A HISTORICAL-THEOLOGICAL COMPARISON ON THE RECEPTION OF

THE EXTRA-CALVINISTICUM IN THE THEOLOGY OF

KARL BARTH AND FRANÇOIS TURRETTINI

___________________

A Research Paper

Presented To

Dr. Stephen J. Wellum

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

___________________

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for 84940

___________________

by

Rafael N. Bello

Box 720

April 28, 2015

A HISTORICAL-THEOLOGICAL COMPARISON ON THE RECEPTION OFTHE EXTRA-CALVINISTICUM IN THE THEOLOGY OF

KARL BARTH AND FRANÇOIS TURRETTINI

Barth is famous for his critiques of post-reformation theologians,1 however it is my

goal to show that at least his rejection of the extra-calvinisticum is based on a wrong

understanding that the Swiss had of the Logos-asarkos/Logos-ensarkos relationship. My thesis

will be to show that Post-Reformation theology (specifically Francis Turretin) had a better view

of the extra-calvinisticum than Karl Barth. The professor from Basel moved from enthusiastic

reception of the doctrine to some sort of uneasiness with it in his famous work, Church

Dogmatics.2 Barth's doctrine of election made him develop a continuity in the cosmic functions

of the Son in terms of his eternal humanity. Francis Turretin, on the other side, understood the

Logos-asarkos/Logos-ensarkos relationship and provided a better solution. In Turretin's

formulation, he provides “continuity between the two aspects of the eternal Son's ordering of the

universe: beyond the flesh, as from the beginning; in time, manifested in the flesh to redeem.”3

1See Ryan Glomsrud in Daniel Strange, Engaging with Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques, ed. David Gibson, 1st edition (New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2009), 84–112. Glomsrud argues that Barth embraced, uncritically, the nineteenth century interpretation of reformed orthodoxy/scholasticism of the seventeenth century. Nineteenth century scholars such as Heppe and Tholuck argued that the emphasis on pietism that sprung from the scholastics gave way for a anthropocentric focus of Schleiermacher, who came from Moravian roots. It is even more impressive that Barth rejected Ames and Cocceius' federal theology because of a misrepresentation of Bavink. Bavink saw those figures of the early scholasticism as departing from federal theology's emphasis on God and making the starting point on man's necessity of a covenant. Because Turretin is a titanic figure in this period, I chose him as a conversational partner for Barth.

2Darren O. Sumner, “The Twofold Life of the Word: Karl Barth’s Critical Reception of the Extra Calvinisticum,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 15, no. 1 (January 1, 2013): 42–57.

3David Gibson, Reading the Decree: Exegesis, Election and Christology in Calvin and Barth, T & T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology (London ; New York: T & T Clark, 2009), 38.

1

While Barth denied the existence of a Logos asarkos, Turretin, properly understood the acting

subject of the incarnation and defended the existence of the Word enfleshed and outside of the

flesh.

In order to prove Turretin's superior solution to the issue I will first give a brief

explanation of what the doctrine of the extra is and some historical developments. Next, I will

show why Barth rejects this doctrine and show some entailments of it. Finally, I will show

Turretin's better understanding of the doctrine and his use of the states of the Logos.

The Extra4

As it has been efficiently proven, the extra-calvinisticum is not a doctrine that started

with John Calvin.5 This doctrine states that the divine Son of God was not exhausted in the flesh

when he added to himself human nature.6 Crisp points out that the reason for this formulation is

because while the second person of the Trinity was incarnate as Jesus Christ he was still

4See Stephen J. Wellum, God the Son Incarnate (Wheaton: Crossway, forthcoming, 2015).495. According to Wellum, there needs to be a basic agreement in three areas before one tries to embrace the extra. He says, “Before we describe what is meant by this expression, let us first review three key building blocks from orthodoxy which are required to make sense of it. First, the person of the Son is the active subject of the two natures (enhypostasia). The natures are not active agents; rather, it is the divine Son who acts in and through the capacities of his natures. Second, the two natures remain what they are—“without confusion” and “without change”—and whatever is true of the natures may be predicated of the person (communicatio idiomatum). Third, when the Son added a human nature to himself, this not only allowed him to live and experience a human life, it also meant that he continued to share with the Father and Spirit the divine nature and to live in relation to them as he had done from all-eternity. When the Son became incarnate this did not result in a change in God’s being; there was no alteration of the divine nature. Even though the Son added a human nature, as the divine Son, he did not cease to be what he had always been, even in the exercise of his divine attributes, hence the Scriptural teaching that the incarnate Son, in relation to the Father and Spirit, continued to sustain the universe (Col. 1:15-17; Heb. 1:1-3).”

5David Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology.: The Function of the so-Called Extra Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology, Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966). Willis actually starts the book by saying “The doctrine received its ponderous name when Lutheran theologians, upon hearing the Calvinists insist that the Son’s existence also beyond the flesh of Jesus Christ (etiam extra carnem) was being threatened by the Lutheran version of the communicatio idiomatum, labelled the Reformed contention ‘that Calvinistic beyond’ (illud extra Calvinisticum). The Reformed theologians maintained that the Son’s existence also beyond the flesh did not jeopardize the unity of the divine and human nature in the Incarnation, while the Lutherans claimed that it did.” Willis-Watkins, Calvin’s Catholic Christology, 2. Also, human nature has classically been identified with a Logos-Anthropos christology. Therefore, it has to be associated with a rational body and soul.

6See also Richard Muller's definition in Richard A Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1985), 111. “The Reformed argued that the Word is fully united to but never totally contained within the human nature and, therefore, even in the incarnation is to be conceived of as beyond or outside of (extra) the human nature.”

2

sustaining the world by the power of his word. Then the extra-calvinisticum is needed in order

for the Word to “(a) remain divine and (b) retain his divine role of upholding the cosmos in

being while incarnate.”7 So, in order to elucidate this doctrine it is necessary to understand what

is happening at the Hypostatic Union.

Hypostatic Union and The Extra-Calvinisticum

The term hypostatic union probably originated in Cyril's defense against Nestorianism.

Macleod referenced the second anglican article by saying that the Hypostatic Union states that

“two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and manhood were joined together in

one person.”8 However, it is imperative to see that even though the Chalcedonian formulation

gives guidelines to understanding the nature of the hypostatic union, it is surely not an exhaustive

treatment of such doctrine. Therefore it is important to draw some short conclusions from the

Chalcedonian definition.9 Crisp has provided a minimal outline of the Chalcedonian definition on

the hypostatical union with a short Chalcedonian axiom (hereafter, CA) that flows from it: 1. Christ is one person.2. Christ has two natures, one divine and one human. 3. The two natures of Christ retain their integrity and are distinct; they are not mixed together or confused, nor are they amalgamated into a hybrid of divine and human attributes (like a demigod). 4. The natures of Christ are really united in the person of Christ; that is, they are two natures possessed by one person.

