Friday, March 18, 2022

William G. T. Shedd: Lutherans are Guilty of a Form of the Christological Heresy of Eutychianism


 

Lutheran Doctrine of “Communication of Properties”

 

While, in this way, the acts and qualities of either nature may be attributed to the one theanthropic person, the acts and qualities of one nature may not be attributed to the other nature. It would be erroneous to say that divine nature suffered or that human nature raised the dead; as it would be erroneous to say that the human body thinks or that the human soul walks. The man or “person” whose is the body and whose is the soul both thinks and walks, but the natures by whose instrumentality he performs these acts do not both of them think and walk. One things, and the other walks.

 

Properties belong to a nature and are confined to it. Hence properties are always homogeneous.  A material nature or substance can have only material properties. It cannot be marked partly by material and partly by immaterial properties. Natures, on the other hand, belong to a person and may be heterogenous. A nature must be composed wholly of material or wholly of immaterial properties; but a person may be composed partly of a material and partly of an immaterial nature. Hence two or even three kinds of natures may be ascribed to a person, but only one kind of properties may be attributed to a nature.

 

By overlooking the difference between person and nature, the later Lutherans have partially revived the ancient error of Eutyches of confounding or mixing the natures of Christ’s person. They distinguish three kinds of communication idiomatum or communication of properties; namely, genius idiomaticum—the attribution of the properties of either nature to the person, genus apotelesmaticum—the attribution of the mediatorial acts to either nature, and genus majestaticum. The last of these is of such an exalted species as to amount to a communication of the properties of one nature to the other. It is founded upon those texts in which, according to Hases’s definition of this genus, the Scriptures speak of “the human nature as exalted by divine attributes: quibus natura humana attributis divinis effertur” (Hutterus, 238). The texts in which this is supposed to be done are “the Son of Man is in heaven” (John 3:13); “the Son of Man has authority to execute judgment” (5:27); “all power is given unto me . . . I am with you always” (Matt. 28:18, 20); “concerning the flesh, Christ is God over all, blessed for ever” (Rom. 9;5); “at the time of Jesus, every knee shall bow” (Phil. 2:10). In these passages, the titles “Son of Man,” “Jesus,” and “Christ,” according to the advocate of the genus majestaticum, denote, not the theanthropic person, but the human nature; and this human nature is exalted by divine attributes of omnipresence—being upon the earth and in heaven simultaneously, of sovereignty—being the judgment of mankind; of omnipotence—having all power in heaven and earth; of absolute deity—being God over all. . . . . The principal motif for the Lutheran tenet of the ubiquity of Christ’s humanity is to explain the presence of the entire Christ. The God-man promises to be with his disciples upon earth, “always, even unto the ned of the world” (Matt. 28:20). The Reformed explanation is by the conjunction and union of the limited and local humanity with the illocal and omnipresent divinity. “Presence by way of conjunction is in some sort presence,” says Hooker (5.55). The divine nature of Christ is present with his human nature wherever the latter may be, though his human nature is not, as the Lutheran contends, present with his divine nature whenever the latter may be. But this continual presence of the deity with the humanity is equivalent to the presence of the humanity with the deity. The humanity is in effect ubiquitous, because of its personal connection with an omnipresent nature and not because it is in itself so immense as to be ubiquitous. Christ’s deity never is present anywhere in isolation and separation from his humanity, but always as united with and modified by his humanity. But in order to this union and modification, it is not necessary that his humanity should be locally present wherever his deity is. Distance in space is no bar to the personal union between the Logos and his human-nature. Suppose, for illustration, the presence of the divine nature of Christ in the soul of a believer while partaking of the sacrament in London. This divine nature is at the same moment conjoined with and present to and modified by the human nature of Christ which is in heaven and not in London. This conjunction between both is equivalent to the presence of both. The whole Christ is present in this London believer’s soul, because, though the human nature is in heaven and not in London, it is yet personally united with the divine nature which is both in heaven and in London. There is no separation between the two natures; so that whatever influence or effect the divine nature exerts in the believer’s soul as he receives the sacrament is a divine human influence—an influence proceeding from the union of the divine with the human in Jesus Christ. (William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology: Complete and Unabridged, Volumes 1-3 [Reformed Retrieval, 2021], 575-76, 577, emphasis added)