Page 297 - Systematic Theology - Louis Berkhof

Basic HTML Version

295
instead we have a pantheistic identification of God and man. Essentially all men are divine,
since they all have a divine element in them; and they are all sons of God, differing from Christ
only in degree. Modern teaching about Christ is all based on the doctrine of the continuity of
God and man. And it is exactly against this doctrine that Barth and those who are like-minded
with him have raised their voice. There are in some circles to-day signs of a return to the two-
nature doctrine. Micklem confesses in his What Is the Faith? that for many years he confidently
asserted that the ascription to Christ of two natures in one person had to be abandoned, but
now sees that this rested on a misunderstanding.[p. 155.]
QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY.
What was the background of the Christological controversy
in the early centuries? What ancient errors were revived by Roscelinus and Abelard? What was
the Christological Nihilism in vogue among the disciples of Abelard? How did Peter the Lombard
view Christ? Did the Scholastics bring any new points to the fore? Where do we find the official
Lutheran Christology? How can we account for the seemingly inconsistent representations of
the formula of Concord? What objections are there to the Lutheran view that divine attributes
may be predicated of the human nature? How did the Lutherans and the Reformed differ in
their interpretation of Phil. 2:5-11? How does the Reformed Christology differ from the
Lutheran? What is the main difference between recent and earlier Christologies? What
objections are there to the Kenosis doctrine? What are the objectionable features of modern
Christology? How do Barth and Brunner view Christ?
LITERATURE:
The Formula of Concord and the Second Helvetic Confession; Seeberg, History of
Doctrine II, pp. 65, 109 f., 154 f., 229 f., 321 f., 323 f., 374, 387; Hagenbach, History of Doctrine
II, pp. 267-275; III, pp. 197-209, 343-353; Thomasius, Dogmengeschichte II, pp. 380-385; 388-
429; Otten, Manual of the History of Dogmas II, pp. 171-195; Heppe, Dogmatik des deutschen
Protestantismus II, pp. 78-178; Dorner, History of Protestant Theology, pp. 95 f., 201 f., 322 f.;
Bruce, The Humiliation of Christ, pp. 74-355; Mackintosh, The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus
Christ, pp. 223-284; Ottley, The Doctrine of the Incarnation, pp. 485-553, 587-671; Sanday,
Christologies Ancient and Modern, pp. 59-83; Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus; La
Touche, The Person of Christ in Modern Thought.