Socinianism.
Socinus was an Italian, born of a noble family at Siena, in 1539. The earlier part of his life was not devoted to learning. Being a favourite of the Grand Duke, he passed twelve years at his court, and then removed to Basel that he might prosecute his theological studies, in which he had become deeply interested. After a few years he removed to Poland and settled at Cracow. There and in its vicinity he passed the greater part of his active life. He died in 1604.
The early Socinians erected a college at Racovia, in Lesser Poland, which attained so high a reputation that it attracted students from among Protestants and Romanists. It was however suppressed by the government in 1658, and the followers of Socinus, after having suffered a protracted persecution, were expelled from the kingdom.
Socinus and his followers admitted the divine authority of the Scriptures. The sacred writers, they said, wrote, divino Spiritu impulsi eoque dictante. They admitted that the Bible contained doctrines above, but not contrary to reason. Of this contrariety reason was to judge. On this ground they rejected many doctrines held by the Church universal, especially the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Atonement. Socinus said that as there is but one divine essence there can be but one divine person. He denied that there is any such thing as natural religion or natural theology. Supernatural revelation he regarded as the only source of our knowledge of God and of divine things. The only religion was the Christian, which he defined to be "Via divinitus proposita et patefacta perveniendi ad immortalitatem, seu æternam vitam."1 This is the answer to the first question of the "Brevissima Institutio," of which Socinus was the author.
All men having sinned they became subject to the penalty of eternal death, which Socinus understood to be annihilation. To deliver men from this penalty God sent Christ into the world, and it is only through Him that immortality can be secured. Concerning Christ, he taught that He was in Himself and by nature a mere man, having had no existence prior to his being born of the Virgin Mary. He was, however, distinguished from all other men, —
1. By his miraculous conception.2
2. Although peccable and liable to be tempted, He was entirely free from sin.
3. He received a special baptism of the Holy Ghost, that is, of the divine efficiency.
4. Some time before entering upon his public ministry He was taken up into heaven that He might see God and be instructed immediately by Him. There are two passages which speak of Christ's having been in heaven (John iii. 13, and John vi. 62). "In priore loco," says Socinus, "ex Græco ita verba Christi legi possunt, ut dicat, filium hominis non quidem esse in coelo, sed fuisse. Vox enim Græca?on quæ per præsens tempus reddita fuit, potest, ut doctissimi aliqui interpretes annotarunt (Erasmus et Beza), reddi per præteritum imperfectum; ut legatur non qui est, sed, qui erat in coelo."3 As no preëxistence of Christ was admitted, these passages were regarded as direct assertions of his being taken up into heaven during his earthly life.
5. The great distinction of Christ is that since his resurrection and ascension all power in heaven and in earth has been committed to Him. He is exalted above all creatures, and constituted God's viceroy over the whole universe. The question is asked, "Quid tamen istud ejus divinum imperium nominatim complectitur?" To which the answer is, "Propter id quod jam dictum est, nempe quod hoc potestatem complectitur plenissimam et absolutissimam in verum Dei populum, hinc necessario sequitur, eodem divino imperio contineri potestatem et dominationem in omnes angelos et spiritus tam malos, quam bonos."4 And again: "Nonne ex eadem tua ratiocinatione sequitur, Jesum Christum in omnes homines plenum dominatum habere? Sine dubio; nec solum in omnes homines sed præter ipsum unum Deum 1 Cor. xv. 27, prorsus in alia omnia, quemadmodum divina testimonia nos diserte docent."5
6. On account of this exaltation and authority Christ is properly called God, and is to be worshipped. Socinus would recognize no man as a Christian who was not a worshipper of Christ. The answer to Question 246 in the Racovian Catechism, declares those "qui Christum non invocant nec adorandum censent," to be no Christians, because in fact they have no Christ.6
7. Socinus acknowledges that men owe their salvation to Christ. He saves them not only in his character of prophet by teaching them the truth; not only in his character of priest by interceding for them; but especially in virtue of his kingly office. He exercises the divine and absolute power and authority granted to Him for their protection and assistance. He operates not only over them and for them, but also within them, so that it is through Him that immortality or eternal life is secured.
