18. Theology Conclusion

May 17, 2009 Speaker: Junius Johnson Series: [2009] Church History

Topic: Theology

Theology Conclusion: Christological trends

 

CPC Church History I
May 17, 2009
Theological Wrap Up

Introduction

While the 4th Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon represents a high water mark in the development of Christology, it did not immediately satisfy everyone. The 5th Ecumenical Council, held at Constantinople in 553, was once again directed against Nestorianism and teachings about the person of Christ that took the two natures to the extreme of seeming to assert that there were also two persons.

It was clear that many in the Church still felt hesitant about uniting the divine and the human too closely in Christ, even in personal union. In spite of this, the growing trend following Chalcedon was to find more ways of expressing the unity of Christ. This was, in effect, to attempt to give content to the notion of hypostatic union; that is, to answer the question “What do we mean when we say union in the person?”

This was to come to a head at the 6th Ecumenical Council, when the Church would have to face the last great challenge to Chalcedonian Orthodoxy.

Third Council of Constantinople (6th Ecumenical)

This council was held in 680-681. The question here is over the will of Christ. What is meant by “will” is the faculty whereby a person chooses for against any thing. The question is whether there are two wills or only one will in Christ.

  • There was universal Christian feeling that salvation requires the union of divine and human natures—first in Jesus, and then in individual believers.
  • What had happened at Chalcedon (and been affirmed at Constantinople II) was that one possible way of expressing this union had been denied—that is to say, it would not be OK to say that he union was in the nature.
  • Therefore, a new way had to be found to express this union.
  • Chalcedon had recommended personal union, so reflection focused on the characteristics of a person
  • This led to the notion of unity of action (for all actions committed by the Incarnate are the actions of the one person who is divine and human).

The Church’s first reaction to the question of action was to say that no one was allowed to talk about it; it seemed more a question of grammar than theology.

  • This decision, which was put forward in 683, is the first time in the history of the Church that an official theological decision was made not to talk about something because of the difficulties involved. It is a strategy that will be taken up over and over again in Christian theology, especially by the reformers, and which will ultimately lead to an end of substantive theological discussion about Christology and Trinitarian theology. While there are exceptions, between the Reformation and modern liberal re-interpretations of Christian doctrine, most Christians have been uninterested in questions of Christology and Trinitarian theology beyond the mere assertion of the fact of the Trinity and the two natures in Christ.
    • Importantly, this first decision was not based on the belief that the question was so hard that to discuss it would run the risk of hurting the faith of the faithful (a favorite Reformation argument that even the Catholic Erasmus uses), but rather it was based on the fact that the evidence from the Scriptures and the Fathers was so totally inconclusive.

Unity of action led straight to unity of the will behind the action. Thus, we have the claim that there is only one will in Christ. This very intuitive position created philosophical dissonance with the Chalcedonian formula, however.

  • The capacity to will is a power conferred by a nature. No one would acknowledge that a man who lacked the faculty of will were anything other than a monstrous instance of human nature, because he is lacking something he ought to have by nature. 
  • The same is true for the persons of the Trinity, because the divine nature is rational, and so confers the ability to know and to will upon those who have it.
  • Therefore, if Christ is to be fully human, he must have a human will, and if he is to be fully divine, he must have a divine will. But a human will is not a divine will, and vice versa. Therefore he must have two wills. 
  • This was how the council settled the question, in the process embracing the full ramifications of a two nature Christology.

Second Council of Nicea (7th Ecumenical)

There remained one great issue the Church would tackle in Ecumenical council—the issue of icons. The issue was to be settled in 787 at the 7th and last of the councils universally acknowledged to be Ecumenical.

An icon is a work of art which is believed to make present the reality that is presented therein in some significant way. It is therefore not an argument about art, nor even aesthetics, but about specific objects that lay claim to the ability to present (i.e., “make present”) the divine in some special way. In order to understand the controversy, we must note several assumptions that both sides held in common.

