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The Trinitarian Perspectives on
the Humanity of Jesus in Relation to Our Humanity
By
Timothy Ching Lung LAM
An Outline of the Term Paper Submitted to Dr. Hung Biu KWOK of
Alliance Bible Seminary
in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Course of
TH512-E: Systematic Theology II
Fall 2003
Timothy Ching Lung LAM
Student ID Number: D023111
December 29, 2003
Contents
1. INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................................... 1
2. THE DEFICIENCIES OF THE CLASSICAL DOCTRINES OF THE
ANHYPOSTASIS-ENHYPOSTASIS COUPLET AND CHRISTOLOGICAL PERICHORESIS ......... 2
2.1. THE MEANING OF THE ANHYPOSTASIS-ENHYPOSTASIS COUPLET............................2 2.2. THE DEFICIENCIES OF THE ANHYPOSTASIS-ENHYPOSTASIS COUPLET.....................5 2.3. THE MEANING OF CHRISTOLOGICAL PERICHORESIS ...............................................7 2.4. THE DEFICIENCIES OF CHRISTOLOGICAL PERICHORESIS......................................10
3. REASSESSMENTS OF THE CLASSICAL THEOLOGIES OF THE
ANHYPOSTASIS-ENHYPOSTASIS COUPLET AND CHRISTOLOGICAL PERICHORESIS ....... 12
3.1. THE RELATIONAL MODEL OF THE ANHYPOSTASIS-ENHYPOSTASIS COUPLET .......12 3.2. T.F. TORRANCE’S VICARIOUS HUMANITY OF CHRIST IN VIEW OF PERICHORECTIC
COACTIVITY ............................................................................................................16 3.2.1. The Vicarious Humanity of Christ .............................................................................................. 16 3.2.2. The Trinitarian Perichorectic Coactivity.................................................................................... 18 3.2.3. The Integrated Model of the Relational Anhypostasis-Enhypostasis Couplet, the Vicarious
Humanity of Christ, and the Trinitarian Perichorectic Coactivity ............................................. 20
4. CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................................... 21
BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................................................................. I
The Trinitarian Perspectives on the Humanity of Jesus in Relation to Our Humanity
Systematic Theology II Page 1 By Timothy Ching Lung LAM
1. Introduction
According to Gregory of Nazianzus, “the unassumed is the unhealed,” and therefore Jesus
should have assumed our fallen, sinful and alienated humanity in order to be a truly man in
the same way as we are in order to save us.1 However, it appears to be logically impossible
for the unity of the fallen humanity and the divinity in the one Person of Jesus. Stressing on
either sides or synthesizing the two would result in a formation of heresy as witnessed
throughout history such as Docetism, Apollinarianism, Eutychianism, etc. Most importantly,
failure to affirm this unity would result in inefficacy of the salvation, which accordingly leads
to the collapse of the entire Gospel.
In this respect, many theologians had attempted to tackle the unity of the two apparently
contradicted natures in Jesus using some theological concepts such as the
anhypostasis-enhypostasis couplet and Christological perichoresis. Nevertheless, the
debates continue even today due to their respective deficiencies. Some theologians even
admitted that the matter at issue was beyond human apprehension as the Scots Confession
asserted the incarnation as the “most wondrous conjunction” and the Formula of Concord
acknowledged it “next to the mystery of the Trinity, this is the chiefest mystery.”2
Having said that, there has been an increasing emphasis in relational approaches to this
classical Christology and that a relational concept of person is being introduced by some
contemporary theologians such as Wolfhart Pannenberg, Colin Gunton, and T.F. Torrance.
Their main emphasis appears to stress on the relationality of personhood, which lies
ultimately in relationship with God for the triune God is a relational God.3 In this respect,
the goal of this paper is to reassess the classical theological concepts of the
anhypostasis-enhypostasis couplet and the Christological perichoresis and refine them
through the integration of the Trinitarian perspectives in order to affirm the full humanity of
Jesus in relation to our humanity.
1 Walter A. Elwell, ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House
Company, May 1990), 242. 2 Scots Confession, 7; Formula of Concord, Epitome, 8: Affirmative 12 quoted in Geoffrey Bromiley, “The
Reformers and the Humanity of Christ,” eds. by Marguerite Shuster & Richard Muller, Perspectives on Christology. Essays in Honor of Paul K. Jewett, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1991), 103.
3 Stanley J. Grenz, “The Social God and the Relational Self: Toward a Theology of the Imago Dei in the Postmodern Context,” Horizons in Biblical Theology, Vol. 24 (2002): 57.