7Oliver D. Crisp, Divinity and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered, 1 edition (Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 142.

8Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 1998), 201.

9“Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.”

3

This yields the following Chalcedonian Axiom: (CA) Christ has one of whatever goes with the person and two of whatever goes with natures.”10

It is important, then, to move from affirmation to implication here. The one person,

Jesus Christ, the Logos embodied, possesses two natures and whatever is predicated to the two

different natures is true of the one person of the Son of God incarnate (communicatio

idiomatum). Jesus has two wills,11 two centers of consciousness, because those issues have

always been attached to the natures.12 This is important to the understanding of the extra.13 The

second person of the Trinity held to his attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and

omnipresence even as a baby on a manger at his incarnation, because his one person has two

natures and therefore two centers of attributes and when the person of the Son acts through his

divine nature, his eternal divine attributes are used. And in this union the divine nature of the

10Oliver Crisp et al., Christology, Ancient and Modern: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics, ed. Oliver D. Crisp and Fred Sanders (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 40.

11This is also in agreement with the III Ecumenical council of Constantinople in 681AD, which states, “We also proclaim two natural willings or wills in him and two natural operations, without separation, without change, without partition, without confusion, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers -- and two natural wills not contrary to each other, God forbid, as the impious heretics have said they would be, but his human will following, and not resisting or opposing, but rather subject to his divine and all-powerful will.”

12Once again I am indebted to Crisp's great article “Desdiderata For Models of the Hypostatic Union” inOliver Crisp et al., Christology, Ancient and Modern: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics, ed. Oliver D. Crisp and Fred Sanders (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 32.

13Classically then, the doctrine of the extra has been formulated through this formulae finitum non capax infiniti – finite cannot contain the infinite. And usually, this description is used to describe the life of the Logos as living through his divine nature. However, the doctrine of divine accommodation is another form to look to the doctrine of the extra. In a sense, the extra is a negative assertion about the life of the Logos in the incarnation - finitum non capax infiniti. Divine accomodation, however, asserts something similar, but in a positive tone – infintum capax finiti per accomodatio. Divine accomodation is a fine doctrine, but unfortunately, this mode of seeeing things got extremely abused. In the recent article “Communion Ecclesiology and the Extra-Calvinisticum” Terrence Merrigan and Frederik Glorieux, eds., “Godhead Here in Hiding”: Incarnation and the History of Human Suffering, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 234 (Leuven ; Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2012), 348–9. Arie Griffioen argues that the extra has to be somewhat replaced by infintum capax finiti per accomodati, because that way we can make sense of Christ's empathetic character with humanity – a topic later explored by Barth. Griffioen said, “Perhaps the extra-calvinisticum is in part motivated by this reformational bifurcation and stands in need of revision. But its retrieval and resolution into the capax infiniti allows us to affirm the goodness of finitude in such a way that the hiddeness of God consists not of a “God behind revelation,” but an incarnate “God in revelation.

4

person of Christ did not become less divine.14 However, the Biblical data, sometimes, seem to

imply that Christ was not exercising those attributes, especially in the gospels (Mark 13:32; Matt

24:36). First, it is important to note that the gospels are mostly phenomenological descriptions of

the life of Christ. They move, here and there, to metaphysical affirmations when needed. It is

within this mystery of phenomenological and metaphysical realities that some authors have

developed the concept of divine krypsis.15 It is important to know that the concept of krypsis

presupposes that the second person of the Trinity added to himself human nature and veiled his

divine attributes (contra-kenotic Christology) such as omnipotence, omniscience, and

omnipresence. The veiling does not imply that the Logos lost the divine attributes of his divine

nature, but simply means that the person of the Son does not show what he is in the fullest sense.

Second, coming back to the CA, it is important to recognize that one person of the Son

acts through the two natures in the incarnation. Natures cannot act, and if they did, then

Nestorianism would be alive and well again. It is no surprise that the ones that hold to the extra

are charged with this ancient heresy. Historically, natures are associated with capacities,

faculties, will etc. However, the acting subject that makes the choosing is the person.16 Therefore

14This raises several problems with defenders of kenotic Christology. Those issues will be dealt with properly at the next section. However, suffices to say here that there is no place for ontological kenotic Christology here. The sheer thought that Christ abdicated his divine nature is irreconcilable with the Biblical account. Donald Macleod outlines five difficulties with ontological kenotic Christology: 1. It does not make sense of texts that speak of Christ upholding the universe (Heb 1:3); 2. It undermines the Chalcedonian formulation by deemphasizing the divine nature of Christ; 3. Makes a logical rupture between the preexistent Logos and the incarnate state. 4. Imply a necessary distinction of Christ of faith and Jesus of History; 5. It is a precarious theory to posit that the Lord's knowledge was not sufficient for earthly things, but sufficient for heavenly ones. See Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 1998), 209-11.

15Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology, 85.; Crisp, Divinity and Humanity, 147; Macleod, The Person of Christ, 217.

16See Stephen J. Wellum, God the Son Incarnate, 621. Wellum appeals for Jean Galot, who said that “in order to make sense of ourselves, “[e]very person also possesses a reality not of the relational order, what might be called a substantial perfection,” which he identifies with the soul and body and our possession of an individual human nature. In distinguishing between the two, “[n]ature embraces the rich reality of body and soul, including the faculties of thought and action. The person is the relational entity that energizes the nature by directing its activity toward others in knowledge and love.” In this sense, we can think of a person as “a relation that possesses a reality of its own,” but it is crucial to add, “[t]his relation does not derive its reality from nature.” Thus, Galot insists, even in our own experience, we have some sense that our “person” is the subject of all the activities of the nature, and that our natures are governed by our persons, so that “while the human person is not, rigorously speaking, his human nature, person personalizes nature to the point of totally possessing it. In this sense, the nature is identified with the person.” In the case of the son, he has two modes of subsistence and the “I”ness of the person can choose from both.

5

the extra makes sense of the hypostatic union when it states that the Son acts in and through a

divine and human natures. Crisp speaks of the divine person owning the human and divine

natures. Therefore one can say that John Doe is fully human, but also merely human, because his

person can only act in and through his one human nature. John Doe has only one nature to act

through. The person of the Son, however, is fully human and not merely human. He is fully

human insofar as he has a complete human nature, but is not merely human, because his person

can act in and through the human and divine natures.17

Historical Development

Can such statements be validated in history? As mentioned earlier, this doctrine did

not start at the Reformation. Until recently only one complete monograph18 was produced to

address the historical development of the extra. However, Andrew McGinnis provided another

major book that dealt with the issue only in 2014. For the sake of freshness, the arguments

presented here will follow the structure presented by McGinnis.19 He divides his historical

defense of the extra into five parts. Three sections from men of different times in Church history

and two other sections, one in the Lord Supper debate and other in the eclipse of the extra in

modern Christology.20

17Oliver Crisp, God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology (London; New York: T & T Clark, 2009), 157.

18Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology.

19Most of the articles and chapters in books produced on the historical development owe much of their content to Willis. Therefore, I found that McGinnis had something that could be profitable and fresh for this discussion. See Andrew M. McGinnis, The Son of God beyond the Flesh: A Historical and Theological Study of the Extra Calvinisticum, T & T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology, volume 29 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014).

20However, McGinnis himself recognizes that not only these three persons held to the extra. He appealed to studies made by Willis and Lederle to cite these theologians: Origen, Eustathius of Caesarea, Athanasius, Eusebius of Caesarea, Ephrem the Syrian, Appolinaris of Laodicea, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Theodoret of Cyrus, Fulgentius of Ruspe, Pope Pelagius I, John of DamascusPeter Lombard, and Gabriel Biel. As proof, McGinnis cites Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology, 26-60; Henry I Lederle, Die leer van die “extra calvinisticum” voor calvyn: die weerlegging van ’n dogmahistoriese legende, 1975, 4–46. Here only the three first people will be looked at, because the Lord supper debate is picked at Francis Turretin and also Barth is included in the eclipse of the doctrine of the extra in modern times.

6

McGinnis starts with Cyril. It is almost impossible to understand Cyril's mature

Christological enterprise apart from his discussions with Nestorius. While Nestorius could not

conceive of the Son learning, Cyril articulated an embryonic version of the communicatio

idiomatum to answer the problem. Nestorius attributed learning to the human nature, (it has to be

remembered that natures do not act or learn. Here the communicatio idiomatum is central) and

refused to talk about the person, therefore endangering the unity of Christ and also attributing

actions to the nature; something that classic Christology has not usually done (viz-à-viz the CA).

Cyril, on the other hand, had a single-subject Christology and would not allow to such division.

Later in his debate against Nestorius, Cyril exposed the problem of the Logos learning if he is

contained only in the flesh of the incarnate Jesus. So the “Logos 'extended' or 'widened'

(κατευρύνων) the expression of his knowledge in a manner fitting for normal human

development.”21 So that the person can be spoken to learn in the body, but also expanded his

expression and activity (through the divine nature) outside of the body.

Next was Thomas Aquinas in the Middle Ages. For McGinnis, Aquinas' main goal in

utilizing the concept of the extra was to protect the humanity of Christ. For Aquinas, the descent

movement of the Son was of uniting another nature to himself and not from one place to another.

Which in the end rules out the idea that Christ brought his body from heaven.22 As McGinnis

notes the movement from Aquinas is opposite, though not contrary from Cyril. While Cyril was

trying to protect Christ's deity, Aquinas acts by protecting the full humanity of Christ when he

applies the concept of the extra.23

Lastly in Aquinas, the concept of totus/totus24 plays a crucial role. In Lombard, this

21McGinnis, The Son of God beyond the Flesh, 42.

22Ibid., 71.

23Ibid.

24Historically this distinction has been applied to say that the masculine form totus is referent to Christ's person and totum (the neuter form) refers to him subsisting in human nature. See Peter Lombard, The Sentences Book 3: On the Incarnation of the Word, trans. Giulio Silano (Toronto: PIMS, 2008).

7

distinction was used to refer to the triduum (Christ descent into hell). Aquinas, although also

used the term to refer to Christ's descent into hell, explained it in a different way that made clear

the extra carnem. Since Christ was fully human, he had to undergo a separation of body and soul

through death. In the triduum, the soul descent to hell and body stayed on the grave. However,

Christ remained united to his entire human nature – body and soul – during the descent. While

this can be hard to defend, one can see two things: One is Aquinas mature Logos-Anthropos

Christology and second is Aquinas elaboration of the Logos asarkos as descriptive of the person

of the Son and therefore preserving the unity of Christ.

Another man was Zacharias Ursinus, who preceded Francis Turretin by close to fifty

years. Famously connected to the Heidelberg Catechism (hereafter HC), Ursinus' main goal in

expounding the extra was to refute the ubiquity of the Lutherans. The HC clearly taught the extra

in question 4825 and helped teach the people not to fall into the lutheran mistake. That is probably

one of the reasons that Ursinus is so characterized as a polemical individual more than a shrewd

theologian (specifically in Christology). Against the ubiquitarians (genesio-lutherans), the

German Reformed theologian argued that the body of Christ (human nature) ascended into

heaven and could not be present everywhere. So it would be contradictory for something to be

everywhere and at the same time change places – in the Lord's supper.

Another way of articulating the extra humanus (as Zacharias Ursinus himself used the

term) was of talking about modes of presence. Although the Lutherans used the same

terminology – modes of presence26 – the german theologian used it in a difference sense. For

him, the modes of presence are tied to the natures and their distinct properties. Therefore the

Logos could act within the properties of divine of human natures. Doing this, Ursinus avoided

25Question 48: If his humanity is not present wherever his divinity is, then aren’t the two natures of Christ separated from each other? Answer: Certainly not. Since divinity is not limited and is present everywhere, it is evident that Christ’s divinity is surely beyond the bounds of the humanity that has been taken on, but at the same time his divinity is in and remains personally united to his humanity. Jer. 23:23-24; Acts 7:48-49(Isa. 66:1); John 1:14;3:13;Col. 2:9

26Genus idiomaticum, genus maiestaticum, genus apostlematicum. See Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 73–4.

8

the use of the natures that could contradict each other, and showed that these natures are

unequal.27

Barth And The Extra

Why does Barth reject the extra if he was actually known for receiving it in the

beginning of his career? Daren Sumner reminded the reader that in Barth's famous Gottingen

Lectures he said,

The Son is both logos ensarkos and logos asarkos. Do we not have to say this afresh and for the first time truly the moment we speak about the union of God and man in revelation lest we forget that we stand here before the miracle of God? Can we ever have said it enough?28

The Swiss theologian even properly understood the debate between Lutherans and Reformed

theologians regarding the extra and gave three reasons why the Lutherans were wrong in the

debate. Darren Sumner interprets Barth here saying,

First, Lutherans have not made a strong case that the doctrine divides the Word of God in two, one on earth and one in heaven. Second, the perceived alternative was distasteful: Barth believed that the Lutheran counter-doctrine of the perichoresis of the two natures would necessarily lead to the ubiquity of the flesh and thus the end of Christ’s real humanity. Third, Barth is satisfied here with Calvin’s totus/totum principle – that the Word is ‘wholly in and wholly outside’ the flesh.29

However, he became very critical of the doctrine when he wrote his more mature

work, Church Dogmatics. In the Dogmatics, Barth said,

As the Lutherans failed to show how far, by their elimination of the extra, the vere Deus is, as they allege, preserved to the same extent as the vere homo, so now the Reformed too failed to show convincingly how far the extra does not involve the assumption of a twofold Christ, of a logos ensarkos alongside a logos asarkos and therefore a dissolution of the unity of the natures and hypostatic union, and therefore a destruction of the unequivocal Emmanuel and the certainty of faith and salvation based thereon. In short it cannot be

27McGinnis, The Son of God beyond the Flesh, 101. See also Zacharias Ursinus and David Pareus, Corpus doctrinae christianae ecclesiarum a papatu Romano reformatarum: ex ore quondam Zachariae Ursini in explicationibus catecheticis exceptum,(Rosa; Hanoviae: Aubrius, 1634), 245-248.

