Communicatio idiomatum

[Fenstermacher]

Over at Wittenberg trail I was asking for help on the following:

I am involved in a discussion with some Reformed friends and was told that Lutherans teach the ubiquity of Christ's Body and that the Communication of Attributes both in our Christology and Sacramentology are "subchalcedonian". I am aware of the distinction between "local extension" and ubiquity proper and that the former is a Calvinist fiction.

There seems to be an irony here because I see in Reformed theology not only a penchant for gross rationalism but a certain species of Nestorianism.

The discussion began with me asserting that statements to the effect that "God died" at Calvary, while essentially statements of devotion and of awe, are still not entirely improper. I noted that Luther was find of saying things like this and was pleased to see that Mueller agreed. Anyway, my Reformed friends blew a gasket insisting that, at the Cross our Lord's human nature died but that it was nonsense and possibly blasphemous to speak of God dying.



At any rate, I need an argument for what I have come to believe; i.e. that a truly chalcedonian christology requires that in Christ the two natures, while "unmingled" and distinct are necessarily duly intercommunicated such that the expression "God-man" has real meaning; that is, that Christ is in fact a Divine Man such that it is proper not only to say that Mary was the mother of God but that in some tremendous sense, at the cross, God died.

I have Mueller, as I mentioned and he is helpful. I also have Kelly for an early church survey and Sasse on the Lord's Supper but he doesn't say much about the CA.

This is a lot, I know, but to boil it down, since I asserted that the Lutheran perspective on the CA is more historically consistent and more properly Chalcedonian, I am looking for patristic references and exposition of Chalcedon which supports our Chrisology in this matter.

Any help would be appreciated.

I'm repeating it here for your valuable input.

 

[Fenstermacher]

After getting some good responses over there, here is the substance of what I gave back to my Reformed interlocutors:

I don't think I can satisfy you. I think our differences have little to do with proof and history and more to do with presuppositions about Christology and Sacramentology, so I thought it might be good to just jot a few things down:

There is a distinction made between local extension and ubiquity. Lutherans do indeed affirm a sacramental ubiquity in the very same sense that the Apostle Paul does when he speaks of "Christ in us" which may, I suppose be understood as a trope but which may also be understood as quite literal. The Reformed have, historically taken issue with the idea of "local extension" by which is meant that there is a necessary, one-to-one, physical identification with the Body of Christ here and the Body of Christ there. Lutherans have always understood the real Presence to be an illocal and supernatural mode of presence.

So, when it is insisted that ubiquity necessitates a local extension of Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament a fiction is introduced into the idea which is alien to anything intended by Luther or Chemnitz. The usual Reformed dissatisfaction with this is, I believe, borne of too close an affection for rationalism. To insist that Christ cannot be really present in the Sacrament because He is only really present at the right hand of the Father is to deny Christ when He told us that he would be with us always (because how can He be with us and in heaven at the same time? because he is only with us "spiritually"? What does that mean and how much sense does it make of the Incarnation?) and to insist on far too wooden and literal an understanding of the resurrected body of Christ than can fit comfortably into a Sacramental (and may I say Chalcedonian) view of the Incarnation.

In the same way that Transubstantiation amounts to a sort of docetism since it denies the usefulness of the elements, relegating matter to the role of "accidens", so also the Reformed view amounts to a sort of Nestorianism since it denies the essential and necessary union of the earthly with the Divine, insisting that they are separable because reason requires it. The alternative seems to be unacceptable because it cannot be understood how Jesus can be in heaven and yet in bread and wine, so the fiction of a "spiritual presence" is invented to explain it.

And all this impacts Christology very forcefully.

I believe that the only view of the Sacrament which squares with the Incarnation, understood after Chalcedon, is that of the Lutheran Church since it admits that in the Sacrament we receive not only bread and wine but the true Body and Blood of Jesus shed for us. Any other view either goes too far or falls short of the real meaning of the Incarnation which was, after all, the coming of the God-man, fully God and fully man, with no confusion of attributes and yet no possible separation of them.

For this reason I also admit that Chalcedon was quite correct in identifying Mary as Theotokos since the child she bore was God. And the man that hung on the cross was God. Chalcedon requires that we never say that at any point He ceased being God, for this reason, we say, with Cyril of Alexandria and Athanasius and several others that at Calvary the Word of God suffered and, yes, somehow, died.

I'm putting it here to get your valuable input.

 

[doulos_tou_kuriou]

Well, looking for affirmation of the Lutheran position through the Church Father's is interesting since while we find value in them, scripture is the ultimate authority.
But since you asked, I will present you with this:

"If any one distributes between two characters or persons the expressions used about Christ in the gospels, etc...applying some to the man, conceived of seperately, apart from the Word,...others exclusively to the Word..., let him be anathema.
...If any one does not confess that the Word of God suffered in the flesh and was crucified in the flesh..., let him be anathema."
This quote was from Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria's "The Anathemas"
I took this excerpt from "Documents of the Christian Church. Edited by Henry Bettenson and Chris Maunder, Oxford Press. The book notes that this letter was approved at the council of ephesus in 431

Hope that might help in what you're looking for. If I am off track I must apologize.

pax

 

[doulos_tou_kuriou]

Wish DaRev was here, he would probably have a very good answer for this question.

