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Incarnation is the Christian belief that the divine Logos became man ("flesh") in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Overview

The Incarnation of the Christ is one of the central Christian doctrines. Although there are different understandings, the Incarnation can be described as the process through which the divine Logos (identified with Jesus of Nazareth) was believed to have become flesh.

The incarnation was defined as a dogma only after long struggles within the early church. The Council of Nicaea (325) defined the divinity of the Christ (Jesus) against Arianism; the Council of Constantinople (381) defined the full humanity of the incarnate Christ against Apollinarianism; the Council of Ephesus (431) defined the unity of the Christ's person against Nestorianism; and the Council of Chalcedon (451) defined the two natures of the Christ, divine and human, against Eutyches.

While the doctrine of incarnation is still at the center of contemporary Christian theological debate, since the mid-nineteenth century scholars (Baur, Harnack, Ottley) have begun tracing its historical development, from its origins to the present.

Early authors assumed that incarnation was a common doctrine in the entire New Testament--a doctrine that they saw theologically and explicitly announced already in the Old Testament (Ottley), or the result of influence from pagan and gnostic myths (Harnack, Bultmann).

By the 1970s most of the early confidence was gone, yet the divinity and incarnation of the Christ were still seen as foundational beliefs of the Christian faith "from the beginning,: as expressed by the New Bible Dictionary in 1975:

"If the deity of Jesus was not at first clearly stated in words (and Acts gives no hint that it was), it was nevertheless part of the faith by which the first Christians lived and prayed… The theological formulation of belief in the Incarnation came later, but the belief itself, however incoherently expressed, was there in the Church from the beginning" (p.558).

In 1977 John Hick stirred a controversy with the publishing of The Myth of God Incarnate (1977 Hick), edited volume. He regarded the doctrine of the Incarnation as something entirely foreign to the whole of New Testament thought, calling it “a dogma that Jesus himself would probably have regarded as blasphemous” (p.161).

In 1980 Dunn made the claim that the doctrine of incarnation first explicitly appeared only in the Gospel of John and subsequent literature. "We cannot claim that Jesus believed himself to be the incarnate Son of God (p.254)... In Matthew and Luke Jesus’ divine sonship is traced back specifically to his birth or conception: he was Son of God because his conception was an act of creative power by the Holy Spirit (p.51)... Only in the Fourth Gospel can we speak of a doctrine of the incarnation (p. 259)."

Dunn's position was criticized by Larry W. Hurtado and Richard Bauckham, who saw earlier "implicit" evidence of the belief in the divinity and incarnation of Jesus in spite of the lack of explicit statements prior to the Gospel of John.

The presence of the doctrine of incarnation in the earliest Christian writings (including Paul and the Synoptics) is now disputed.

Major Theological Treatises on the Incarnation of the Christ

• De Carne Christi (around 210), by Tertullian

• De incarnatione Verbi Dei (4th cent.), by Athanasius of Alexandria

• De trinitatis erroribus (1531), by Michael Servetus.

• Immanuel; or, The mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God (1645), by James Ussher.

• Brunner, Emil (1934). "The Mediator: A Study of The Central Doctrine of The Christian Faith." London: Lutterworth.

Christianity stands or falls by what is believed and thought about Jesus. Brunner's thorough and provocative analysis of the Biblical doctrine of the Person and the work of Christ, establishing Jesus Christ as the Mediator between God and man, not only made the central theme of Christianity live again, but established him as one of the great modern theologians. Why should there be an intermediary between God and mankind? Brunner's answer is that what matters supremely is not whether man is 'aware' of, or has a 'feeling' for 'something divine', but whether there is only one 'place' at which God challenges man to decision. The God who is real and alive is the God who confronts man in such a way that man knows that he must act. And Jesus Christ, the Mediator, confronts man with the true and living God. The deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ, the God-Man, the Incarnation, and the Atonement are re-examined and rescued from misunderstanding. The result is a clear and provocative discussion concluding that only in Jesus Christ can we know ourselves as we really are; and only in Jesus Christ can God be known as he really is. [Publisher's Description]

• The Incarnation: Collected Essays in Christology (1987), by Brian Hebblethwaite.
  • A collection of essays defending the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation against its modern critics.

• Divinity and Humanity (2007), by Oliver Crisp.
  • "The doctrine of the Incarnation lies at the heart of Christianity. But the idea that 'God was in Christ' has become a much-debated topic in modern theology. Oliver Crisp addresses six key issues in the Incarnation defending a robust version of the doctrine, in keeping with classical Christology. He explores perichoresis, or interpenetration, with reference to both the Incarnation and Trinity. Over two chapters Crisp deals with the human nature of Christ and then provides an argument against the view, common amongst some contemporary theologians, that Christ had a fallen human nature. He considers the notion of divine kenosis or self-emptying, and discusses non-Incarnational Christology, focusing on the work of John Hick. This view denies Christ is God Incarnate, regarding him as primarily a moral exemplar to be imitated. Crisp rejects this alternative account of the nature of Christology."--Publisher's description.

• Was Jesus God? (2008), by Richard Swinburne
  • "Richard Swinburne argues that if there is a God, then the main doctrines which the Christian Church teaches about God are very probably true. In particular, he shows that there is strong philosophical support for the belief that Jesus, while remaining God, acquired a human nature and lived on earth for 30 years as a human being."--Publisher's description.

External links

• Wikipedia
• BELIEVE Religious Information Source web-site