The Trinitarian Perspectives on the Humanity of Jesus in Relation to Our Humanity
Systematic Theology II Page 2 By Timothy Ching Lung LAM
2. The Deficiencies of the Classical Doctrines of the Anhypostasis-Enhypostasis Couplet
and Christological Perichoresis
2.1. The Meaning of the Anhypostasis-Enhypostasis Couplet
The formation of the couplet, anhypostasis-enhypostasis was used to affirm the union
of the two distinctive natures as well as the oneness of Christ’s hypostasis. In order to
understand what this dual formula means, one should understand the meaning of the
word, hypostasis first. In fact, hypostasis is a Greek noun, which usually refers to the
‘Person’ of the divine Trinity as designated by the Eastern theology.”4 However, this
term was earlier used by the Council of Chalcedon to distinguish between the one
person (“hypostasis”) of Christ’s incarnate being and the two natures (“physeis”),
namely divine and human, which were united in what Cyril of Alexandria has referred
to as a “hypostatic union.”5 Such union affirms that Jesus’ divine nature is fully
united with a truly human nature in the one Person of the incarnate Son in such a way
that the two natures are “neither separated from one another nor confounded with one
another, and in such a way that neither nature suffers loss or change through relation to
the other.”6 With this concept, the theologians after Chalcedon in the thought of John
of Damascus asserted that the human nature of Christ had “no subsistence or person in
and of itself,” or more precisely, “non-self-subsistence” or “anhypostasis.”7 On the
other hand, they contended that such human nature of Christ, though anhypostasis,
subsisted only in the subsistence of Christ as the eternal person of the Word for the
sake of the incarnation, which came to an expression of what they called
“enhypostasis.”8 In other words, the incarnate Logos assumed the anhypostatic
human nature while preserving “its own characteristic properties, without confusion,
without change, without division, (and) without separation.”9 Accordingly, the one
4 Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright, eds. New Dictionary of Theology, (Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 1988),
325. 5 This was famously contended by Cyril of Alexandria and that they had used the term, “physis” almost in the
same manner as “hypostasis” for the one being of Christ. See Ibid. 6 Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992), 80. 7 Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book
House Company, 1985), 35. 8 Ibid, 103. 9 Ivor Davidson, “Theologizing the Human Jesus: An Ancient (and Modern) Approach to Christology
Reassessed,” International Journal of Systematic Theology, Vol. 3 No. 2 (July 2001): 135.
The Trinitarian Perspectives on the Humanity of Jesus in Relation to Our Humanity
Systematic Theology II Page 3 By Timothy Ching Lung LAM
person Jesus possessed both human and divine natures and that He had all essential
attributes or qualities as a man and God.
In fact, the renowned use of the above dual formula was deployed by Karl Barth,
which was made influential to other theologians in the modern times. As Pannenberg
noticed, this formula became for Barth a core way of expressing the “miraculous
invasion of divine Lordship into our world,” and that “Christ’s human nature has its
existence only “in the event of the unio.”10 Accordingly, Christ’s human nature, for
Barth, has its subsistence only in the Logos as he says,
“The human nature of Christ has no personhood of its own. It is
anhypostatos – the formula in which the description culminates. Or,
more positively, is enhypostatos. It has personhood, subsistence,
reality, only in its union with the Logos of God.”11
Furthermore, T.F. Torrance, who shares Barth’s view, contends that anhypostasis
guards against all forms of adoptionism by asserting that the human nature of Jesus has
no independent hypostasis or subsistence apart from the event of the incarnation, apart
from hypostatic union, while enhypostasis undercuts any Apollinarian or all forms of
monophysitism by affirming “a real concrete hypostasis or subsistence” of the human
nature of Jesus within the hypostatic union in the incarnation.12 Together the two
terms rule out any form of Nestorian dualism error of two persons adjoined in one
body of Jesus.13
10 Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus-God and Man. Translated by Duane A. Priebe, and Lewis L. Wilkins,
(Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1964), 341-342. 11 Karl Barth, The Gottingen Dogmatics: Introduction in the Christian Religion, trans. G.W. Bromiley (Grand
Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 1, 157 quoted in Ivor Davidson, 142. 12 T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 160. 13 T.F. Torrance, “Karl Barth and Patristic Theology,” In Theology Beyond Christendom: Essays on the
Centenary of the Birth of Karl Barth, Edited by John Thomson, (Alison Park, Penn.: Pickwick, 1986), 227-229 quoted in Elmer M. Colyer, How to Read T.F. Torrance: Understanding His Trinitarian and Scientific Theology, (Downers Grove, III.: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 118.
The Trinitarian Perspectives on the Humanity of Jesus in Relation to Our Humanity
Systematic Theology II Page 4 By Timothy Ching Lung LAM
Despite the fact that it appears impossible to fully comprehend the ineffable God
literally or schematically, the following diagram may help understand the dual formula
of anhypostasis-enhypostasis: -
Assuming that the divine nature of Jesus is represented by a rectangle (without color)
while the human nature is represented by a color of purple without any shape, the two
together are united in a purple rectangle. What this diagram is driving at is that the
color, purple, has no independent form or shape in and of itself apart from the
“unifying” purple rectangle, which denotes the human nature that has no independent
subsistence apart from the event of incarnation. In the purple rectangle, the two
natures, purple and rectangle, are united without suffering any loss or change of their
respective attributes through relation to the other. In other words, the one purple
rectangle (i.e. the one Person of Jesus) possesses both the two natures of purple and
rectangle (i.e. humanity and divinity) without confusion, without change, without
division, and without separation. Although one may challenge that the rectangle has
been altered from the state of transparency to purple, it should be noted that the nature
of a rectangle is merely a figure itself without mentioning of any color at all; otherwise,
it would then possess two natures, i.e. figure and color. Nevertheless, though this
diagram may not fully explain or illustrate all the aspects of the two natures in the one
Person of Jesus, it does give us a better understanding under the perspective of the
anhypostasis-enhypostasis couplet.
Enhypostasis
Human Nature
= Anhypostasis
Divine Nature
The Incarnate
Son of God
The Hypostatic Union of the Two
Natures
Figure 1
The Trinitarian Perspectives on the Humanity of Jesus in Relation to Our Humanity
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2.2. The Deficiencies of the Anhypostasis-Enhypostasis Couplet
Notwithstanding that the dual formula of anhypostasis-enhypostasis affirms the
doctrine of the two natures possessed in the one Person of Jesus, there are indeed some
problems with it.