From all this it appears that Socinus and his early followers held much more exalted views of Christ than those who in Great Britain and America are called Socinians, by whom our Lord is regarded as an ordinary man. The term Unitarian, especially in this country, is used in a sense which includes all who deny the doctrine of the Trinity and retain the name of Christians. It therefore includes Arians, Semi-Arians, genuine Socinians, and Humanitarians.
Swedenborg.
This theory has been held in different forms. The doctrine of Swedenborg is so mystical that it is very difficult to be clearly understood, and it has been modified in a greater or less degree by his recognized disciples. Swedenborg was the son of a Swedish bishop. He was born in January, 1688, and died in March, 1772. He enjoyed every advantage of early education. He manifested extraordinary precocity, and made such attainments in every branch of learning as to gain the highest rank among the literati of that day. He wrote numerous works in all the departments of science before he turned his attention to matters of religion. Believing that the existing Church in all its forms had failed to arrive at the true sense of Scripture, he regarded himself as called by God, in an extraordinary or miraculous manner, to reveal the hidden meaning of the Word of God and found a new Church.
1. Concerning God, he taught that He was not only essence but form, and that that form was human. He called God "the eternal God-man." There are two kinds of bodies, material and spiritual. Every man, besides his external material body has another which is internal and spiritual. The latter has all the organs of the former, so that it can see, hear, and feel. At death the outer body is laid aside, and the soul thereafter acts through the ethereal or spiritual vestment. This is the only resurrection which Swedenborg admitted. There is no rising again of the bodies laid in the grave. As however the spiritual corresponds to the material, those who know each other in this world will enjoy mutual recognition in the world to come. This feature of his anthropology is connected with his doctrine concerning God. For as the soul from its nature forms for itself a body for action ad extra, so the essence of God forms for itself a spiritual body for external manifestation.
As there is but one divine essence, Swedenborg maintained that there can be but one divine person. The Church doctrine of the Trinity he regarded as Tritheistic. He admitted a Trinity of principles, but not of persons. As soul and body in man are one person, and from them proceeds the activity which operates without, so in God the divine and human are the Father and the Son, as one person, and the Holy Spirit is their efficiency or sanctifying influence.
2. Concerning man, Swedenborg taught that he was created in the image of God, and was a creature of a very exalted nature. The Scriptural account of the fall he understood allegorically of the apostasy of the Church. Men, however, he admits, are sinful, and are even born with a bias to evil, but they have not lost their ability to do good. They consequently need redemption. They are susceptible of being delivered from evil not only because they retain their moral liberty, but also because in virtue of the inward spiritual body they are capable of intercourse with spiritual beings. As man by means of his material body is conversant with the world of sense, so in virtue of his spiritual body he is capable of intercourse with the inhabitants of the spiritual world. Swedenborg reports many instances in which he conversed with God and angels, good and bad. By angels, however, he meant men who had departed this life. He did not admit the existence of any created intelligence other than man.
3. Christ he held to be Jehovah, the only living and true God, the creator, preserver, and ruler of the world. As this divine person was God and man from eternity, his incarnation, or manifestation in the flesh, consisted in his assuming a material body with its psychical life in the womb of the Virgin Mary. This was the body which grew, suffered, and died. In the case of ordinary men the material body is left forever in the grave, but in the case of Christ the outward body was gradually refined and glorified until it was lost in that which is spiritual and eternal. This idea of a twofold body in Christ is not by any means peculiar to Swedenborg. Barclay, the representative theologian of the Quakers, says: "As there was the outward visible body and temple of Jesus Christ, which took its origin from the Virgin Mary: there is also the spiritual body of Christ, by and through which He that was the Word in the beginning with God, and was and is God, did reveal Himself to the sons of men in all ages, and whereby men in all ages come to be made partakers of eternal life, and to have communion and fellowship with God and Christ."7 And again, P. Poiret, of Amsterdam, teaches that "La Majesté divine voulut couvrir son corps glorieux de notre chair mortelle, qu'il voulut prendre dans le sein d'une Vierge." "Le corps de Jésus Christ, se revêtant de la chair et du sang de la bien heureuse Vierge, fera aussi peu un composé de deux corps différents, qu'un habit blanc et lumineux plongé dans un vase de couleur chargée et obscure, ou il se charge de la matière, qui produit cette opacité, ne devient pour cela un habit double ou deux habits, au lieu d'un."8
4. Christ's redemptive work does not consist in his bearing our sins upon the tree, or in making satisfaction to the justice of God for our offences. All idea of such satisfaction Swedenborg rejects. The work of salvation is entirely subjective. Justification is pardon granted on repentance. The people of God are made inwardly righteous, and being thus holy are admitted to the presence of God and holy spirits in heaven. His peculiar views of the state of the departed, or of Heaven and Hell, do not call for consideration in this place.9
Isaac Watts.