28Sumner, “The Twofold Life of the Word.”

29Darren O. Summer, Karl Barth and the Incarnation: Christology and the Humility of God, T & T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology.27 (London, England: Bloomsbury, 2014), 75.

9

denied that the Reformed totus intra et extra offers at least as many difficulties as the Lutheran totus intra.30

What the Swiss is saying here is that the extra cannot be true in one sense, because a hypostatic

union that describes a person as existing inside and outside of the body dissolutes the person, i.e,

it threatens the unity of the person. However, more than that, Barth sees that it is not wise to talk

about a Logos asarkos, because one cannot see Jesus apart from his self-determination to become

man in eternity past (election).31 This self-determination is what makes sense of the one person of

the Son. In its basic character, election in Barthian theology is a changed version of

supralapsarianism. In this act of electing, God is establishing the eternal covenant of grace. This

act is a self-determination in which God determines to be God, “from everlasting to everlasting,

in a covenantal relationship with human beings and to be God in no other way.”32

For Barth the talk of Jesus being asarkos is a talk of Jesus in the abstract, which he

does not permit.33 A better definition for Barth, according to McCormack is that of the Logos

incarnandus (the Word who will become incarnate) and the Logos incarnatus (the Word

incarnate). Here is probably one of the most radical proposals of Barth: the Logos incarnandus is

both asarkos, in his existence in eternity, but also ensarkos, by way of his self-determination to

become incarnate. The Logos incarnatus is ensarkos because he is living through the flesh in the

incarnation, but also asarkos by the function of the extra. So, Barth does not completely reject

the extra, but redefines it in a manner that is at least uncomfortable. It seems like for him one

could speak of the extra in the pre-existent Son and also in the incarnation. However, even with

30Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics The Doctrine of the Word of God, Volume 1, Part 2: The Revelation of God; Holy Scripture: The Proclamation of the Church, (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2004), 170. Hereafter CD.

31Bruce McCormack, “Grace and Being,” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, (Cambridge University Press, 2000) ed. John Webster, 95-7.

32Ibid., 98.

33CD I.1: 284. He says elsewhere, “we must not refer to the second ‘person’ of the Trinity as such, to the eternal Son or the eternal Word of God in abstracto, and therefore to the so-called logos asarkos...Since we are now concerned with the revelation and dealings of God, and particularly with the atonement, with the person and work of the Mediator, it is pointless, as it is impermissible, to return to the inner being and essence of God and especially to the second person of the Trinity as such, in such a way that we ascribe to this person another form than that which God Himself has given in willing to reveal Himself and to act outwards.”

10

those qualifications, the Swiss seems to be uncomfortable with applying any value on the Logos

asarkos, as it will be seen. And even though sometimes, Barth seems to want to affirm the extra,

an analysis of his theology would prove that he could not hold to the classical notion of the extra.

Any talk about a Logos asarkos – that denies the idea of a Logos ensarkos before the

incarnation – for Barth is pure speculation, because he cannot conceive of a hidden God in Christ

– Christ is self determined as man in eternity past and eternally unhidden.34 Asarkos only leads to

what was the Swiss' mortal enemy: natural theology. For Barth, the only way to define theology

is through the revelation of the man Jesus Christ. He finds Calvin terribly wrong of making

speculations regarding the existence of the Logos asarkos and indicts him of leading to a way in

which God could be known through a quasi-natural revelation. Barth eventually rejects the

Logos asarkos completely, saying,

Do not ever think of the second person of the Trinity as only Logos. That is the mistake of Emil Brunner. There is no Logos asarkos, but only ensarkos [enfleshed]. Brunner thinks of a Logos asarkos, and I think this is the reason for his natural theology. The Logos becomes an abstract principle. Since there is only and always a Logos ensarkos, there is no change in the Trinity, as if a fourth member comes in after incarnation.35

However, one must ask: does a view of an existing Logos asarkos really put God in the abstract

or even make God hidden? Does Barth really have to recur to his view of election in order to

“save” the Logos? Regardless if one takes an a-temporal or temporal view of God in time36 the

reception of a Logos asarkos in the incarnation does not entail a apophatic view of Christ.

Rather, one can make sense of Christ outside of the flesh by the immateriality of God, who

cannot be contained in a space only, (extra-calvinisticum, in the incarnation time) but also, by

saying that the life of the Trinity in eternity past, ad intra grounds the ad extra (election) life of

the Trinity in eternity past. And not the other way around, as it clear in the theology of Barth. The

Swiss seems to invert and qualify the logos in a way that temporal and a-temporal advocates

34CD IV.1, 181.

35Karl Barth, Karl Barth’s Table Talk, ed. John D. Godsey (Literary Licensing, LLC, 2011), 49.

36Crisp, God Incarnate, 60–1.

11

have never done. See the following chart:

A-Temporal view of God

Temporal view of God

Barth

Eternity Past Asarkos and Ensarkos (by anticipation)

Asarkos Ensarkos

Incarnation Asarkos (via the extra calvinisticum) and Ensarkos

Asarkos (via the extra calvinisticum) and Ensarkos

Ensarkos

However, this chart is an entailment of the focus that Barth places on the Logos. He does affirm a

Logos asarkos and ensarkos in some sections. However, as Sumner reminded, the use is tied to

the states that Christ had (humiliation and exaltation) and not so much to the life of the Son in his

personal existence in and outside of time. For Barth, there is no difference between the state of

humiliation and state of exaltation (status duplex).37 Barth talked about an exalted humanity and

a humiliated divinity, in which there are no sequence of events from eternity to incarnation in the

life of the Logos. In these uses the implication has to be that even though there is a language of

Logos asarkos, there is no ontological or epistemological necessity of a Logos asarkos, since

Christ is only known and existent in his exalted humanity from eternity.38

Scott Swain posits that this idea of self-constitution in eternity, by way of only

ensarkos theology is almost nonsensical. The point of the incarnational movement is not that the

Son is completely present in the eternal decrees of God, or if He gets his being from it. The Son

is already the Son in eternity, therefore, the movement of the incarnation (or eternal election of

37Summer, Karl Barth and the Incarnation, 199.

38Hunsinger, a primary competitor of McCormack in his interpretation of Barth and the life of the Trinity said that in Barth, the Logos is asarkos, but the asarkos is only a representation of the Son in his primary objectivity. The Logos is ensarkos, but this mode is the secondary objectivity of the Logos. In this sense, he is hidden in the first mode, but unhidden in the second mode. See George Hunsinger, “Election and the Trinity: Twenty-Five Theses on the Theology of Karl Barth,” Modern Theology 24, no. 2 (April 1, 2008): 179–98. The strong argument for an unhidden God would win the day for Barth in his Dogmatics. Therefore, even men such as Hunsinger would have to admit it.

