Did a divine person fail to be omniscient or no?

Did a divine person die or no?

“The town’s meat tasted furry for a week.”

But the cat came back, the very next day…
I suppose I wasn’t clear on you rlimitation to post-reformation figures. I can go there too. The list you cited isn’t exhaustive as you know.

As for Calvin, surleyhe wasn’t perfct, but that doesn’t mean he gets a pass when he teaches major heterodox views. His language is classically Nestorian just at the crucial points. And to be honest, the Reformed racke us over the coals for denying sola fide and other later developments but hey, Calvin makes a major goof in Christology, but no biggie? That’s a howler.

2. Ok, fair enough.

3. Davis doesn’t offer the same definition of the communicatio. He speaks of a transfer of properties which is what the Reformed deny. There is no exchange of properties, burt only an exchange of names. Can we say, Nominalism? As forPelikan, i don’t have it handy, but I’ll take a look. In anycase, An appeal to authority is only as good as the argument that the authority gives. If Pelikan is wrong, then it doesn’t matter what he says, right?

4. Quite right that Muller and Berkhof don’t see it as incompatible with Chalcedon. How does it follow that it is compatible? It doesn’t. And on their face, Berkhof’s comments are signficantly troubling. Humanity can’t be deified? Really? What about the deification of Christ’s humanity then? What about the Resurrection?? And what does the uniy of the hypostatic union consist if there can be no interpenetration and the union is effected by a divine person in an intrinsic relation?

5. Surely, but Cyril was the touchstone of Chalcedon, which is why Leo’s Tome had to be compared to it to ensure it was orthodox. And Alexander of Alexandria wasn’t the only voice at Nicea either. The Arians were there too. And?? The consistent patristic Cyrillian and Neo-Chalcedonian witness is to a transfer of energies, not merley names.

After this I’m done. This is clearly a waste of time, and I don’t have the time to waste even if I did have any confidence that prolonging the discussion would be in any way productive.

1. I thought I was clear that I’m talking here about post-reformation doctors. Calvin wasn’t perfect, and I admit his views here are not clearly defined. That doesn’t mean I think he was Nestorian in any sense, just that his language is uncareful at points.

2. What you call an *appeal* to what I have seen was only meant as an attempt to be honest about the fact that I haven’t read everything.

3. I don’t recall ever saying that there is no one who would agree with what you’ve said on the communicatio, only that you don’t have a *monopoly* there. Davis offers the same definition of the communicatio I have given in the back of his First 7 Ec. Councils. Pelikan in the section of Credo which deals with the person of Christ acknowledges that the Reformed have a valid claim to Chalcedon (if I recall correctly, it is torward the end of the section).

4. I’m aware of the treatments of both Muller and Berkhof. Interestingly, I don’t see either of them saying that the Reformed gloss is non-Chalcedonian. It is only the case if I grant your premise that only those who agree with you on the communicatio are Chalcedonian, which premise I (as Muller and Berkhof) simply do not grant.

5. As you know, the Cyrillians are not the only voices represented in Chalcedon.

6. I read McCormack’s analysis when it was originally posted and found it unconvincing. I didn’t say that I haven’t read it, just that I don’t have the time to offer a full interaction on it.

Well Is Calvin outside the mainstream? How about the Helvetic Confession? Appealing to what you have seen kind of smacks of anecdotal evidence.

As I noted above, I’ll do a separate post on turrretin and co. specifically in what McCormack and otherts have brought out. So far though,you have left untouched the material from Calvin and others.

In any case, you are certainly mistaken about the communicatio. Let me cite Muller for you.

“Whereas the greatest difference betwneen the Lutherans and the Reformed appears in the genus maiestaticum, which the Reformed utterly reject, we note that the Reformed view of the communicatio, which tends to be restricted to the genus idiomaticum, approarches the communication more as a praedicatio verbalis, or verbal predication, of idiomata from both natures of the person, whereas the Lutheran view insists that the person actually bears the idiomata of both natures. The Reformed, in addition, do not view the apostelesmata, or shared operations, of the natures as a genus of the communicatio idiomatum but as a separate communicatio apostelesmatum according to which the distinct operations of both natures are brought to completion in the one work of Christ. Thus, Lutheran teaching is a real communicatio while the Reformed, remaining at the level of a communicatio in concreto only, is quite accuratley called antidosis onomaton, a mutual interchange of reciprocation of names, rather than a transfer of communication of properties…” Richard Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 74.

or Berkhof

“We must be careful not to understand the term [communicatio idiomatum] to mean that anything peculiar to the divine nature was communicated to the human nature , or vice versa; or that there is an interpenetation of the two natures, as a result of which the divine is humanized, and the human deified (Rome). The deity cannot share in human weaknesses; neither can man participate in any of the essential perfections of the Godhead.” Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 324.