In fact, the notion of anhypostasis-enhypostasis had been criticized by many modern
well-known writers in Christology such as J.A.T. Robinson, and D. Bonhoeffer that the
anhypostatic human nature of Christ threatened its continuity with the rest of the
human race for the term, anhypostasis suggests a tertium quid, a type of humanity
different from ours, i.e. “impersonality.”14 In addition, R.C. Moberly argues that
there is no such impersonal human nature for “Human nature, which is not personal, is
not human nature.”15 Accordingly, the dual formula appears not only risking the
authenticity of Jesus’ humanity as a person, but it also undermines the relatedness of
His humanity to the whole human race.
Another problem with anhypostatic humanity of Jesus, arising also from the concept of
impersonality but in an opposite view to the above, is that “the divine Word became
united with the whole human race or with human nature,” if Jesus is not a specific
individual human as noted by Millard Erickson.16 It is against the teaching within the
Biblical context that Jesus was the man of Nazareth, not other human being such as
Paul the apostle or John the Baptist, and that His earthly life demonstrated His
particular individuality.17
In addition, to say that the human nature of Christ is enhypostasis, actually denies the
humanity of Jesus, and, as Colin Gunton says, such doctrine does not safeguard the
threat of Christ’s humanity being swallowed up in the divinity.18 For Gunton, such
problem is manifested as a result of Karl Barth’s treatment of Christ’s humanity, which
14 Ivor Davidson, 136. 15 R.C. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, (London: John Murray, 1901), 93 quoted in Ibid. 16 Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House Company, 1998;
2nd reprint, June 1999), 748. 17 Ivor Davidson, 138. 18 Colin E. Gunton, Christ and Creation, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,
1992), 48.
The Trinitarian Perspectives on the Humanity of Jesus in Relation to Our Humanity
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has been made equivalent to the humanity of God.19 Barth treated this dual formula
as the total determination of Jesus’ humanity by the logic of grace (i.e. fully divine
agency) as he said of anhypostasis-enhypostasis that is “the sum and root of all the
grace addressed to Him.”20 As such, all things happened in Jesus’ humanity are the
acts of God (i.e. due to enhypostasis), which raise the question on whether or not His
actions as man are the acts of God. Should it be the case, His full humanity is open to
question. In this regard, the dual formula, for Gunton, not only jeopardizes the
integrity of Jesus’ human nature, it also risks the free human activity of Jesus should
Christ’s humanity be subsistent only in the incarnate Son or Logos and that the divine
nature in some way predetermines Jesus’ action as a man.
In addition to the above challenges stressing on Jesus’ authentic humanity where the
relatedness thereupon to our humanity is questionable, Wolfhart Pannenberg argues
against such dual formula for its lack of relatedness to God. In contrary to the
ontological dependence of Jesus’ entire human existence on the person of the incarnate
Logos as suggested by enhypostasis, Pannenberg finds this problematic as the man
Jesus does have His independence as the Son of God with respect to His historical
existence.21 In Pannenberg’s words,
“…He (Jesus) lived in self-sacrifice to the Father and in dependence
upon Him in accomplishment of His existence. He did not live in
dependence upon the Son; this obvious understanding of the
enhypostasis of Jesus in the logos does not do justice to the Father, but
precisely in so doing shows him to be one with the Son.”22
Nonetheless, Pannenberg does not reject the concept of Jesus’ human being subsistent
only in the person of the incarnate Son that the dual formula affirms. What he is
trying to raise out is that Jesus’ true humanity would be diminished should one fail to
distinguish between the human historical existence of Jesus through His dedication to
the Father and the identity of person with Son. He explains that the concept of
19 Ibid. 20 Barth, Dogmatics IV/2, 91 quoted in F. LeRon Shults, “A Dubious Christological Formula: From Leontius of
Byzantium to Karl Barth,” Theological Studies, Vol. 57, Issue 3 (Sep. 96): 439. 21 Wolfhart Pannenberg, 339. 22 Ibid.
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‘Person’ is relational and that “the relation of Jesus to the Father in His dedication to
Him is identical with the relation to the Father intended by the designation ‘the
Son.’”23 In this respect, Jesus is identical with the person of the Son in view of His
human dedication to the Father rather than ontologically dependence on the person of
the Logos under this perspective. Based on Pannenberg’s insight, one may conclude
that the anhypostasis-enhypostasis couplet is only one of the aspects explaining the
union of the two natures in the one Person of Jesus, and that a reciprocal relationship
between the human nature and divine nature should be addressed under the
perspectives from both the dual formula and the relational character of Jesus to God
the Father.
2.3. The Meaning of Christological Perichoresis
With respect to the above analysis examined by Pannenberg, there appears to be a
reciprocal relationship between the human nature and the divine nature within the
Person of the incarnate Son with the affirmation of the unity of one hypostasis.
Throughout history, one of the attempts to clarify such relationship would be
“perichoresis.” The Greek term, perichoresis or its Latin equivalent, circumencessio,
circuminsessio means “mutual indwelling or, better, mutual interpenetration.”24 In
fact, the meaning of perichoresis can be best explained from its verb form, perichorein
where chorein means, “to make room for another,” and peri means “round about.”
according to Liddell and Scott.25 In this respect, this term indicates a kind of mutual
making room for another around oneself, which is indeed commonly used to denote
“the mutual indwelling or interpretation of the three Persons of the Trinity whereby
one is as invariably in the other two as they are in the one.”26 However, Torrance
noticed that this term was not first used to describe the coinherent relations between
the Persons of the Trinity, but rather used to express the coinherence of the two natures
in the one Person of Christ.27 In his findings, it was Gregory Nazianzen who used
this term in its verbal form (i.e. perichorein) to “help express the way in which the
23 Ibid. 24 Walter A. Elwell, ed., 906-907. 25 Henry Liddell and Robert Scott, Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964) quoted in Michael G.