No one familiar with Dr. Watts' "Psalms and Hymns," can doubt his being a devout worshipper of our Lord Jesus Christ, or call in question his belief in the doctrine of the Trinity. Yet on account of his peculiar views on the person of Christ, there is a vague impression that he had in some way departed from the faith of the Church. It is, indeed, often said that he was Arian. In his works,10 however, there is a dissertation on "The Christian Doctrine of the Trinity: or, Father, Son, and Spirit, three persons and one God, asserted and proved, with their divine Rights and Honors vindicated, by plain evidence of Scripture, without the aid or incumbrance of human Schemes. Written chiefly for the use of private Christians." In that dissertation the common Church doctrine is presented in the usual form, and sustained by the common arguments, with singular perspicuity and force.
His peculiar views on the person of Christ are brought out in three discourses on "The Glory of Christ as God-man,"11 published in 1746. In the first of these he refers to the "visible appearances of Christ, as God before his incarnation," and brings into view all the texts in which He is called Jehovah, God, and Lord, and those in which divine attributes and prerogatives are ascribed to Him.
In the second, he treats of the "extensive powers of the human nature of Christ in its present glorified state." In a previous essay he took the position that the "human soul of Christ is the first, the greatest, the wisest, the holiest, and the best of all created spirits."12 He argues this point from all those passages of Scripture which speak of the exaltation of Christ and of the gift to Him of absolutely universal dominion. As the divine nature of Christ does not admit of exaltation or of receiving anything as a gift, he inferred that these passages must be understood of his human nature, and therefore that Christ as a man must be regarded as exalted over all created beings. To the objection, "How is it possible that a human spirit should be endued with powers of so vast an extent?" he answers, first, that the power in question is not infinite; and secondly, that if the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of matter be true, we cannot fix the minimum of smallness, and how then can we determine the maximum of greatness. "Why," he asks, "may not the human soul of Christ be as well appointed to govern the world, as the soul of man is appointed to govern his body, when it is evident the soul of man does not know one thousandth part of the fine branchings of the muscles and nerves, and the more refined vapour or animal spirits which are parts of this body?"13 Thirdly, we can hardly set a limit even to our own capacity; and yet the "soul of Christ may be reasonably supposed in its own nature to transcend the powers of all other souls as far as an angel exceeds an idiot, and yet be but a human soul still, for gradus non mutant speciem."14 Fourthly, if the powers of the soul of Christ were not in his state of humiliation sufficient for the purposes of government and judgment, that does not prove that they are not now sufficient in his glorified estate. "Who knows what amazing enlargement may attend all the natural powers of man when advanced to a state of glory?"15 Fifthly and mainly, this supreme exaltation of the power of the human soul of Christ is due to its union with the divine nature. It was because of this union that when the soul of Christ, while here on earth, willed to perform a miracle, the effect immediately followed. So "the man Christ may give forth all the commands of God whereby the world is governed."16 "Upon this representation of things," he adds, "the various language of Scripture appears to be true, and is made very intelligible. Christ says He can do nothing of himself, He knew not the day of judgment' when He was here on earth, etc., and yet He is said to know the hearts of men, and to know all things'; for as fast as the divine mind united to Him was pleased to communicate all these ideas, so fast was his human nature capable of receiving them."17
The third discourse is devoted to proving the preëxistence of the human soul of Christ. He argues from the fact that there are many expressions in the Bible, which seem to imply that He had a dependent nature before He came into this world. He is called the angel or messenger of God, and is represented as sent to execute his will. He urges also the fact that He is said to be the image of God. But the divine essence or nature cannot be the image of itself. That term can only apply to a created nature united to the divine, so that the "complex person" thus constituted, should reveal what God is. An argument is also drawn from all those passages in which Christ is said to have humbled Himself, to have become poor, to have made Himself of no reputation. All this cannot, he