Do you have a reference for Davis and Pelikan, because I don’t think they say a mere exchange of names is Chalcedonian? And besides, appeals to authority are only as good as the arguments they make. Cyril and others explicitly speak of a transfer of energies, not of mere names.

McCormack doesn’t accuse the Reformed tradition of it, he advocates it. And I’d think that until you’ve read his analysis, it’d be best to reserve judgment about might color his analysis, lest it be understood as an ad hom and posioning the well.

Well, you’ve already admitted that Chalcedon can be wrongly misunderstood. I’d claim the same for Westminster, and I do so on the basis of the best expounders of the post-Reformation Reformed tradition. All the historic Reformed theologians that I know of do teach that the person of Christ consists of two natures *only* in the sense that he takes humanity into union with his divine hypostasis. (There may be some exceptions of which I am unaware, but given my current depth of reading in the relevant materials, I’d suggest that if there are they are not within the main-stream of the dogmatic tradition.)

This is the import of the statements of Turretin, Bavinck, and Charles Hodge which I’ve already cited. I’ll add to them A.A. Hodge who, commenting specifically on the disputed passage in Westminster, states,

“There are, in Christ, therefore, two natures, but one person; a human as well as a divine nature, but only a divine person. His humanity began to exist in the womb of the virgin, but his person existed from eternity.” (Commentary on the confession, banner of truth, 141)

I’m not quite sure how our dogmaticians could be any more precise on these points.

Further, on the communicatio: I’m sorry, but you simply don’t have a monopoly on the market there. Leo Davis, for one, would disagree, as he defines the communicatio in exactly the same terms which I have above. Pelikan also admits to the Reformed a valid claim to Chalcedonian orthodoxy.

And I wasn’t making an ad hom argument about McCormack. I was simply acknowledging the fact (in passing, mind you) that one’s theological persuasion can often color how one chooses to read and cite texts (I’d say the same of myself, of course). Whether or not this is actually the case with regard to McCormack on this particular point, I do not know. I was simply voicing suspicion, as I simply do not see the Reformed Christological tradition as teaching anything like what you, or he, have been accusing it of.

http://connversation.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/hermeneutical-fallacies-101-could-bruce-mccormack-a-barthian-possibly-understand-historical-theology/

1. Your point would only have force if we ignored the historical context and usage of such terms in the theology of the Reformers and the Westminster divines. Pointing out key problematic phrases in a wider theological context doesn’t amount to isolating a passage form its context, but just the opposite.

Secondly, even if doesn’t speak of the person being a product of theunion explicilty, doyou know of anyother way we can speak of the hypostasis as a divine and human hypostasis? As for consisting of two naures,that is exactly the point. Christ can only be said to consist of two natures in a secondary sense in so far as he takes humanity into his divine hypostasis, which precludes speaking of Christ as a divine/human person. The only way you can get to the latter is by thinking that the hypostasis is a product of the union, explicitly OUT of two natures, as Calvin wrote contra Chalcedon.

2. The point about the communicatio idiomatum was that the defective Christology I am pointing out is a necessary condition for the Reformed gloss of the communiatio being verbal. This is why the Lutherans rightly freaked out about it. The idea of the hypostasis being out of two natures is a necessary condition for thinking that the communicatio is verbal.

3. I pointed out that the Reformed tradition is not monolithing since it seemed you were using a double standard. When I pointed this problem out, the reply was that no one in the Reformed tradition thought so (which is factually false anyhow) as if the tradition was monolithic. I don’t need it to be monolithic, I only need these problems to be representative and essential parts of a Reformed outlook.

McCormack’s background in Barth is irrelevant and is an ad hom. He is also an adequately trained historical theologian. If he is mistaken, then he is mistaken on the facts and his argumente relevant to them and not because he wrote a book on Barth.

Besides, Barth;s probject seems quite distinct form his own christological outlook as Barth was attempting to bring the Reformed tradition into line with Chalcedonian Christology, which is why he has all that funky stuff about eveyr man being in Christ, either elect or damned.

Jonathan: I think Perry was thinking of our dialogue on the Eucharist, and confused it with your dialogue with Turretinfan.