Lawler, “Perichoresis: New Theological Wine in An Old Theological Wineskin,” Horizon, 22/1 (Spr. 1995): 49. 26 Alan Richardson and John Bowden, ed. A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, (London: SCM Press Ltd.,
1983), 112. 27 Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons, 102.
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divine and the human natures in the one Person of Christ coinhere in one another
without the integrity of either being diminished by the presence of the other.”28
Actually, Torrance was partially correct in identifying the origin of perichoresis, but
the term was first used by Gregory Nazianzen to describe the relation between life and
death at his father’s funeral where he argued that “life comes from and leads to
corruption and death transforms us from earthly ills to a higher life.”29
Nevertheless, the term became more popular in its usage for describing the two natures
in Jesus, which was introduced by Maximus the Confessor and first appeared in
patristic philology in its noun form, i.e. perichoresis denoting that “the human nature
totally makes room for the divine nature, to which it is united without any
confusion.”30 In an attempt to explain such concept, Maximus used an analogy of “a
red-hot knife” as follows: -
“As a red-hot knife burns and cuts simultaneously because of the
perichoresis of the nature of iron and the nature of fire, so also Christ
is simultaneously God and man because of the perichoresis of the
divine and human natures.”31
With this theological term, the two natures of Jesus are affirmed in one Person
perichorectically and that He is indeed both God and man.
Later on, an anonymous author, Pseudo-Cyril in his De Sacrosancta Trinitate,
continued to use this term to describe the two natures of Jesus.32 When Cyril spoke
of the incarnation, he demonstrated that the mutual interpenetrating concept of
perichoresis was indeed asymmetrical. As he said,
“But the interpenetration does not come to be from the flesh but from the
Godhead, for it is impossible that the flesh should penetrate through the
28 Ibid. 29 In fact, the verb was found three times in Gregory of Nazianzen (d.ca. 389) who used it to describe (1) the
coinherent relation between life and death, and (2) satiety where “all things coinhere in or make room for one another,” and (3) the coinherence between Christ’s humanity and divinity. See Michael G. Lawler, 50.
30 Ambig. Liber, 112b, PG 91, 1053 quoted in Ibid. 31 Ibid, 50. 32 Ibid, 50-51.
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Godhead, but the divine nature, having once penetrated through the flesh,
gave also to the flesh the ineffable penetration toward itself, which is
called union.”33
Cyril further explained that perichoresis was not fully mutual for “the divinity is the
anointing element, the humanity the anointed element, the anointing itself the
perichoresis of the anointer in the anointed,” which came to a conclusion that “the
perichoresis is achieved by the divinity not by the humanity” in order to preserve the
impassiblity of God.34 In this respect, it is Jesus’ anointing divinity that makes room
for the anointed humanity and that the humanity is intertwined with the divinity
without being diminished, but rather being granted room for around itself.35 Having
said that, perichoresis, for Cyril, is not exclusively “one-sided” and that Jesus’ divinity
not only penetrates into the human nature but also empowers the human nature to
penetrate into itself in return.36
After Pseudo-Cyril, John of Damascus, who shared with Cyril’s view that the
perichoresis in Christ was not wholly symmetrical, but nonetheless it could not
exclusively be one-sided.37 In his words:
“Although we say that the natures of the Lord coinhere in each other,
we know that this coinherence arises out of the divine nature. For
this last pervades all things and penetrates as it wishes, but nothing
pervades or penetrates through it. And it grants the flesh
participation in its own splendors while remaining impassible and
without participating in the passions (or passivity) of the flesh. For,
if the sun grants us participation in its own energies yet does not
participate in ours, then how much more so the Lord and Creator of
the sun?”38
33 Ps-Cyril, De Trin..24, PG 77.1165C-D=John of Damascus, Expos. Fid. 91=Fid. Orth. 4.18, Kotter 2:214
quoted in Verna Harrison, “Perichoresis in the Greek Fathers,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 35 No. 1 (1991): 60. 34 Ps-Cyril, De Trin.. 22, PG 77, 1162-1163 quoted in Michael G. Lawler, 51. 35 Ibid. 36 Verna Harrison, 60. 37 Ibid, 62. 38 Expos. Fid. 51= Fid. Orth. 3.7, Kotter 2:126 quoted in Ibid.
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Upon incarnation, a state of coinherence is established in which the divine and human
natures remain forever present in each other. Thus, there is symmetry within
asymmetry.39 The perichoresis arises out of the divine nature as it pervades the
human, but through this divine action, it becomes mutual (though not fully). To sum
up, the concept of perichoresis is used to affirm the reciprocal relationship between the
two natures of Christ that coinhere in one another without the integrity of either being
diminished by the presence of the other.
2.4. The Deficiencies of Christological Perichoresis
Similar to the notion of anhypostasis-enhypostasis, this classical doctrine of
Christological perichoresis also has several problems as set out below: -
The first problem appears to be the wrong use of the word, perichoresis to describe the
union of the two natures in Jesus Christ. Although both the Pseudo-Cyril and John of
Damascus contended that the perichoresis was achieved by the divinity not by the
humanity and that the penetration of the two natures was not wholly mutual, the word
itself indeed had the meaning of mutual interpenetration. Such meaning should not
be disregarded or altered; otherwise, it would be inappropriate to use such word to
describe what it is not intended to be.