 

[wildboar]

I believe that Chemnitz has a section with many quotes from the church fathers in his book "The Two Natures In Christ." You can read part of it here: From The Two Natures In Christ

The catlogue of testmonies also has some good quotes: Catalogue of Testimonies - Andreae & Chemnitz (Introduction)

 

[RadMan]

Over at Wittenberg trail I was asking for help on the following:


I'm repeating it here for your valuable input.

Sounds like a Lutherquest subject.

I've found out that when theology is dissected to its common, lowest denominator it can be built back up under just about any premise and be totally misinterpreted and misconstrued.

 

[Fenstermacher]

Sounds like a Lutherquest subject.

I've found out that when theology is dissected to its common, lowest denominator it can be built back up under just about any premise and be totally misinterpreted and misconstrued.

This is an old, old debate between Lutherans and the Reformed with a lot of hard words and bad language exchanged in its course. These have often obscured the real matter of the debate which has to do with a responsibly biblical and Chalcedonian Christology.

It doesn't help when Reformed people call us Eutychian or we call them Nestorian but it remains that from either perspective these terms do more or less frame the argument.

ISTM that the traditional Reformed understanding is (thankfully) inconsistent; they tend to shy away from acknowledging that at the cross, at the moment of His death, Jesus was God and that therefore in some amazing and ultimately incomprehensible way, God died.

Of course, Lutherans do not say that there was no God for three days, or that God was gone away, but it remains that our understanding is a profound and powerful affirmation of historic Christology. It, far more than any alternative, affirms and underscores and celebrates the Hypostatic Union, since for every expression to the effect that the natures are "unmingled" and "distinct" in the Chalcedonian formula, it is also true that the overriding and underpinning intent is to profess faith in the reality of the union such that the God-man is, since the Incarnation, not ever not, fully and mysteriously, God as well as man.

The Reformed criticism boils down to the charge that we deny logic. They say that we would have a Man Who is at the right hand of the Father, also present in our Sacrament, which is physically impossible.

This boggles the mind and, frankly should sadden us. It is so impoverished an assumption. There is so much in Scripture that defies rationale; Christ Himself defies it: that God became a man and bore our sin at the cross and rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven where He now lives to make intercession for His people defies reason. It all defies reason.

But this is another thing with the Reformed, they usually have greater confidence in a baptized human reason than we do.

 

[doulos_tou_kuriou]

The Reformed criticism boils down to the charge that we deny logic. They say that we would have a Man Who is at the right hand of the Father, also present in our Sacrament, which is physically impossible.

This boggles the mind and, frankly should sadden us. It is so impoverished an assumption. There is so much in Scripture that defies rationale; Christ Himself defies it: that God became a man and bore our sin at the cross and rose again from the dead and ascended into heaven where He now lives to make intercession for His people defies reason. It all defies reason.

But this is another thing with the Reformed, they usually have greater confidence in a baptized human reason than we do.

Ultimately Luther's (and the Lutheran) response to this is like you say, God defies reason. The wisdom of the Gentiles is a stumbling block. God is not bound by human logic or mathematical formula, for in God all things are possible. If then Christ ascends to heaven yet says he is present in the sacrament, then he is present. It is not a matter of reason trumping the word of God.

I also find it interesting that you note that the issue the reformed camp has is God dying not man, yet in discussions of "physical presence" the discussion is of man being present, not God.
Weird.
pax

 

[wildboar]

For me, one of the reasons I ended up leaving Reformed theology for Lutheranism was because of the doctrine of the Trinity. It's really impossible to understand rationally in your mind. The idea that some entity can be both one being and three persons at the same time can never be fully understood but only believed. This need to accept mystery in regards to the doctrine of the Trinity left me open to accept mystery in the other doctrines as well rather than trying to systematize the living daylights out of everything. Those in the Reformed camp who have tried to truly rationalize Christology such as Gordon Clark have fallen into Nestorianism. I really don't think most Reformed folks even really think about the Trinity that much. There are tons of internet forums where they talk about predestination but there just isn't the same interest in the Trinity and I think also causes a lot of problems. We worship the Trinity, not predestination. I think that most just take the Trinity as a given without really thinking about but if they were to apply the same methods they use in interpreting other doctrines I really believe that they would end up being modalists, on a practical level I think most evangelicals are actually modalists and probably most Western Christians function as modalists most of the time.

 

[doulos_tou_kuriou]

I think that most just take the Trinity as a given without really thinking about but if they were to apply the same methods they use in interpreting other doctrines I really believe that they would end up being modalists, on a practical level I think most evangelicals are actually modalists and probably most Western Christians function as modalists most of the time.

Modalists? Might thou be so kind as to share with the ignorant such as myself as to what a modalist is? It sounds like a cool term that I would like to be able to use someday.

 

[BigNorsk]

A modalist turns the three persons of God into three states. At some times God is the Father, at others the Son, and still others the Holy Spirit.

Basically, one at a time.

Marv

 

[filosofer]

Perhaps one way to understand what a modalist believes:

I am act as a husband at times, a father at other times, a grandfather at other times, etc. But I am the same person.

 

[doulos_tou_kuriou]

Ok. heard of the thought before, maybe even the term. But did not remember it. Thanks all!
Pax

 

[Fenstermacher]

I believe Oneness Pentecostals are essentially modalist, seeing the essential and leading "mode" as Jesus.