12

the subject in Barth's theology) in eternity is not self-determinative, but is a movement of humble

self self-giving and self-affirmation (cf. Phil 2:5-11).39

Therefore, the use of the ensarkos in Barth is used to preserve divine immutability

when Christ comes from heaven to earth – from state of exaltation to state of humiliation.

Cassidy says,

Barth’s concern here is not so much epistemological, but ontological. How can God come into time without undergoing a fundamental ontic change? The answer is found in the eternal self-determination of God to be a God who is ‘‘for us’’: the God who freely decides to be who he is. In this way the divine decision to act in election grounds and constitutes the divine essence, without changing it. Thus, there is nothing ‘‘left over,’’ no extra. McCormack explains: The identity of this Logos is, in fact, already established prior to the eternal act of Self-determination by means of which the Logos became the Logos incarnandus. And if all that were true, then the decision to assume flesh in time could only result in something being added to that already completed identity; an addition which has no effect upon what he is essentially.40

A brief exegesis of the text cited before in Phillipians 2 would probably prove Barth wrong. The

person of the Son undergoes no change. He continues to be the Logos asarkos. However, the

emptiness described in Phillipians 2, is one that happens by addition of human nature and not by

continuity of the Logos enfleshed in eternity. Even though Barth rejected kenotic Christology,

using this same text, he uses the extra in a wrong manner and fails to see that the text does not

allow for a continuity in the Logos ensarkos, but implies an addition of flesh to the Logos

asarkos.

Also, this radical understating of Barth here is not only dangerous to a Biblical view of

the incarnation, but it flattens the concepts of the immanent and economic Trinity. If Jesus is who

he is by his self-determination to be God for us, then he is who he determined to be for us and

therefore his economic status is the same of his immanent, since there is a contingent factor

39Scott R. Swain, The God of the Gospel: Robert Jenson’s Trinitarian Theology (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2013), 169.

40James J. Cassidy, “Election and Trinity,” Westminster Theological Journal 71, no. 1 (March 1, 2009): 53–81.

13

connected to his being in the ad intra relationship: his connection to fallen human beings.41 In

this self-determination, God elects to be the Christ “for us,” when he decides to be for us, he is

therefore defining his being. And in defining his being, God is defined by an action. That is

where Barth's language becomes even more anti-reformed. While the reformers argued for an

essential God in Christ, Barth had an “actualistic” God.42 The God of the Swiss got his being

from an act – towards humanity and defined forever to be ensarkos. Why does Barth changes so

much the doctrine of election to look like this? The reason is simple, one cannot discover an

essence that exists in eternity past. However, if the essence is grasped from an act, then God is no

longer hidden, but unhidden.43

The Swiss theologian is trying to frame his theology with a Jesus who identifies with

humanity. Basically, Barth inverted the doctrine of the extra. While history searched for a

meaning of the activity of the Son outside of the flesh (asarkos) in the incarnation, the Swiss

theologian started to talk about the meaning of the humanity in the activity of the pre-existing

41See Ibid. Here it is important to understand that Barth is known for being the theologian for God's freedom, but the self determination of God is a dangerous concept for the aseity as taught in history. It cannot be reconciled with Barth's view. Cassidy said, “if McCormack is correct that Barth taught that God’s act of election constitutes his triune being, then an antecedent being behind the acts of God is denied—no amount of qualifications can change that fact. And if God has no antecedent being prior to his act (even his eternal act of election), then something other than his very nature determines who he is. This means, then, that God took into consideration fallen man before he became triune. Thus, God is somehow contingent to the created order. And this, no matter how much Barth speaks about the aseity of God, is actually a denial of it. And if God is not a se, then he ceases to be a truly sovereign and free God.” Cassidy says elsewhere in his paper, The solution to this problem proposed by Barth is that God is not some unknown being, but that in his making himself known through Jesus Christ he shows himself to be who he always was: the eternally electing God. His being is not abstract, but determined by his act toward us. The eternal God is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ is the eternal God. His humanity and his divinity are co-extensive, with nothing left over. Following on Karl Rahner’s famous maxim McCormack concludes, 'Perhaps the most significant consequence of this move is that the immanent Trinity is made to be wholly identical in content with the economic Trinity.'’’

42Webster, The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, 92–113.

43See Kevin J Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 246. Here Vanhoozer argues that even though there are communications in the immanent trinity that presupposes that election should not precede trinitarian relations. But simply one could see that the communications of the Trinity economic are but a reflection of the communications of the Trinity immanent. And also even the communications of the trinity immanent should not make God unhidden, because there are intra-trinitarian relations that give us a snap shot of the immanent trinity. See texts such as Jesus' baptism (Mk 1:11; cf. Lk 3:22; Mat 3:17).

14

Son.44 Which in turn, leads to what he said is the doctrine of “God for us” or doctrine of

election. A doctrine that is so central for Barth that even spills on subjects as the one surveyed

here. As Cassidy said, “Jesus Christ, as the God-human, has always been. In this way, the

incarnation is an eternal act of God that makes God who he is. In other words, Barth, far from

divinizing the humanity of Jesus Christ, has humanized God.”45

Election in Barth's Theology

It can be said the the main difference between Barth and Turretin's theology of

election is ontological. While Calvin and Turretin spoke mainly of an absolute decree (regarding

humans) of God in Christ, Barth rejects that completely. He says, “God's election of man is a

predestination not merely of man but of Himself. Its function is to bear basic testimony to

eternal, free and unchanging grace as the beginning of all the ways and works of God.”46 In its

basic character, election in Barthian theology is a strange version of supralapsarianism. Michael

Horton outlines Barth's doctrine of election as 1. A rejection of any notion of a hidden will of

God; 2. Make Christ rather than individuals, the subject of election, and therefore collapse

anthropology into Christology.47 Barth himself says,

Now this secret [of double predestination] concerns not this or that or that man, but all men. By it men are not divided, but united. In its presence they all stand on one line – for Jacob is always Esau also, and in eternal 'Moment' of revelation Esau is also Jacob. When the Reformers applied the doctrine of election and rejection (predestination) to the psychological unity of this individual, and when quantitatively to the 'elect' and 'damned,'

44See Sumner, “The Twofold Life of the Word.” Sumner said, “ 'There is no element of His divine essence which the Son of God, existing in human essence, withdraws from union with it and participation in it.’

Calvin’s totus/totus conceptualization is now entirely set aside: it is not the Word who has his life wholly within and wholly without the flesh, but the humanity of Christ that is wholly in the divine and the divine that is wholly in the human. This is not a denial of the extra Calvinisticum. Instead, what Barth has done is to reframe the doctrine so as to maintain its sacramental intent while at the same time forestalling the most minute or well-intentioned separation between the Logos-in-himself and the Logos-become-human.”

