"But that then also means that there is no Logos as such, no
Logos in and for himself. An 'in and for
himself' which lacks the determination for incarnation is simply a myth. But here I must immediately add [that] to say this
much is not to reject the concept of a logos asarkos. The Logos is united to a human person in
time, and in fact 'late in time', as Charles Wesley so nicely put it. And he does not bring his humanity into this
world, he does not bring his body down from heaven. The man Jesus is conceived by the Holy Ghost
in the womb of the Virgin precisely for the union. Or, better, to borrow I. A. Dorner’s phrase, 'for
this uniting'. So, yes, the Logos is asarkos
before he is made by the Holy Spirit to be ensarkos. Moreover, one cannot erase the concept
of a logos asarkos without completely collapsing God into the history of
the man Jesus, without erasing the Creator-creature distinction, without
surrendering the otherness of God from the world. I mention all of this because I have, on a
number of occasions, been accused of rejecting the concept of a logos
asarkos. . . . But that is a charge
that is completely without foundation. I
have from the beginning of the debate . . . quite explicitly affirmed the
existence of a logos asarkos. But
I have done so, please note, in the form of a logos incarnandus, by
which I mean the Logos who is eternally determined for incarnation, but who has
yet to be united to the man Jesus in the womb of the Virgin. Thus, the issue for me has never been whether,
prior to incarnation, there is such a thing as the logos asarkos. The issue has always had to do with his identity. . . . his identity in eternity
and his identity in time are the same:
Jesus Christ."
Bruce Lindley McCormack, "The processions contain the missions: reconstructing the doctrine of an immanent Trinity," Kantzer Lecture no. 6, Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 3 October 2011, 37:43 and following. There is much more of
significance after this point. (I'm not yet taking a side in this debate, by the way; just noting the precision here.)
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