The Humility of the Eternal Son
Reformed Kenoticism and the Repair of Chalcedon

This book provides the first thoroughly reformed version of kenotic Christology.

Bruce Lindley McCormack (Author)

9781316518298, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 September 2021

350 pages
23.5 x 16 x 2.2 cm, 0.62 kg

'Refreshingly … Bruce McCormack only publishes his work when he has something significant to say. His latest book, The Humility of the Eternal Son, the first of a promised three- volume trilogy, gives every indication that he has a lot left to say in his retirement.' Zack Kahler, The Heythrop Journal

The Chalcedonian Definition of 451 never completely resolved one of the critical issues at the heart of Christianity: the unity of the 'person' of Christ. In this eagerly-awaited volume - the result of deep and sustained reflection - distinguished theologian Bruce Lindley McCormack examines the reasons for this philosophical and theological failure. His book serves as a critical history that traces modern attempts at resolution of this problem, from the nineteenth-century Lutheran emphasis on Kenoticism (or the 'self-emptying' of the Son in order to be receptive to the will of the Father) to post-Barthian efforts that evade the issue by collapsing the second person of the Trinity into the human Jesus - thereby rejecting altogether the logic of the classical 'two-natures' Christology. McCormack shows how New Testament Christologies both limit and authorize ontological reflection, and in so doing offers a distinctively Reformed version of Kenoticism. Proposing a new and bold divine ontology, with a convincing basis in Christology, he persuasively argues that the unity of the 'person' is in fact guaranteed by the Son's act of taking into his 'being' the lived existence of Jesus.

I. A Critical History of Kenotic Christologies and their Antecedents: An Overview: 1. Chalcedon and its legacy
2. Self-emptying: as either depotentiation or divestment: the failure of nineteenth centure Kenoticism to repair Chalcedon
3. Divine Kenosis as proper to the Eternal Son: Barth, Bulgakov and von Balthasar
4. The Post-Barthian temptation: collapse of the Eternal Son into Jesus and surrender of an immanent trinity in protology
II. Returning to Holy Scripture: 5. The self-humiliating God in Paul's theology (and in Hebrews)
6. The Christological subject in the synoptics and in John
III. Repairing Chalcedon: 7. Towards a reformed version of Kenotic Christology
8. Looking forward.

Subject Areas: Theology [HRLB], Biblical studies & exegesis [HRCG], New Testaments [HRCF2], History of religion [HRAX]