The second problem of Christological perichoresis would be the infeasible
communication of all attributes of one to the other should the meaning of perichoresis
be remained. It should be noted that there are some attributes distinctly related to
each nature, which are not communicated to the other. For instance, the infinitude,
while fully attributed to the divine nature, cannot be interchanged with the human
nature. Likewise, the finitude of the human nature cannot be communicated to the
divine nature. Should Jesus possess an infinite human nature, the doctrine of
soteriology will be at risk as He would no longer be truly human in the same way as
we are in order to save us. On the other hand, it will also be problematic if Jesus
possesses a finitude divine nature, as He would not be considered truly God. One
way or the other would inevitably put the entire soteriology in danger.
39 Ibid.
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The third problem would be the same as those contentions against Lutheran’s realistic
view of the communicatio idiomatum. In fact, communicatio idiomatum means “the
properties of both natures – deity and humanity – are communicated to, or
interchanged in, the one person of Jesus Christ.”40 Accordingly, both Christological
perichoresis and communicatio idiomatum serve as the same purpose in an attempt to
resolve the reciprocal relationship of the two natures within the one Person of Jesus
wherein perichoresis seemed to become a platform for developing Lutheran’s realistic
view of the communicatio idiomatum. Martin Luther, who shared Maximus’ analogy
of the red-hot knife, appealed to an image of heat and iron to explain such concept
whereby Jesus’ divinity extended throughout His humanity in the incarnation just in a
way as heat pervading an iron.41 Accordingly, Jesus’ human nature participates in His
divinity sharing the divine attributes whereas the attributes of humanity are not
destroyed nor are transferred to His divinity just like the analogy of iron being glowed
by heat without losing its attributes.42 Nonetheless, this very concept still could not
avoid the human nature being swallowed up by the divinity within the eternal being of
the Jesus. As the Reformed accused, Lutheran’s realistic view of communicatio
idiomatum could not safeguard itself from the heresy of Eutychianism “that the divine
and human nature are commingled into one essence, and the human nature is changed
into Deity, as Eutyches has madly affirmed.”43
With the above problems, what the notion of Christological perichoresis is intended to
affirm is not so much as what it fails to say. Even worse than the dual formula of
anhypostasis-enhypostasis, the term itself may not be appropriate to be applied in
explaining the two natures in the one hypostasis of Jesus.
40 Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 2000), 298. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Geoffrey Bromiley, 98.
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3. Reassessments of the Classical Theologies of the Anhypostasis-Enhypostasis Couplet and
Christological Perichoresis
Notwithstanding that the two classical doctrines have their respective limitations and
deficiencies, the two together could be reassessed and even integrated to form a more refined
notion to better comprehend the very concept of the two natures in the one Person of Jesus in
relation to both God and human.
3.1. The Relational Model of the Anhypostasis-Enhypostasis Couplet
Based on the above analysis on the deficiencies of this dual formula, it is inevitable to
admit that the major problem is its lack of a relational concept in terms of both the
eternal being of God and our humanity. In response to this problem, both Pannenberg
and Gunton provide us an insight to perceive this couplet with the aid of a relational
concept of Trinitarian theology.
As mentioned above, Pannenberg, who contends for Christology ‘from below,’ goes
beyond Barth by distinguishing between the human historical existence of Jesus
through His self-sacrificial dedication to the Father and the identity of person with Son.
With this notion, as Pannenberg asserts, not only Jesus’ divine Sonship establishes His
human particularity as affirmed by the enhypostatic Christology, but the reverse is also
correct that His humanity in His dedication to the Father constitutes Himself as the Son
of God in His historical life.44 In light of this reciprocal relationship, Jesus’ divine
Sonship is affirmed precisely as the man Jesus without leading to a consequence of a
synthesis of the two natures nor is the absorption of one nature into the other.
Notwithstanding that this relational model further reinforces and enhances the assertion
of the two natures union in the one Person of Jesus that the anhypostasis-enhypostasis
couplet intends to, one may argue that this relational character may only be applied to
Jesus’ own humanity in His unique historical human life, which has no continuity to all
human race. To respond, Pannenberg argues for Jesus’ Sonship constituted by His
44 Pannenberg, 342.
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human dedication to the Father as the fulfillment of Human destiny.45 In his words,
Pannenberg says:
“Precisely in his Sonship, in His relation to the Father, all others shall
receive a share through him…Because we are sons of God through
Jesus, God has also sent the Spirit of sonship into our heart through
which we say, “Abba! Father” (Gal. 4:5 f,: cf. Rom. 8:15).”46
Obviously, Pannenberg’s Sonship argument demonstrates the continuity between Jesus’
humanity and ours in the Trinitarian language that we could share the Sonship through
Jesus constituted by His human dedication to God in the Spirit. In this regard, the
dual formula of anhypostasis-enhypostasis of Jesus’ humanity is not only a
Christological matter, but is also being extended to the doctrine of Trinity in relation to
human reality as in the context of soteriology.
