Tuesday, May 21, 2019

The logos asarkos is none other than the logos incarnandus


"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."

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