Dear Dr. X,
Thank you for your response, I deeply appreciate your time. I hope you will not mind if I follow up with you. I also want you to know that I am not some fire breathing heretic hunter on the internet. What you are teaching is referred to as “functional kenoticism” (if I am understanding you) and seems almost ubiquitous in evangelical circles. I have several well known commentaries that say exactly what you have said…at least in regard to Jesus being ignorant from Bethlehem to Calvary. I listened to the lectures of Mr. XXXXX on Christology and sure enough, in the last 15 minutes of his last lecture he does a hard right turn into “functional kenoticism.” Recently I corresponded with my former Pastor in California who is teaching that Jesus only had one mind as a result of the incarnation, a human mind (this is of course ontological kenoticism). He claimed that it was not any type of kenotic Christology, that his teaching was thoroughly Chalcedonian, and he would not discuss if further. Incidentally, although I disagree with you, I certainly appreciate the way you say it as so many others say Jesus was ignorant as a result of the incarnation rather than from Bethlehem to Calvary. It is unclear whether they believe the incarnation has now ended or whether they believe Jesus to still be ignorant.
I will address the Scriptures you mentioned but at the outset allow me to ask you to define your terms (if you have time) which will help me to better understand what you are saying. You said,
“My way is to say that He gives up use of the incommunicable attributes for the season from Bethlehem to Calvary. Others have different suggestions for how that can be. He continues to be the Word and fully God. To give up use of those attributes does not in any way suggest that He gives up the attributes themselves.”
My question is, how does what you just said differ from “Functional Kenoticism” as you understand it? Here is my understanding of “Functional Kenoticism” (though what you just said would work as well):
“The other camp is a much weaker claim and is a functional kenoticism. This is where in the incarnation the Word doesn’t exercise certain divine attributes but still retains them in his person. He just chooses not to use them. So, the issue’s not that he doesn’t retain them but that he doesn’t exercise them whilst incarnate on earth… And while Functional Kenoticism is probably more attractive it is still equally unorthodox.” – Dr. Craig Hamilton
In the incarnation [of functional kenoticism], the Son does not set aside certain divine attributes [as in ontological kenoticism]; instead, the self-limitation of the Son is functional, as he chooses not to exercise his divine attributes. In his humanity, the Son relies on the power of the Spirit to live, act, and obey the Father’s will for our salvation. -- Wellum, Stephen J. God the Son Incarnate (Foundations of Evangelical Theology) (pp. 405-406). Crossway. Kindle Edition.
I hope you can understand my confusion because what you were teaching in your lecture sounded exactly like functional kenoticism. This holds true for what you said to me in your response above. This is why I was pointing out the problems even with functional kenotic Christology, to wit
“…The functionalist account…still requires too much of the traditional understanding of God and the Incarnation to be given up. Withholding the exercise of certain divine attributes for the duration of the Incarnation implies a real change in the Word from his preincarnate to his incarnate state that is monumental…” – Oliver Crisp, Divinity and Humanity
This is the reason I previously pointed out some of that “real change” to the Divine Nature even in functional kenotic Christology. For example, “omniscience” isn’t something God “uses,” it is something God IS, just as God IS Love, God is identical with His attributes (at least according to historic Christian Faith). What’s more is that omniscience and omnipresence are not things that are used in the since that God uses His omnipotence (i.e. just because God could heal everyone does not mean He must heal everyone). Omniscience and omnipresence are states of being, they are not things that are used, they are what God is. God is pure knowledge and thus, God IS all knowing at all times. It is what He IS not what He does. Likewise with omnipresence, it is something God IS (existing everywhere present at all times), not something He does. Omniscience and omnipresence are not something God “uses” or could choose to cease “using,” it’s what God necessarily IS.
Interestingly enough, those who originally proposed “kenotic Christology” tried to remain within the confessional standards of the Historic Christian Faith (on the other hand, evangelicals seem to be unaware that their functional kenoticism falls well outside the lines of orthodoxy). Gottfried Thomasius, a Lutheran theologian in the 1800’s and one of the original kenoticists, put God’s attributes into different groups. He theorized that not all of God’s attributes were “essential” attributes, some were “relative attributes,” among them omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. Jesus could give these “relative attributes” up while on earth and still be “essentially” God in every respect.
The functional kenotic Christology that is so prevalent in evangelicalism today is just a poorly thought out more ad hoc version of this early kenotic theory. Think about it, rather than make the claim that the “incommunicable attributes” of God are “relative attributes” such that God does not need them to be God, evangelicals simply make the claim that the “Son of God” chose not to operate in them. If Thomasius had believed he could simply make the claim that Jesus could possess the incommunicable attributes but not operate in them from Bethlehem to Calvary, he surely would have done so. It would seem he believed claiming the incommunicable attributes were not essential attributes of God, allowing the Son to divest Himself of them and still claim to be fully and essentially God, kept him much closer to confessional standards than making the untenable claim that Jesus merely chose not to “use” His attributes (and I say again, omniscience and omnipresence are not attributes of “use,” they are states of being).