Sharing the similar view of Pannenberg, Gunton states it rightly that Christ in His
perfect offering of Himself to the Father through the eternal Spirit serves as “one
sample” for the creation’s directedness to perfection before God the Father. 47
Furthermore, he argues that “the weakness of the enhypostasis teaching are alleviated,
if not removed, if we give a more prominent place than has been the case to the place
of the Holy Spirit in Christology.” 48 Thus, what appears to be missing in
Pannenberg’s reassessment of the dual formula is the significance of the Spirit in the
man Jesus (though he mentions it), which is indeed elaborated by Gunton into more
details. As Gunton demonstrates, it is the Spirit who directs the human life of Jesus
through his three major stages such as (1) the virgin birth, (2) the baptism and
temptation, and (3) the death.49 However, as others would challenge, the human life
of Jesus would then be totally predetermined by the Spirit (divine action), which would
undermine Jesus’ truly human action. In order to avoid such a predominant life of
Jesus, Gunton affirms Jesus’ freedom by saying that it is His freedom to “accept it as
45 Pannenberg, 345. 46 Ibid, 345-346. 47 Gunton, 57. 48 Ibid, 50. 49 Ibid, 53.
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gift from the Father’s sending of the Spirit.”50 While affirming the real humanity of
Jesus in view of the Spirit’s empowerment, Gunton further asserts that it is the same
Spirit who relates us to the Father through the perfect offering of Jesus to the Father as
“a renewed and cleansed sample of the life in the flesh in which human being
consists.”51 As a result, Gunton demonstrates a matter of relationality, i.e. how our
humanity is restored to God through Jesus in the Spirit as an act of God and the human
Jesus.
Schematically, the above profound Trinitarian concepts presented by both Pannenberg
and Gunton in relation to the dual formula of anhypostasis-enhypostasis may look
something like the following diagram after taking into account of the Figure 1 as
discussed above:-
Based on the above diagram, a reciprocal relationship between the two natures in the
one Person is illustrated that not only is the human nature enhypostatic to the incarnate
Son (the purple formed in the purple rectangle), but also the incarnate Son in His
human dedication to the Father constitutes His Sonship (the arrows pointing inside
denoting the incarnate Son’s dependence, in His human dedication, on the Father). In
50 Ibid, 55.
Restoration
Empowerment
Sonship Constitution
Human Dedication Father
Son
The Hypostatic
Union of the Two
Natures in The
Incarnate Son
Spirit
Human Race
Figure 2
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Systematic Theology II Page 15 By Timothy Ching Lung LAM
addition, the diagram demonstrates that it is the same Spirit (depicted by the green
rectangle), who empowers Jesus in His perfect offering to the Father (depicted by the
blue rectangle), restores the human race (depicted by the purple rectangle without
frame so as to distinguish itself from the Person of Jesus while maintaining the human
nature as denoted by purple) to the Father through the Son. With the aid of this
diagram, an integration of Trinitarian character of the anhypostasis-enhypostasis
couplet with the relational concept of our humanity to the Triune God has come into
view while maintaining the real and fully humanity of Jesus enhypostatic in the
operation of the divine essence (i.e. the incarnation through the agency of the Spirit)
without suspension of its human subject hood (i.e. in human dedication to the Father).
Notwithstanding that this reassessed model of the anhypostasis-enhypostasis couplet
incorporating both Pannenberg’s and Gunton’s Trinitarian notions has resolved the
relational deficiencies, the active participation of the Spirit in perfecting the human
action of Jesus is problematic for it implies no real and truly human response in Jesus
which, as a result, discontinues His humanity from ours (back to the original problem
for the dual formula discussed above). Furthermore, the Trinitarian characters of the
dual formula introduced by Pannenberg and Gunton should be further refined as such
model may imply three discrete persons with the Son and the Spirit serving as
instruments to bring humanity to the Father rather than the communion of the Trinity in
unity.
Accordingly, a more integral understanding of the interrelationship between the three
Persons should be developed against such problem. Although the Christological
perichoresis fails to explain the two natures in Jesus, the Trinitarian perichoresis is
useful to elucidate the onto-relational character of the triune God. In fact, Torrance’s
insightful reassessment of this Trinitarian perichoresis, or more precisely, the
Trinitarian perichorectic coactivity, together with his very concept of “the vicarious
humanity of Christ” may help resolve the deficiencies of the above model, which will
be discussed in the next session.
51 Gunton, 57-59, 64.
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3.2. T.F. Torrance’s Vicarious Humanity of Christ in view of Perichorectic Coactivity
As mentioned before, hypostasis or person is a relational concept and that, as Torrance
contends, “we must think of God, rather, as ‘personalizing Person,’ and of ourselves as
‘personalized persons,’” for “human personhood is to be understood properly by
relation to the creative Personhood of God.” 52 Here Torrance develops an
onto-relational model of person, which relates our humanity to the three Persons of
God through Christ’s vicarious humanity perceived in the perichorectic coactivities by
the three Persons of God.
3.2.1. The Vicarious Humanity of Christ
The concept, what Torrance has called “the vicarious humanity of Christ,” has become
vital in understanding Torrance’s Christology and soteriology for it ascertains the
gospel not being emptied of saving reality.53 For Torrance, Jesus Christ is the
“Mediator” between God and man for He, in the incarnation, has assumed our actual
human nature completely that He “came to take our place, in all our human, earthly life
and activity, in order that we may have his place as God’s beloved children, in all our
human and earthly life and activity, sharing with Jesus in the communion of God’s own
life and love as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”54 With Torrance’s theology of Christ’s
vicarious humanity, the Son of God is not simply our substitute, but also our perfect
representative who assumes our fallen and alienated place and in return, give us His
place of righteousness, wholeness and oneness with God the Father by offering His
perfect obedience to God through His true human response on earth on our behalf.55
As a result, our fallen humanity is restored and redeemed.
However, one may challenge that such doctrine of vicarious humanity may
overemphasize the divine act and undermines our human response. In response,
52 T. F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, 160. 53 T. F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church, (Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1988), 4-5. 54 Ibid, 8. See also Colyer, How to Read T.F. Torrance, 110. 55 Ibid, 166.