  • Material objects can become the seat of divine power, and the power can be transferred through physical contact with a sacred object. This had already become the heart of the theology about the sacraments.
    • This means that both those who were in favor of icons (iconodules) and those who were opposed (iconoclasts) were in agreement about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist—they merely disagreed as to the implications of that presence for other material objects.
  • Both shared a deep concern for the uneducated members of the Church.
    • The iconodules pointed out the usefulness of images for the instruction of an increasingly illiterate laity; iconoclasts pointed out that this same simplicity of the laity might cause them to mistake the doctrine and worship the image as if it were God, and not merely the vehicle of God’s presence.
  • In addition, both sides recognized the importance of “image” in existing theology. For example, the Old Testament was called a “shadow” of divine realities, where the New Testament was an “image.” And clearly, man is created in the image of God.
    • Iconodules will conclude from this that therefore man’s image could be captured in art and become the object of veneration, while iconoclasts conclude that the image quality of man is beyond pictorial representation.

The impressive array of Scriptural evidence the iconoclasts produced need not be reproduced
here—they are familiar enough within the Reformed tradition. Reformation theologians add
very little new to the debate, simply resuming arguments that were presented by the original
iconoclasts.

Iconodules assembled the following types of arguments:

  • The very fact of the typological character of the Old Testament was taken as a major Scriptural point.
  • More generally, it is clear from the Scriptures that God reveals himself in human forms and material realities.
  • At issue, icondules felt, was the historicity of Christ. How can we forbid depictions of scenes from the life of Christ without denying that such scenes unfolded within our human realm? (John Calvin found this argument compelling as well, and would allow for such depictions of Gospel scenes.)
  • Further, the iconoclast position seemed to entail a denigration of material reality, a failure to recognize the fundamental goodness of creation (even though it languishes under sin). As such, it was thought to endanger the work of Christ, setting up a system whereby God could not become incarnate.

The controversy raged from 726 to 780, and again from 815 to 843. The Council upheld the iconodule position, accepting that the theological inconveniences described by the iconodules did indeed seem to follow from the iconoclast position. Thus, John Damascene, one of the great Patristic writers, says: “I do not worship matter, but the Creator of matter, who for my sake became material and deigned to dwell in matter, who through matter effected my salvation.” Icons were to be placed in churches to help the uneducated, and to remind us of the works of God on our behalf. While the eternal, invisible God cannot be properly depicted (and therefore before the coming of Christ we were forbidden to have any images whatsoever), he has come down to be among us as one of us, and therefore has offered himself for depiction in human terms. To lower God to human level is blasphemy, but to attempt to force God to remain lofty when he wishes to condescend to us is foolishness.

Concluding Remarks

Our brief time with the iconoclastic controversy has not done justice to what is in my opinion its chief contribution to the future of theology. This contribution is not, to my mind, the decision to allow icons; rather, it is the fact that what was essentially a liturgical question was decided on the basis of the implications for theology. What we see here is the germ of a new methodology in which theology and worship are not separated, but rather worship practices are seen as being inherently theological in character. While the Church’s utilization of this principle has been spotty at best, its presence and importance at an Ecumenical Council is invaluable.

It must be noted that councils continued beyond Nicea II, and they continue to claim to be Ecumenical. In fact, the Second Vatican Council, held from 1962-1965, is counted as the 21st Ecumenical Council by Catholic standards. Past Nicea II, however, the councils are not truly ecumenical. Instead, they represent the views of only a particular part of the Church, and so however important and large they may be, they cannot claim to be speaking for Christians everywhere. Vatican II attempted to remedy this to some extent by allowing Protestant observers, but this is not yet to enter into a true conciliar dialog with non-Catholic Christians.

Liberals will attack the 7 Ecumenical Councils, claiming that the politics of the Councils prove that even they were not Ecumenical, that they only can receive that name because they were able to define other Christians who weren’t there as non-Christians. This attack fails to examine the substantive issues theologically, however. It is not true that Christianity could have taken another shape and still been true to the revelations of the Scriptures. Nestorius was condemned not because he missed the council but because what he was teaching did not accord with Scripture. Those who fail to see this fail to understand some significant part of God’s plan for salvation, and the doctrine that follows upon that.