45Cassidy, “Election and Trinity,” 63.

46CD III.2, 3.

47See Strange, Engaging with Barth, 365.

15

they were, as we can now see, speaking mythologically.48

In adopting this view of election the eternal Word has lost a place in history. It is impossible to

speak of Christ and human history, because then everything is collapsed into this eternal realm

that has all the significance for Barth's dialectical method. And in turn, when time is created, it

creates this actualistic significance. G. C. Berkouwer said that “Barth's revised supralapsarianism

blocks the way to ascribing decisive significance to history”49 Also as it will be seen here, this

decisive move to a different kind of supralapsarianism determined how the Swiss saw the extra,

because this understanding of history would imply an eternal Logos ensarkos and

consequentially, the extra would become unnecessary.

It has already been argued that Barth's Christology is tied to a self-determined God.

However, what does his self-determination have to do even more specifically with the extra-

calvinisticum? The answer can be given by exemplifying Turretin and Barth's doctrine of

election and Christology here. While in Turretin, the Son chooses (being the object of election –

in an instrumental fashion) by the character of his divine nature in eternity, in Barth the main

focus of election is the identity of Christ as human (as being the subject of election). Because

Barth can speak of Jesus as electing God and elected man from eternity, his Christology is

wholly dependent on the humanity of Jesus from eternity - a concept that can hardly be

conceived mentally. He says, “Jesus Christ, then, is not merely one of the elect but the elect of

God. From the beginning (from eternity itself) as elected man.”50 The empathy that Jesus

constructs with humanity in his self-determination is basis for the election of all humanity. The

ontological differences between Turretin and Barth are clear once again. David Gibson said,

“Calvin's [and Turretin] exegesis' rests on and reveals traditional conceptions of the shared work

48Karl Barth and Edwyn Clement Hoskyns, The Epistle to the Romans, (London: Oxford University Press, H. Milford, 1933), 347.

49G. C Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1956), 256.

50CD IV.2, 116.

16

of the persons of the Trinity and the extra-calvinisticum; Barth's exegesis rests on and reveals his

radical understanding of the eternal being of Jesus Christ.”51

David Gibson also argues that even though one can argue that there is a sense in which

Jesus is subject and object of election in the Reformed tradition,52 to say that this move

constitutes the divine Trinity (because he elects to be human in eternity) is going too far. When

God, who is eternal, turns to humanity in time, this turning is identified with the person of the

Son. However, the turning itself does not constitutes the divine Trinity, but is “a determination of

how the divine being is going to be ad extra, towards creation.”53 Which in a sense does not

imply that there is not a God like this ad intra, but the ad extra does not constitute the ad intra.

In other words, the Trinity is in essence the Trinity, and this essence is the basis of how election

occurs. Election, therefore, is contingent upon the essence of the triune God.54

So, when one comes back to the doctrine of the incarnation, Barth's doctrine of

election and the humanity of Christ are central because those are the reasons why Barth is able to

preserve the immutability of God in Christ. Basically, He as elected man, has always held to

some sort of humanity, and was not liable to any changes when passed from Logos incarnandus

to Logos incarnatus. However, as Paul Helm suggests, “for Calvin becoming incarnate as the

Christ is an apt and consistent expression of the character of the Word and the 'incarnation

expresses the divine essence without exhaustively revealing it.'”55 Which once agains proves that

51Gibson, Reading the Decree, 81.

52See Crisp, God Incarnate, 46–55.

53Gibson, Reading the Decree, 54.

54Edwin Chr. Van Driel says, “To analyse this issue, let us think a bit about the use of the proposition: ‘subject x chooses to be y’. We can use such a proposition in two ways. We can use it to express the thought that subject x’s being y is dependent on subject x’s choosing to be y. In that case we can say that subject x constitutes its being y. This, however, makes sense only if subject x logically and ontologically precedes the choice, and subject x’s being y logically and ontologically follows the choice. We can also use this proposition to express the thought that subject x self-affirms its being y. In that case subject x’s being y does not have to be logically or ontologically secondary to subject’s x choice. However, subject x’s being y is also not established by a choice to be y.” See Edwin Chr. van Driel, “Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ,” Scottish Journal of Theology 60, no. 01 (February 2007): 41-61.

55Paul Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 63–4.

17

the main point where Barth errs is at ontology. His ontological recount of the election affects his

doctrine of the incarnation, which in turn affects the extra.56 While Calvin and Turretin talked

about continuity in terms of consistency of expression of the character of the Logos (image),

Barth expressed his thought by flattening economic and immanent Trinity through the eternity of

Jesus Christ in flesh.

In summary, it can be said that the Swiss' view of time influences his theology of the

incarnation to the extent that history and theology are almost like two distant cousins. They know

each other, but have limited interaction. Hans Urs von Balthasar said that “too much in Barth

gives the impression that nothing much really happens in his theology of event and history,

because everything has already happened in eternity.”57

François Turrettini and the Extra

In Turretin, although the extra was not named, it was present. Turretin was aware of

the Lutheran debate of the communicatio idiomatum and articulated one of the best defenses on

the Reformed camp. He also articulated the doctrine of the extra when refuting the Catholic

teaching of the time that Christ could not learn anything.

So, first it must be proved that the theologian of Geneva articulated in some shape or

form the doctrine of the extra. His magnum opus, Institutes of Elenctic Theology58 has fifteen

sections, and roughly one hundred pages that deal with issues about to the incarnation. Related to

56This is clear even to people who are more sympathetically inclined to Barth. See Paul D. Jones, The Humanity of Christ: Christology in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics, T & T Clark Theology (London ; New York: T & T Clark, 2008), 96–7. Jones says, “Barth does not compromise his belief in a unsublatable contrast that separates God and humankind; he holds fast to this 'complementary dialectic' (Beintker). But he now puts it to work in a manner unforseen in Romans and in a way that upsets the classical Reformed commitment to the extra-calvinisticum...The Logos asarkos directs itself towards, and ultimately embraces an identity inclusive of the genuine human existence of Jesus of Nazareth, the human assumed by the simple person of God qua Son.

57Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Theology of Karl Barth. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), 94.

58Francis Turretin and Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology Vol. 2, ed. James T. Dennison Jr (Phillipsburg, N.J: P & R Publishing, 1993), 271-373.