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Torrance argues that the incarnation, although is “wholly an act of God,” is “no less
true human life truly lived in our actual humanity.”56 He further contends,
“All through the incarnate life and activity of the Lord Jesus we are
shown that ‘all of grace’ does not mean ‘nothing of man,’ but precisely
the opposite: all of grace means all of man, for the fullness of grace
creatively includes the fullness and completeness of our human
response in the equation.”57
In order to understand Torrance’s profound concept of the so-called ‘logic of grace’, in
which full divine agency (all of grace) includes full human agency (all of man), his
understanding of the dual formula, anhypostasis-enhypostasis, which has been
discussed above, should be addressed. As previously explained, Torrance, sharing the
same views as the Chalcedon’s Fathers, contends that there is no independent human
hypostasis apart from the incarnation (anhypostasis) while there is still a fully human
hypostasis enhypostatic in the incarnate Son of God.58 As such, our human being is
personalized and humanized in Jesus, “so that in all our relations with Him we are
made more truly and fully human in our personal response of faith than ever before.”59
In this respect, what Torrance is trying to explain is that we, in Jesus’ vicarious
humanity, could be directed into “intimate union with God and into the Communion of
the Holy Trinity” through the fullness and completeness of human response
personalized in Jesus the Logos to God.60
Notwithstanding that Torrance’s theology of Christ’s vicarious humanity together with
his adoption of the “anhypostasis-enhypostasis” couplet do help resolve the human
relatedness to, or more precisely, union and communion with the Triune God through
Jesus, a concept should be addressed in order to reinforce, deepen, and consummate his
profound theology, namely, the homoousion of Christ and the Spirit. For Torrance,
the mediation of Christ between God and man is possible because Christ is
homoousion as God the Father and that He is only begotten Son of God who is of the
56 T.F. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, (London: SCM Press, 1965), 131 quoted in Elmer M. Colyer, How
to Read T.F. Torrance, 119. 57 T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, xii. 58 T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, 160-161. 59 T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, xiii.
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same being with the Father and thus He is true God from true God.61 On the other
hand, Torrance applies the homoousion to the Holy Spirit affirming His deity as God,
and in whom Christ has been empowered to fulfill His vicarious life and ministries on
our behalf.62 Accordingly, from Torrance’s viewpoint, Christ receives the Holy Spirit
on our behalf and redeems our humanity throughout His vicarious life, death, and
resurrection in the power and presence of the Spirit, so as to reunite our humanity to
Christ, sharing in His vicarious humanity, and through which we are in communion
with God.63 With this perspective, the mutual mediation between the incarnate Son
and the Spirit throughout God’s economy are at the heart of what the concept,
“perichoresis” comes to an expression.64
3.2.2. The Trinitarian Perichorectic Coactivity
In fact, Torrance finds the concept of perichoresis extremely useful in deepening our
understanding of the onto-relations between the Trinitarian persons within the unity of
the Trinity. For Torrance, perichoresis refers to “a circle of reciprocal relations”
between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in which they mutually indwell,
“wholly coexist and inexist in one another,” and “contain one another without any
coalescing or commingling with one another and yet without any separation from one
another, for they are completely equal and identical in Deity and Power.”65 With his
adoption of perichoresis, Torrance develops an onto-relational concept of expressing
the relations between the divine Trinitarian Persons, that God is not three discrete
Persons but rather “a communion of Persons in which Being and Communion are
ultimately one.” 66 Accordingly, the “onto-relational” concept expresses the
interrelationship of the three Persons (hypostasis) within the one Being (Ousia) of the
Trinity. In order to understand this relationship, Torrance starts off from the one
Being, which is understood in His interior relations as the communion of the three
divine Persons with one another (“One Being, Three Persons”). Then, he focuses
60 T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, 161. 61 T.F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, 93. 62 T.F. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1965), 246 quoted in Elmer
Colyer, “T.F. Torrance on the Trinity: An Invitation for Dialogue,” 12. 63 Elmer Colyer, “T.F. Torrance on the Trinity: An Invitation for Dialogue,” 13. 64 T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, 169-171. 65 T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, 170-171, 174. 66 Elmer M. Colyer, “T.F. Torrance on the Trinity: An Invitation for Dialogue,” 6.
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more on the communion of the three divine Persons who in their perichorectic
interrelation are the one Being of God (“Three Persons, One Being”).67 Most
profoundly he states, “One Being, Three Persons” and “Three Persons, One Being” are
the obverse of each other.68
Not only God in three divine Persons should be thought in perichorectic term, but also
all of God’s activities should be thought in the same way. With Torrance’s
perichorectic coactivity of the Trinity, all God’s activities indwell in God’s Being and
vice versa, and that all these activities are God’s act in which each Person acts in a way
in accordance with that Person’s distinctive activities, but in union and communion
with the other divine Persons.69 Accordingly, though certain divine acts are primarily
the works of the One Person rather than the Others among the Three, all of them
participate to certain degree in the acts. Thus, in terms of the incarnation, it is
obviously the Son’s primary act, but, in view of perichorectic coactivity, it is also an
involvement of both the Father and the Spirit. In Torrance’s words,
“This does not mean of course that the Father and the Spirit became
incarnate with the Son, but that with and in the incarnate Son the
whole undivided Trinity was present and active in fulfilling the
eternal purpose of God’s Love for mankind, for all three divine
Persons have their Being in homoousial and hypostatic interrelations
with one another, and they are all inseparably united in God’s activity
in creation and redemption, not least as those activities are
consummated in the incarnate economy of the Son.”70
With this affirmation of the perichorectic coactivity, the presence of the Spirit in the
humanity of Jesus not only empowers Jesus to live out a perfect obedient life to the
Father, but also composes the Spirit Himself to dwell with the human nature in order
for the human nature accustomed to receive Him.71 Consequently, the Spirit is not
some “isolated and naked Spirit,” but rather, “as Spirit charged with all the experience
67 Ibid, 136. 68 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 70 T. F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, 162. 71 T.F. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, 246 quoted in Elmer M. Colyer, “T.F. Torrance on the Trinity: An
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of Jesus as He shared to the full our mortal nature and weakness, and endured its
temptation and grief and suffering and death.”72 Furthermore, the same principle
could also be applied to the Father who not only sends the Son and proceeds the Spirit,
but also participates in dwelling with human nature in light of the perichorectic
coactivity in the incarnation. Together with the notion of Jesus’ vicarious humanity,
our humanity are not diminished, but rather intensely personalized not only in relation
to Jesus, but also to all three Persons of the Trinity in unity, with which this very
concept further reinforces Torrance’s logic of grace that all of grace means all of man.