says, be properly understood of the divine nature, but is perfectly intelligible and full of meaning if referred to the human soul of our Lord. It was an act of unspeakable condescension for the highest intelligent creature to "empty Himself" and become as ignorant and feeble as an infant, and to submit not only to grow in wisdom, but to subject Himself to the infirmities and sufferings of our mortal state. If asked how so exalted an intellect can be reduced to the condition or state of an infant, he answers, that something analogous to this not unfrequently occurs, even in human experience. Men of mature age and of extensive learning have lost all their knowledge, and have been reduced to the necessity of learning it all over again, though in some cases it has returned suddenly. It was the same nature that emptied itself that was afterwards filled with glory as a recompense. Another argument for the preëxistence of the soul of Christ, he says, may be drawn from the fact that his incarnation "is always expressed in some corporeal language, such as denotes his taking on Him animal nature, or body, or flesh, without the least mention of taking a soul.'"18
Again,19 "The covenant betwixt God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ for the redemption of mankind, is represented in Scripture as being made and agreed upon from or before the foundation of the world. Is it not then most proper that both real parties should be actually present, and that this should not be transacted merely within the divine essence by such sort of distinct personalities as have no distinct mind and will? The essence of God is generally agreed by our Protestant divines to be the same single numerical essence in all three personalities, and therefore it can be but one conscious mind or spirit. Now can one single understanding and will make such a covenant as Scripture represents? I grant the divine nature which is in Christ from eternity contrived and agreed all the parts of this covenant. But does it not add a lustre and glory, and more conspicuous equity, to this covenant, to suppose the man Christ Jesus who is most properly the mediator according to 1 Tim. ii. 5, to be also present before the world was made, to be chosen and appointed as the redeemer or reconciler of mankind, to be then ordained the head of his future people, to receive promises, grace, and blessings in their name, and to accept the solemn and weighty trust from the hand of his Father, that is, to take care of millions of souls?"
He also argues from what the Bible teaches of the Sonship of Christ. "When He is called a Son, a begotten Son, this seems to imply derivation and dependency; and perhaps the Sonship of Christ, and his being the only begotten of the Father, may be better explained by attributing it to his human soul, existing by some peculiar and immediate manner of creation, formation, or derivation from the Father, before other creatures were formed; especially if we include in the same idea of Sonship his union to the divine nature, and if we add also his exaltation to the office of the Messiah, as King and Lord of all."20
Dr. Watts explains clearly what he means by the preëxistence of the humanity of Christ, when he says:21 "All the idea which I have of a human soul is this, namely, a created mind or spirit which hath understanding and will, and rational powers, and which is fit to be united to a human body, in such a manner as to exert the powers of a man, to feel the appetites and sensibilities and passions of a man, as to receive impressions or sensations, whether pleasant or painful, by the means of that body, and is also able to actuate and influence all the animal powers of that body in a way agreeable to human nature."
The above is very far from being a full exposition of the considerations urged by Dr. Watts in support of his theory. It is simply a selection of the more plausible of his arguments presented in order that his doctrine may be properly understood.
It appears that he believed in the eternal Godhead of the Logos as the second person of the Trinity; and that God, before any other creatures were called into existence, created a human soul in personal union with the Logos of such exalted powers as to render him the greatest of all created spirits; that the incarnation consisted in this complex person assuming a material human body with its animal life; that the humiliation of Christ consisted in his human soul thus exalted in its own nature, emptying itself of its knowledge, power, and glory, and submitting not only to the gradual development of his humanity, but also to all that made our Lord while here on earth a man of sorrows. His exaltation consisted in the enlargement of the powers of his soul during his state of humiliation, and in his resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God.
Objections.