“However, if Jesus Christ gave up being omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, then in effect he was no longer God. Can God cease to exist? Can divinity simply be turned on and off like a light switch? God is immutable (Mal 3:6; Jas 1:17), meaning his nature cannot change. However, Kenosis offers us a changing god. The Kenosis theory destroys the Trinity, as if Jesus emptied himself of his divine attributes he could no longer be a divine subsistence in the Trinitarian life. Jesus Christ holds this world together (Col 1:17). If he turned off his divinity, the universe and everything in it would cease to exist.” -- Dr. Joseph R. Nally
Clearly if Jesus was not omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent for any reason including some type of self-imposed restriction, He could not hold the very universe together (col. 1.17, heb. 1,3), the perichoresis of the Son would end (jn. 1.15), and so on. I say “if Jesus was not” for the sake of argument as I have made clear this simply isn’t possible according to the historic doctrines I have previously mentioned. I also see a contradiction in what you said to me at the beginning of your response wherein you said: “The eternal Son, the second member of the Trinity is omniscient, omnipresent, etc., fully consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit. So we are not talking about that at all. What we are talking about is the Jesus specifically says He is not omniscient in Matt. 24:36. My way is to say that He gives up use of the incommunicable attributes for the season from Bethlehem to Calvary.”
A contradiction is claiming that: Something is A and not A in exactly the same way at exactly the same time. Now something either is or is not omniscient, it is a truth statement to which the law of excluded middle certainly applies. So what you have communicated to me is: The “eternal Son is omniscient” but “not omniscient” (from Bethlehem to Calvary) in the same way at the same time. I know you said you “reject kenotic Christology, that He laid aside His divinity or even His divine attributes. What I am suggesting is that He gave up use of them.” As I pointed out, these are attributes of “being,” not something you merely “use” when you desire to. But even if I allow this for the sake of argument, if a person is omniscient, they are all knowing at every time t. If that someone does not know something and any time t, that person is not omniscient at that moment, the reason for the lack of omniscience is irrelevant. Your claim that if it was some type of self-imposed amnesia or limitation of knowledge notwithstanding, your Jesus is not omniscient from Bethlehem to Calvary. Your claim creates the same contradiction with all of the incommunicable attributes. Additionally, as Dr. Nally points out above, the Divine attributes are not simply something that can be turned on and off like a light switch.
Let me turn my attention to the text you mentioned, Matt. 24:36 (and the sister passage, Mk 13:32). Let me begin by saying something I am sure you know…what a text says and what it means are two different things. With that in mind, the texts in question no more say Jesus “was not omniscient” (as you claim) than Gen. 8:1 says that God forgot about Noah floating in the Ark in a world He had just flooded. If the passages were read in such a fashion we would also have to conclude that the Holy Spirit was not omniscient (something anti-Trinitarians also do with these passages). I understand why someone may conclude that, but it is not what they say, and it is certainly not what they necessarily mean. To save myself a great deal of writing I offer this excellent article from Maranatha Baptist Seminary titled, “Mark 13:32 Problem or Paradigm?”
https://www.mbu.edu/seminary/mark-1332-problem-or-paradigm-2/
The possible solutions discussed in this article have been debated for years but the important point is what qualifies as an orthodox solution and what does not. Any assertion that Jesus does not, at every moment, know the day and hour of His return, for whatever the reason, is unorthodox. Functional kenoticism, which makes this assertion, is unorthodox. You will note that every orthodox solution in this article is dedicated to the truth that Jesus must always know the day and hour of His return, He must remain consciously omniscient. It turns out that Hilary and Augustine were basically correct, that it was a figure of speech meaning no one could make it known.
The answer is fairly simple in that during a Jewish betrothal the groom would leave his fiancée to build additional rooms at his father’s house and when this was completed, he could return for his bride. However, it was Jewish custom that only the Father could "make known" when it was time to return (which prevented anxious grooms from building tents and quickly returning for their bride). So the bride to be would ask the groom, “When will you return?,” and the response was always supposed to be, “No one knows but my father.” Keep in mind that usually the son did know the time but in spite of this the response was always, “No one knows but my father.”