3.2.3. The Integrated Model of the Relational Anhypostasis-Enhypostasis Couplet,
the Vicarious Humanity of Christ, and the Trinitarian Perichorectic
Coactivity
To integrate the above concepts, a schematic presentation in respect of a relational
model of the anhypostasis-enhypostasis couplet and Jesus’ vicarious humanity together
with the Trinitarian perichorectic coactivity could be illustrated as follows:-73
In this diagram, the three Persons of the Trinity are represented by three adjoined
almond-shaped figures distinguished by their respective colors and that the blue one
depicts for the Person of the Father, the purple for the Son, and the green for the Spirit.
Invitation for Dialogue,” 13.
72 Ibid. 73 In fact, this figure is made reference to the cover of the book, Trinity, by Joseph F. Girzone. See Joseph F.
Human Dedication Spirit Empowerment
Sonship Constitution
Son
Father Spirit
Figure 3
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Systematic Theology II Page 21 By Timothy Ching Lung LAM
In regard to Figures 1 and 2, the same principle can be applied to this purple
almond-shaped figure illustrating that the color of purple has no hypostasis in and of
itself (anhypostasis) apart from the purple figure (enhypostasis). With the assistance
of Torrance’s theologies of Christ’s vicarious humanity and the Trinitarian
perichorectic coactivity, the schematic model should illustrate the following
assertions:-
1. The three distinctive figures are inseparably united in one entity making them
capable for mutual interpenetration, which depicts a dynamic interrelationship
between the three Persons of the Trinity (perichoresis).
2. The purple figure (the incarnate Son) in its color connects to the blue figure (the
Father) inasmuch as the incarnate Son in His human dedication to the Father.
3. The blue figure (the Father), in return, connects to the purple figure (the Son)
denoting His constitution of the Sonship.
4. The green figure (the Spirit), also in its connection to the purple figure, denotes the
empowerment of the Spirit in the incarnate Son’s earthly life.
5. In the purple figure, the color of purple becomes actualized fully and completely
in relation to the interconnection of the three figures, which denotes the fullness
and completeness of our human response personalized in the Son relating to the
communion of the three Persons of the Trinity (i.e. the concept of Jesus’ vicarious
humanity).
6. Although it appears that the three figures have their distinctive characters, they are
inseparably united together in one figure and that the color of purple is also
actualized in the one unifying figure (i.e. our humanity fully and completely
personalized in the perichorectic coactivity).
4. Conclusion
The above discussion demonstrates that the humanity of Jesus is not merely a matter of
Christology, but rather an important doctrine at the heart of the Gospel. In this regard,
many theologians, throughout history, attempted to tackle the two apparently contradicted
natures in the one Person of Jesus using theological concepts such as the dual formula of
Girzone, Trinity, (New York: Doubleday, 2002), cover.
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anhypostasis-enhypostasis and Christological perichoresis as discussed above. However, it
had been shown that their attempts failed to affirm the real and truly humanity of Jesus as
well as its continuity to our humanity. Nevertheless, the two classical concepts are still
useful in solving these deficiencies upon thorough reassessment and reconstruction. As
such, an integration of a relational model of anhypostasis-enhypostasis couplet together with
Torrance’s vicarious humanity of Jesus and the Trinitarian perichorectic coactivity has been
established here to affirm that Jesus has assumed our fallen humanity and lived out His
vicarious life in perfect obedience to the Father in the Spirit while we, in the Spirit, are united
to Jesus sharing His vicarious humanity and through Him, we are united to the Father. Here
the notion of the onto-relational concept of person (i.e. God as ‘personalizing Person,’ and
human as ‘personalized persons’) has been adopted to unite all these superb concepts as
follows:-
Firstly, we, in light of the anhypostasis-enhypotasis couplet, find the personalization of
God’s relationship with humanity in Jesus Christ.
Secondly, in Christ’s vicarious humanity, we find our humanity personalized in relation
to God, and also brought into communion with the whole undivided Trinity who, in
their homoousial and hypostatic onto-relations, are present and active in the realization
of Jesus’ humanity.
Thirdly, we find the entire personalizing process of our humanity occurs not merely in
Jesus’ saving activities, but also in the Trinitarian perichorectic coactivity that the three
Persons mutually mediate each other throughout the entire order of salvation without
undermining our real and truly human response.
By integrating all these insightful relational concepts, the full humanity of Jesus is indeed
affirmed while His relatedness to our humanity in light of the Trinitarian perichoresis is
therefore maintained.
i
Bibliography
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ii
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