The more obvious objections to this theory are, —
1. That it is contrary to the common faith of the Church, and, therefore, to the obvious sense of Scripture. The Bible in teaching that the Son of God became man, thereby teaches that He assumed a true body and a rational soul. For neither a soul without a body, nor a body without a soul, is a man in the Scriptural sense of the term. It was the Logos which became man; and not a God-man that assumed a material body.
2. The passages of Scripture cited in its support are interpreted, for the most part, in violation of the recognized principle that whatever is true of either nature in Christ, may be predicated of his person. As Christ could say, "I thirst," without implying that his divine nature was subject to the wants of a material body; so He could say, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth," without teaching that such power vests in his humanity.
3. The doctrine that Christ's human soul was the first and most exalted of created spirits, raises Him beyond the reach of human sympathies. He is, as man, farther from us than the angel Gabriel. We need, and the Bible reveals to us a, so to speak, more circumscribed Saviour, one who, although true God, is nevertheless a man like unto his brethren, whom we can embrace in the arms of our faith and love.22
§ 9. Modern Forms of the Doctrine.
Dorner, in the first edition of his work on the "Person of Christ," says that the Lutheran theology carried the attempt to preserve the unity of Christ's person, on the Church assumption that He possessed two distinct natures, to the utmost extreme. If that attempt be a failure, nothing more remains. He holds it to be a failure not only because it involves the impossible assumption of a transfer of attributes without a change of substance, but also because it is one-sided. It refuses to admit of the communication of human attributes to the divine nature, whilst it insists on the transfer of divine perfections to the human nature. And moreover, he urges, that admitting all the Lutheran theory claims, the union of the two natures remains just as unreal as it is on the Church doctrine. Any distinction of natures, in the ordinary sense of the words, must, he says, be given up. It is on this assumption that the modern views of the person of Christ are founded. These views may be divided into two classes, the Pantheistical and the Theistical. These two classes, however, have a good deal in common. Both are founded on the principle of the oneness of God and man. This is admitted on all sides. "The characteristic feature of all recent Christologies," says Dorner, "is the endeavour to point out the essential unity of the divine and human."23 The heading of the section in which this admission occurs, is, "The Foundations of the New Christology laid by Schelling, Hegel, Schleiermacher." This is equivalent to saying that the New Christology is founded on the principles of the pantheistic philosophy. Baur24 says the same thing. He entitles the last division of his work on the Trinity, "Die gegenseitige Durchdringung der Philosophie und der Theologie," i.e., The mutual interpenetration of Philosophy and Theology. The latter is merged into the former. Dr. Ullmann says, the doctrine of the oneness of God and man, which he represents as the fundamental idea of Schleiermacher's theology and of Christianity itself, is not entirely new. It was inculcated by the German Mystics of the Middle Ages.25 Hegel says that what the Bible teaches of Christ is not true of an individual, but only of mankind as a whole; and Hegel's Christological ideas, Dr. John Nevin of Mercersburg, says, "are very significant and full of instruction."26 The objection that these principles are pantheistical, he pronounces "a mere sound without any force whatever," and adds that we need a Christian pantheism to oppose the antichristian pantheism of the day. Schleiermacher says that a pantheism which holds to the formula "One and All" ("the all-one-doctrine") is perfectly consistent with religion, and differs little in its effects from Monotheism! Similar avowals might be adduced without number. Theologians of this class deny that God and man are essentially different. They repeat, almost with every breath, that God and man are one, and they make this the fundamental idea of Christianity, and especially of Christology
Pantheistical Christology.
As Christian theology purports to be an exhibition of the theology of the Bible, every theory which involves the denial of a personal God, properly lies beyond its sphere. In modern systems, however, there is such a blending of pantheistic principles with theistic doctrines, that the two cannot be kept entirely separate. Pantheistical and theistical theologians, of the modern school, unite in asserting "the oneness of God and man." They understand that doctrine, however, in different senses. With the former it is understood to mean identity, so that man is only the highest existence-form of God; with the others, it often means nothing more than that "natura humana capax est naturæ divinæ." The human is capable of receiving the attributes of the divine. Man may become God.