Please note that at Matt 24:42 Jesus tells them to keep watch. More importantly, at 25:1, still speaking of the time of His return (with knowledge of it) says, “At that time” and picks up with the wedding motif. Matt 25:6 reads, “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’” So with regard to His return it will be like a Jewish wedding, and you will know when the bridegroom is returning because you will see him returning. Matt 25:13, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” The Jews that Jesus was speaking to would have immediately known what He meant in saying, “No one knows that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
Now with regard to the death of Lazarus in John 11 you say, “The story in John 11 completely relies on the point that Jesus, the Word become flesh, is NOT with Mary and Martha and Lazarus which means the God-man is not omnipresent.” I believe you refer to the fact that Jesus purposely waited until Lazarus had died, information which Jesus had within Himself, not that He was told. It is also information that Jesus shared with the Disciples and in fact had to make clear to them because they had misunderstood what He had meant by saying Lazarus had “fallen asleep.”
There is nothing in this entire narrative to suggest that Jesus was not omnipresent. Was Jesus with Lazarus bodily/physically when he died? No, and that is part of the story. But as you point out, Jesus is the God-man, not just a man. What is important to the story is that Jesus was not with Lazarus as a man when he died because that is how all the people knew Him…as a human being standing before them, they had not yet come to realize all that Jesus was…and this is also part of this very story which, in the end, would be evidence of His divinity, not His humanity. The important point here is that orthodox Christology, while insisting on the omnipresence of the Son, including from Bethlehem to Calvary, does not teach that He is bodily/physically omnipresent. Such a suggestion prompts me to ask whether or not you believe Jesus is still the God-man and if so do you believe He is bodily/physically incarnate everywhere or do you believe He has eternally given up being omnipresent?
The point is that Jesus was omnipresent from Bethlehem to Calvary (and now for that matter) in exactly the same way He has always been omnipresent, through the attributes of divine nature. Human nature is not omnipresent and thus Jesus was not bodily everywhere. While this fact is evident in John Chapter 11, it does not, as I said, indicate in anyway that Jesus did not continue to exist through His omnipresent divine nature.
“We see plainly the twofold state, which is not confounded, but conjoined in One Person—Jesus, God and Man. Concerning Christ, indeed, I defer what I have to say. (I remark here), that the property of each nature is so wholly preserved, that the Spirit [i.e. the Divine Nature] on the one hand did all things in Jesus suitable to Itself, such as miracles, and mighty deeds, and wonders; and the Flesh, on the other hand, exhibited the affections which belong to it. It was hungry under the devil’s temptation, thirsty with the Samaritan woman, wept over Lazarus, was troubled even unto death, and at last actually died.” Tertullian (c. 210, W) 3.525
“For He was not, as might be imagined, circumscribed in the body, nor, while present in the body, was He absent elsewhere; nor, while He moved the body, was the universe left void of His working and Providence; but, thing most marvelous, Word as He was, so far from being contained by anything, He rather contained all things Himself; and just as while present in the whole of Creation, He is at once distinct in being from the universe, and present in all things by His own power — giving order to all things, and overall and in all revealing His own providence, and giving life to each thing and all things, including the whole without being included, but being in His own Father alone wholly and in every respect —2. thus, even while present in a human body and Himself quickening it, He was, without inconsistency, quickening the universe as well, and was in every process of nature, and was outside the whole, and while known from the body by His works, He was none the less manifest from the working of the universe as well. 3. Now, it is the function of soul to behold even what is outside its own body, by acts of thought, without, however, working outside its own body, or moving by its presence things remote from the body. Never, that is, does a man, by thinking of things at a distance, by that fact either move or displace them; nor if a man were to sit in his own house and reason about the heavenly bodies, would he by that fact either move the sun or make the heavens revolve. But he sees that they move and have their being, without being actually able to influence them. 4. Now, the Word of God in His man's nature was not like that; for He was not bound to His body, but rather was Himself wielding it, so that He was not only in it, but was actually in everything, and while external to the universe, abode in His Father only. 5. And this was the wonderful thing that He was at once walking as man, and as the Word was quickening all things, and as the Son was dwelling with His Father. So that not even when the Virgin bore Him did He suffer any change, nor by being in the body was [His glory] dulled: but, on the contrary, He sanctified the body also. 6. For not even by being in the universe does He share in its nature, but all things, on the contrary, are quickened and sustained by Him.” Athanasius (On the Incarnation, 17.1-6)
Following in all points the confessions of the Holy Fathers which they made (the Holy Ghost speaking in them), and following the scope of their opinions, and going, as it were, in the royal way, we confess that the Only begotten Word of God, begotten of the same substance of the Father, True God from True God, Light from Light, through Whom all things were made, the things in heaven and the things in the earth, coming down for our salvation, making himself of no reputation (καθεὶς ἑαυτὸν εἰς κένωσιν), was incarnate and made man; that is, taking flesh of the Holy Virgin, and having made it his own from the womb, he subjected himself to birth for us, and came forth man from a woman, without casting off that which he was; but although he assumed flesh and blood, he remained what he was, God in essence and in truth. Neither do we say that his flesh was changed into the nature of divinity, nor that the ineffable nature of the Word of God was laid aside for the nature of flesh; for he is unchanged and absolutely unchangeable, being the same always, according to the Scriptures. For although visible and a child in swaddling clothes, and even in the bosom of his Virgin Mother, he filled all creation as God, and was a fellow-ruler with him who begot him, for the Godhead is without quantity and dimension, and cannot have limits.” – Cyril of Alexandria (Epistle to Nestorius, Council of Ephesus c. 431)
