain convincingly why one particular kenotic understanding
of incarnational metaphysics is so obviously to be preferred to other approaches.
Here the more critical contributions of Coakley and van Driel deserve a very seArs Disputandi 7 (2007), http://www.ArsDisputandi.orgIvor J. Davidson: Review of Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God
rious hearing. As these two authors suggest, there may be plenty of ground for
holding that everything that truly is biblical and vital about the manifestation of
the divine freedom to be human can be said quite well without taking a kenoticist
route in the modern sense, or allowing a certain philosophical quest for coherence between allegedly competing entities to dominate Christology’s enterprise.
Patristic and medieval accounts may provide resources for saying some of what
later kenoticists wish to say, but in a pointedly different register. ‘The kenotic theologian is mistaken if she thinks that her classical colleague stands embarrassed
when the New Testament tells us about a Jesus who grows in knowledge and
grace, who is at times ignorant, hungry, tired, or frustrated’ (van Driel, p. 286; an
incidental point: van Driel confuses Constantinople II and III on p. 290).
[14]
It is a pity that the book does not offer more extended space to such
arguments, or consider why it might be that the sorts of answers which the
nineteenth century generated were not considered necessary earlier (it will hardly
do to suppose that pre-modern theologians were somehow all closet docetists, or
philosophically naïve). Could it in fact be the case, as Coakley suggests, that
modern kenotic Christology – as distinct from the no-less-thoughtful accounts of
kenosis offered by earlier thinkers – ‘rests on a mistake’? The collection contains
some thought-provoking material, but a more sustained and organized dialogue
between the enthusiasts and the critics of kenoticism as a specifically demarcated
– and frankly modern – theory would have made for richer stimulus overall.
Ars Disputandi 7 (2007), http://www.ArsDisputandi.org
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