It follows, in the first place, from the doctrine, that God is the only real Being of which the world is the ever changing phenomenon, that "die Menschwerdung Gottes ist eine Menschwerdung von Ewigkeit." The incarnation of God is from eternity. And, in the second place, that this process is continuous, complete in no one instance, but only in the whole. Every man is a form of the life of God, but the infinite is never fully realized or revealed in any one manifestation. Some of these philosophers were willing to say that God was more fully manifested in Christ than in any other individual of our race, but the difference between Him and other men is only one of degree. Others say that the peculiar distinction of Christ was that He had a clearer view and a deeper conviction of the identity of God and man than any other man. It all amounts to the summation of the doctrine as given by Strauss.27 "If," says he, "the idea of the oneness of the divine and human natures, of God and man, be a reality, does it follow that this reality is effected or manifested once for all in a single individual, as never before and never after him?.... An idea is never exhibited in all its fulness in a single exemplar; and in all others only imperfectly. An idea is always realized in a variety and multiplicity of exemplars, which complement each other; its richness being diffused by the constant change of individuals, one succeeding or supplanting another..... Mankind, the human race, is the God-man. The key to a true Christology is that the predicates which the Church applies to Christ, as an individual, belong to an idea, or to a generic whole." So Blasche28 says, "We understand by God's becoming man, not the revelation of Himself in one or more of the most perfect of men, but the manifestation of Himself in the race of men (in der ganzen Menschheit)."
Theistical Christology.
We have the authority of Dorner for saying that the modern speculations on Christology are founded on the two principles that there is but one nature in Christ, and that human nature is capax naturæ divinæ, is capable of being made divine. To this must be added a third, although Dorner himself does not hold it, that the divine is capable of becoming human.
The advocates of these principles agree, First, in admitting that there was a true growth of the man Christ Jesus. When an infant He was as feeble, as ignorant, and as unconscious of moral character as other infants. When a child He had no more intellectual or physical strength than other children. There is, however, a difference in their mode of statement as to what Christ was during the maturity of his earthly life. According to some, He had no superhuman knowledge or power. All He knew was communicated to Him, some say by the Father, others say by the Logos. The miracles which He wrought were not by his own power, but by the power of God. At the grave of Lazarus He prayed for power to restore his friend to life, or rather that God would raise him from the dead; and He gave thanks that his prayer was heard.
Secondly, they agree that the development of the humanity of our Lord was without sin. He was from the beginning holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. Nevertheless He had to contend with all the infirmities of our nature, and to resist all the temptations arising from the flesh, the world, and the devil, with which his people have to contend. He was liable to sin. As He was subject to hunger, thirst, weariness, and pain, as He had feelings capable of being wounded by ingratitude and insult, He was liable to the impatience and resentment which suffering or injury is adapted to produce. As He was susceptible of pleasure from the love and admiration of others, He was exposed to the temptation of seeking the honour which comes from men. In all things, however, He was without sin.
Thirdly, they agree that it was only gradually that Christ came to the knowledge that He was a divine person, and into the possession and use of divine attributes. Communications of knowledge and power were made to Him from time to time from on high, so that both the knowledge of what He was and the consciousness of the possession of divine perfections came to Him by degrees. Christ's exaltation, therefore, began and was carried on while He was here on earth, but it was not until his resurrection and ascension that He became truly and forever divine.
Fourthly, since his ascension and session at the right hand of God, He is still a man, and only a man. Nevertheless He is an infinite man. A man with all the characteristics of a human soul possessed of all the perfections of the Godhead. Since his ascension, as Gess expresses it, a man has been taken into the adorable Trinity. "As the glorified Son remains man, a man is thus received into the trinitarian life of the Deity from and by the glorification of the Son."29 Thomasius says the same thing. "Die immanente Lebensbewegung der drei Personen ist nunmehr gewissermassen eine göttlich-menschhiche geworden;.... So tief ist in der Person Christi die Menschheit in den Kreis der Trinität hereingenommen — und zwar nicht auf vorübergehende Weise, sondern für immer. Denn der Sohn bleibt ewig Mensch."30 That is: The immanent life movement of the three persons has now become in a measure divine-human;.... so deep has humanity in the person of Christ been taken into the sphere of the Trinity, — and that not in a temporary manner, but forever. For the Son remains man eternally. On the following page he says that humanity, or manhood (Menschsein), has become the permanent existence-form of God the Son. And again31 he says that humanity (das menschliche Geschlecht) is "exalted to full equality with God" (schlecht Gott selbst gleichgesetzt). This would be absolutely impossible were not human nature in its original constitution capable of receiving all divine perfections and of becoming absolutely divine. Accordingly, in this connection, Thomasius says that man is of all creatures the nearest to God.32 "He must from his nature be capable of full participation in the divine glory; he must be the organ into which the entire fulness of the divine love can be poured, and through which it can adequately act, otherwise we cannot understand how God could appropriate human nature as his own permanent form of existence."