“For as ‘God’ is not changed by the compassion [exhibited], so ‘Man’ is not consumed by the dignity [bestowed]. For each "form" does the acts which belong to it, in communion with the other; the Word, that is, performing what belongs to the Word, and the flesh carrying out what belongs to the flesh; the one of these shines out in miracles, the other succumbs to injuries. And as the Word does not withdraw from equality with the Father in glory, so the flesh does not abandon the nature of our kind. For, as we must often be saying, he is one and the same, truly Son of God, and truly Son of Man.” – Leo, the Archbishop, written to Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople, Council of Chalcedon
Any theory of the incarnation that asserts the Son of God was not always consciously omniscient as well as omnipresent and omnipotent is incompatible with the historic Christian Faith, i.e. the teachings of the early church as found in the Doctrine of the Trinity and its corollary doctrines as well as Chalcedonian Christology and its corollary doctrines. Functional kenotic Christology is so called because it is intended to “function” as “ontological Christology” without claiming Jesus actually divested Himself of any divine attributes. As I pointed out earlier, functional kenoticism is as heretical as ontological kenoticism. Functional kenotic Christology would seem to be nothing more than a poorly thought work around for ontological Christology seeking the same result.
“Kenoticism is the doctrine that in the incarnation the Logos emptied himself of his divine attributes, or compressed them into the measure and cast of the human; that he parted with his omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, and subjected himself to the limitations of a merely human life. These are the central ideas of the doctrine, though not all kenoticists hold so extreme a view.” Miley, J. (1893). Systematic theology, volume 2 (p. 59). New York: Hunt & Eaton.
For those who subscribe to it I wonder if they believe the ECF’s would have accepted the claims of Apollinaris if he had said that while the Son possessed a rational human soul, He chose not to use it, rather than making the claim that Jesus did not possess a rational human soul. That would be “functional Apollinarianism.” I am quite certain that they would not have accepted it. How about all the theologians who originally proposed different forms of ontological kenoticism to reach the same end as functional kenoticism (see above), I wonder why they didn’t propose that Jesus simply “chose” not to use His incommunicable attributes. My guess is they thought it through and realized the number of contradictions that would arise from such an assertion. Further, I’m sure they knew that attributes such as omniscience and omnipresence are not attributes one uses like a superheroes use their superpowers, but a state of existence which cannot simply “be turned on and off like a light switch.” Therefore, they each tried to formulate a way, mainly by redefining exactly what it means to be God, so that Jesus could divest Himself of certain attributes while still being able to make the claim of being fully divine. Keep in mind that they were attempting to somehow stay withing the “confessional standards” of the historic Christian faith, not oppose it.
“Both ontological and functional kenoticism attempt to remain within the church’s confessional standards and account for the biblical data, yet both views also attempt to reformulate the established orthodoxy regarding the identity of Christ, with the ontological variety doing so much more radically than the functional version.” Wellum, Stephen J.. God the Son Incarnate (Foundations of Evangelical Theology) (p. 423). Crossway. Kindle Edition.
I hope I have been able to explain why you certainly seem to be teaching functional kenotic Christology even in your response to me. I have some questions and I do not know if you will have time to answer them, but they are real questions seeking information I do not have, things which I am truly curious about. They are not finger wagging, condescending, rhetorical attacks on you in any way. Whether or not you have time to answer them, I believe they would provide even more insight into what I am trying to communicate.
1. Outside what I have written to you are you familiar with what is defined as functional kenotic Christology? (The reason I ask is the few people I know that I have asked were unfamiliar with the term and what it meant and yet the teaching itself, as I said at the beginning of my letter, seems to be standard dogma these days in evangelical circles).
2. As I asked at the beginning of this letter, how does what you just said in your response to me (and in your lecture) differ from “Functional Kenoticism” as you understand it and/or how I have explained it?
3. May I ask how you came to your understanding? Was it through certain textbooks?
The reason I ask is as far as I can tell, functional kenoticism is a recent development, much more recent than ontological kenoticism. In fact, at this point, I believe “functional kenotic Christology” is basically an inadvertent evangelical dogmatic tradition that may have begun from a misunderstanding and that others “passed on” believing it to be orthodox without ever carefully examining it.
Professor X, I want to thank you again for sharing your time and expertise with me. I really appreciate even the limited correspondence because let’s face it, very few people enjoy talking about theology proper and Christology even though it is the foundation of our faith.
Blessings in Christ Jesus
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