3 - Divine Kenosis as Proper to the Eternal Son

Summary

Each of the three theologians treated in this chapter – Karl Barth, Sergei Bulgakov, and Hans Urs von Balthasar – had a deep interest in Christological issues touching upon the divine kenosis. In thinking through the involved issues, they understood themselves to be guided by the “spirit” of Chalcedon. They share the conviction that God and the human should be understood to have been joined together in Christ in a union that is no mere externally realized juxtaposition. But they did not feel themselves bound to retain Chalcedon’s categories. Even more significant is the fact that all three twentieth-century theologians attempt in their differing ways to reconcile divine passibility with a more nearly biblical account of divine immutability.