The result of the incarnation, therefore, is that God becomes man in such a sense that the Son of God has no life or activity, no knowledge, presence, or power outside of or apart from his humanity. In Christ there is but one life, one activity, one consciousness. Every act of the incarnate Logos is a human act, and every experience of the humanity of Christ, all his sorrows, infirmities, and pains, were the experience of the Logos. "The absolute life, which is the being of God, exists in the narrow limits of an earthly-human life; absolute holiness and truth, the essential attributes of God, develop themselves in the form of human thinking and willing; absolute love has assumed a human form, it lives as human feeling, as human sensibility in the heart of this man; absolute freedom has the form of human self-determination. The Son of God has not reserved for Himself a special existence form (ein besonderes Fürsichseyn), a special consciousness, a special sphere or power of action; He does not exist anywhere outside of the flesh (nec Verbum extra carnem nec caro extra Verbum). He has in the totality of his being become man, his existence-and-life-form is that of a corporeal-spiritual man subject to the limitations of time and space. The other side of this relation is that the human nature is taken up entirely into the divine, and is pervaded by it. It has neither a special human consciousness nor a special human activity of the will for itself in distinction from that of the Logos, just as the latter has nothing which does not belong to the former; in the human thinking, willing, and acting, the Logos thinks, wills, and acts. All dualism of a divine and human existence-form, of a divine and human consciousness, of a concomitancy of divine and human action, is of necessity excluded; as is also any successive communication (Hineinbildung) of one to the other; it is an identical living, activity, sensibility, and development, because it is one Ego, one divine human personality (unio, communio, communicatio, naturarum)."33
As to the manner in which this complete identification of the human and divine in the person of Christ is effected, there are, as above intimated, two opinions. According to Dorner there is a human soul to begin with, to which the Eternal Logos, without subjecting Himself to any change, from time to time communicates his divinity, as the human becomes more and more capable of receiving the perfections of God, until at last it becomes completely divine. With this Dorner connected a philosophical theory concerning the relation of Christ to the universe, and especially to the whole spiritual world.34
The other view of the subject is, that the Eternal Logos, by a process of self-limitation, divested Himself of all his divine attributes. He ceased to be omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. He reduced Himself, so to speak, to the dimensions of a man. While an infant, as before said, He had no knowledge or power which does not belong to any other human infant. He went through the regular process of growth and development, and had all the experiences of ordinary men, yet without sin. But as the substance of the Logos was the substance of the infant born of the Virgin, it continued to develop not only until it reached a height of excellence and glory to which no other man ever attained, but until it ultimately culminated in full equality with God.
On this point Thomasius says, First, that if the Eternal Son, after the assumption of humanity, retained his divine perfections and prerogatives, He did not become man, nor did He unite Himself with humanity. He hovered over it; and included it as a larger circle does a smaller. But there was no real contact or communication. Secondly, if at the moment of the incarnation the divine nature in the fulness of its being and perfection was communicated to the humanity, then Christ could not have had a human existence. The historical life is gone; and all bond of relationship and sympathy with us is destroyed. Thirdly, the only way in which the great end in view could be answered was that God Himself by a process of depotentiation, or self-limitation, should become man; that He should take upon Himself a form of existence subject to the limitations of time and space, and pass through the ordinary and regular process of human development, and take part in all the sinless experiences of a human life and death.35