18

the extra, he said things like, “we acknowledge that Christ as God was indeed omniscient, but as

man we hold that he was endowed with knowledge, great indeed beyond all other creatures, but

yet finite and created, to which something could be added.”59 A few things are clear here. First,

Turretin, just like Aquinas, was trying to preserve Christ's humanity, because the theologian from

Geneva argues for a humanity that is not completely endowed with knowledge, but is ignorant in

certain aspects. Commenting on Mark 13:32 he captures the spirit of the hypostatic union (and

arguably of the extra too) well. He said, “Christ was ignorant of the day of judgment and Christ

was not ignorant of the day of judgment.”60 Secondly he also said that there is no need, “for the

flesh to be present wherever he reigns, no more than than a king ought to be bodily present in all

provinces of his kingdom, especially since Christ is everywhere present as to person with respect

to his divine nature.”61 Here, Turretin understands that the active subject, who act through the

natures is the person of the Son. He does not say that the divine nature of Christ is acting present

everywhere. It is his aim to preserve the fact that in adding to himself a human nature (body and

soul), the divine person continues to act in and through his divine nature, not the other way

around. Contrary to Barth, the move from eternity to time is clear. There is no attempt in Turretin

to explore the election of Christ in eternity too much. His main concern is with what was

revealed regarding the purpose of the coming of Christ. Election happens in eternity but it is

actualized in time.62 Which is different than Barth, from whom election happens in eternity,

defines the being of Jesus and is also actualized in eternity in the person of Jesus, the man.

59Ibid., 349.

60Ibid., 371.

61Ibid., 372.

62See Crisp, God Incarnate, 41.

19

How Turretin Argued for the Extra

Since it has been established that the theologian from Geneva believed in the extra,

what is left is to show the context for his articulation. He articulates the extra from two debates.

The first is the debate with the Lutherans and the communicatio idiomatum and the other

perspective comes from his dispute with the Papists and their view on the humanity of Christ (as

seen above).

The debate over the communicatio idiomatum was well summarized by Richard

Muller who states that there are two levels that one can talk about the communicatio idiomatum,

the in abstracto and the in concreto.63 Here, Turretin refuted the Lutherans by saying that there

can be no talk of the communicatio in abstracto.64 He said that we must deny the idea of the

natures having some kind of exchange apart from connection with the person of Christ because

of several reasons: 1.Divine nature cannot be communicated to created thing since created things

cannot become uncreated. 2. Properties cannot be communicated to another, otherwise it would

cease to be proper. 3. Either everything is communicated or nothing can be communicated. 4. It

would generate a confusion of the natures in a Eutychian fashion. 5. What is communicated

cannot remain proper (ἴδιoς).65 Finally he refuted their view of the communicatio idiomatum by

defending the humanity of Christ from a perspective that demonstrates the power of the doctrine

of the extra. Turretin appeals to the in concreto concept and denies the ubiquity of the human

nature saying,

If the Logos (Logos) is anywhere out of the humanity by separation, so that it is separated

63Richard Muller qualifies the in abstracto in christological debate as “the abstractive consideration of the relation of the two natures to each other distinct from their union and to the exchange of properties between the natures, specifically, a communication of divine properties to the human nature” and on the other hand the in concrecto understand the communication of attributes as “taking place at the level of the person and not between the natures.” See Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, 72.

64It cannot be said that Turretin does not acknowledge the other three types of modes used by the Lutherans (Genus idiomaticum, genus maiestaticum, genus apostlematicum), but he sees that in the end all of them end in these two categories. See Turretin and Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology Vol. 2, 326. Here the english translation makes it difficult to recognize those terms, but they are present.

65Ibid., 324–326.

20

from it, it can be said with truth that the man would be nowhere. But if it is anywhere out of the humanity by non-inclusion, it cannot be said with propriety that the man is nowhere because the Son of God is a man, not by local coexistence of the humanity with the deity, but by a hypostatical union of the human nature – made not with a place, but with the Logos (Logo). On this account, the Logos (Logos) existing on earth is most truly man and has the human nature personally and most intimately united with it, although it is not present on earth. Therefore where the humanity of Christ is not, still there Christ the man may be said to be, inasmuch as the Logos (Logos) (there existing) sustains the humanity (although not existing there, but everywhere).66

The lesson learned from Turretin here is that the Lutherans separated the human nature of Christ

in order to unite it in the elements, and end with contradiction because of it, for Christ, then,

would be nowhere anymore. The Reformed communicatio, because it is more of a predicatio

verbalis, does not end with the “placement” of the human body problem. The human nature of

Christ can only exist in one place and time, while the person of the divine Son, with the divine

nature is not circumscribed by that place, although it is also hypostatically united to the human

nature.

Turretin, like other seventeenth century theologians, also spoke of Christ and election.

And just like Barth, had a category for the Logos asarkos and the Logos ensarkos. However, for

Turretin, Christ was not the subject of election in the same sense as it was for Barth. For the

theologian of Geneva, Christ's main relationship to election is that of object,67 “whereby the

Logos is determined to become flesh only because of a previous decision by God to elect certain

people in Christ.”68 However, this does not entail a human nature in eternity past in the same way

66Ibid., 329. emphasis added.

67See Crisp, God Incarnate, 54. See also, Richard A. Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2008). The thrust of the argument is that Barth overemphasized the role of Christ as the object of election. Something that Post-reformation theologians such as Turretin did not do. Turretin and Post-Reformation theologians used the language of object to reflect the work of Christ as basis for election of people. Barth on the other side viewed as the eternal decision of Christ to become man as the basis for Christ as the object. The distaste that Turretin seem to have to any idea of object of election seem only to be aimed to the Salmurian formulation. Therefore any negation that Turretin has a view of an object of election in Christ may be even said to be some kind of straw-man by barthians who dislike the post-reformation period. See François Turrettini, George Musgrave Giger, and James T Dennison, Institutes of Elenctic Theology (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Pub., 1992), 344-55.

68Cassidy, “Election and Trinity.” Therefore, advocation a focus on an absolute decree.

21

as Barth, because the main goal of election here is to choose people in Christ. This is an absolute

decree of God concerning people's destiny in Christ.69 It has little to do with Christ's identity per

se, as Barth would imply.70

Regarding the incarnation itself, Turretin said, “the Logos (existing without the flesh

from eternity [asarkos]) it was conjoined in time in the unity of person.”71 Therefore, it becomes

clear that the extra in Turretin plays an important role and is informed by the acting subject of

the Logos, who exists in the flesh and outside of it. Also, he understood that there was a pre-

existing Logos, but not in the abstract. Contrary to Barth, the theologian from Geneva,

interpreted the existence of the Word apart from the flesh as a difference of state.72 It is basically,

the person of the Son, existing in a state of exaltation before the state of humiliation. In the state

of humiliation, Turretin exegetes Phillipians 2:6-7 and concludes that “ekenose is not to be taken

simply and absolutely, (as if he ceased to be God...) but in respect of state and comparatively

because he concealed the divine glory under the veil of the flesh and as it were laid it aside; not

by putting off what he was, but by assuming what he was not.”73 Even though Barth also rejects a

kenotic Christology as Turretin does here, Turretin is helpful in the sense that he shows that the

Logos assumes what he was not – human. While Barth, denies the kenotic theory, just because he

wants to preserve a sense of immutability. He wants to say that the act of Christ's humanity and

69Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology Vol. 2, 521.

70See Gibson, Reading the Decree, 80–4. Contrary to Barth, Turretin places the importance of the sequence of events, in which the relationship of the incarnation is a mirror of the decision made in eternity. Or as classically articulated in theology: the ad extra relations of God are reflections of the ad intra.

71Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology Vol. 2, 312.

72It has to be remembered that Barth conjoined the two states of Christ to make sense of the predetermination of Jeuss to be man in eternity. Therefore, for him there was no difference from exaltation and humiliation, because the language that the professor of Basel chose was of a exalted humanity and a humbled divinity.

73Turretin and Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology Vol. 2, 314. Even though Sumner wrote a complete monograph on Bath and his relationship to the extra, here he is very confusing. He says that Turretin in this quote is talking about the Logos concealing the divinity and therefore there was no Logos asarkos. Clearley Turretin understood a duplicity of the life of the Logos here and did not see the Logos as only ensarkos. See Summer, Karl Barth and the Incarnation, 199.

22

humiliation happened through the act of election in eternity.

Conclusion

It has been shown throughout this paper that the extra can be defended either looking

to the divine or the human natures of Christ. If a human nature is basically defined and

historically defended as body and soul, then Barth committed a huge mistake in saying that Jesus

has human nature with himself from the beginning. Turretin, on the other hand, shows that

regardless of an a-temporal, or temporal view of God, Christ does not have human nature before

his coming to the earth. Therefore, the Logos adds human nature (body and soul), and in that

becomes ensarkos in this sense.74

Barth's articulation of the Logos ensarkos tries to preserve some sense of the extra, but

fails to do justice of who Christ really is as a person. Bruce McCormack pointedly said that

“Barth's thinking is that the death of Jesus Christ in God-abandonment, precisely as a human

experience, is understood by him to be an event in God's own life.”75 Therefore showing a

confusion and misrepresentation of the extra-calvinisticum, because the Logos never dies qua

God since he is also asarkos.

Finally, it seems that for Barth, speaking of the Logos as asarkos and ensarkos, would

imply some kind of duality of person (Nestorianism) or even a division of the Logos. Which is a

legitimate charge. However, the use of this language does not imply that the Son is two persons

(two Logos), but simply imply the dual life of the Logos is in and out of the body. Turretin, on

the other hand was careful in tying the life of the Logos to the person and understanding that the

Son subsists in the two natures. Therefore he could rebuke the Lutheran in abstracto view,

because the natures are only subsistence of the person of the Son, who is the “I” of the

74Defenders of a-temporal view can come from a conservative background and also hold to a Logos ensarkos from eternity past. However, this is only by anticipation, and not that the Logos has a body and soul in timeless relations.

75Bruce McCormack, in “Grace and Being” in Webster, The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, 98.

23

incarnation.

24

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Balthasar, Hans Urs von. The Theology of Karl Barth. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971.

Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics I.1: The Doctrine of the Word of God. Edited by T. F. Torrance and G. W. Bromiley. London ; New York: T&T Clark International, 2004.

———. Church Dogmatics The Doctrine of the Word of God, Volume 1, Part 2: The Revelation of God; Holy Scripture: The Proclamation of the Church. 1 edition. Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2004.

———. Church Dogmatics. Volume III; Part Two: The Doctrine of Creation. T. & T. Clark, 1968.

———. Karl Barth’s Table Talk. Edited by John D. Godsey. Literary Licensing, LLC, 2011.

———. Karl, and Edwyn Clement Hoskyns. The Epistle to the Romans,. London: Oxford University Press, H. Milford, 1933.

Berkouwer, G. C. The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth. Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1956.

Cassidy, James J. “Election and Trinity.” Westminster Theological Journal 71, no. 1 (March 1, 2009): 53–81.

Crisp, Oliver. God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology. London; New York: T & T Clark, 2009.

———. Oliver D. Divinity and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered. 1 edition. Cambridge, UK ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Gibson, David. Reading the Decree: Exegesis, Election and Christology in Calvin and Barth. T & T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology. London ; New York: T & T Clark, 2009.

Helm, Paul. John Calvin’s Ideas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Hunsinger, George. “Election and the Trinity: Twenty-Five Theses on the Theology of Karl Barth.” Modern Theology 24, no. 2 (April 1, 2008): 179–98.

25

———. George, Peter J. Leithart, Katherine Sonderegger, and Alan J. Torrance. Christology, Ancient and Modern: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics. Edited by Oliver D. Crisp and Fred Sanders. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013.

Jones, Paul D. The Humanity of Christ: Christology in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. T & T Clark Theology. London ; New York: T & T Clark, 2008.

Lederle, Henry I. Die leer van die “extra calvinisticum” voor calvyn: die weerlegging van ’n dogmahistoriese legende, 1975.

Lombard, Peter. The Sentences Book 3: On the Incarnation of the Word. Translated by Giulio Silano. Toronto: PIMS, 2008.

Macleod, Donald. The Person of Christ. Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 1998.

McGinnis, Andrew M. The Son of God beyond the Flesh: A Historical and Theological Study of the Extra Calvinisticum. T & T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology, volume 29. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2014.

Merrigan, Terrence, and Frederik Glorieux, eds. “Godhead Here in Hiding”: Incarnation and the History of Human Suffering. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 234. Leuven ; Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2012.

Muller, Richard A. Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins. Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2008.

———. Richard A. Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1985.

Strange, Daniel. Engaging with Barth: Contemporary Evangelical Critiques. Edited by David Gibson. 1 edition. New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2009.

Summer, Darren O. Karl Barth and the Incarnation: Christology and the Humility of God. T & T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology.27. London, England: Bloomsbury, 2014.

———. Darren O. “The Twofold Life of the Word: Karl Barth’s Critical Reception of the Extra Calvinisticum.” International Journal of Systematic Theology 15, no. 1 (January 1, 2013): 42–57.

Swain, Scott R. The God of the Gospel: Robert Jenson’s Trinitarian Theology. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2013.

26

Turrettini, François, George Musgrave Giger, and James T Dennison. Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Phillipsburg, N.J.: P & R Pub., 1992.

Ursinus, Zacharias, and David Pareus. Corpus doctrinae christianae ecclesiarum a papatu Romano reformatarum: ex ore quondam Zachariae Ursini in explicationibus catecheticis exceptum, . Cum Miscellaneis catecheticis ex posthuma recognitione Dav. Parei ..., 1621.

Van Driel, Edwin Chr. “Karl Barth on the Eternal Existence of Jesus Christ.” Scottish Journal of Theology 60, no. 01 (February 2007): 45–61.

Vanhoozer, Kevin J. Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Webster, John, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth. 1st edition. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Wellum, Stephen J. God the Son Incarnate. Wheaton, Il.: Crossway, forthcoming, 2015.

Willis, David. Calvin’s Catholic Christology.: The Function of the so-Called Extra Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, v. 2. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966.

27