THE METAPHYSICS OF THE INCARNATION This page intentionally left blank THE METAPHYSICS OF THE INCARNATION Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus RICHARD CROSS 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 2 6 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan South Korea Poland Portugal Singapore Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Published in the United States By Oxford University Press Inc. New York © Richard Cross 2002 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2002 First published in paperback 2005 All rights reserved. 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Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0–19–924436–7 ISBN 0–19–928108–4 (Pbk.) 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Typeset by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn, Norfolk For my father Alan Cross This page intentionally left blank Preface ‘Philosophy presupposes knowledge,’ Cardinal Newman remarks in The Idea of a University; sometimes, however, philosophy is required for accurate knowledge, and a full understanding of an idea cannot be achieved without philosophical engage- ment. The topic that I consider here is a case in point; the history of medieval accounts of the union of divine and human in Jesus cannot be satisfactorily told without con- siderable philosophical analysis. The medieval debate I examine is fundamentally based on argument of a highly rigorous and deductive nature, and makes use of many concepts that derive not from theology but from metaphysics. The proper understanding of such debate requires an analytical—philosophical—consideration both of the arguments and of the concepts used. In a most basic way, keeping in mind issues from modern philosophy can often help us to understand just what is at issue in some otherwise obscure scholastic discussions. So the method I adopt is of necessity not merely historical, though my fundamental aims are such. Theologians and historians interested in the topic will need to extend to me their indulgence. But my aim is more than merely historical; I try too to engage with the material theologically, both to show how medieval Christological debates relate to modern ones, and to show how medieval discussions may make a contribution to modern ones. To this extent, I have attempted to produce not just an exercise in the his- tory of ideas, but also an engagement in historical theology of the kind that I believe is essential to current theological debate. Most—though not all—of the non- historical, more analytical, material is found in the Introduction, Conclusion, and section 2 of Chapter 9. Historians will find little of interest in these sections, and in tracing a route through the book may like to skip them. But I have concerns in systematic theology too, and someone interested in seeing how medieval theories might relate to modern ones could choose an altogether different route through the book, focusing on Chapters 5, 8, 10, 15, Excursus 1 and the Conclusion, and per- haps too—for a fuller view of the issues—on the Introduction, Chapters 1, 2, 7, 9, section 1 of Chapter 12, and Excursus 2. There is a third route through the book, too, one that could be taken by someone interested not in medieval theology but in medieval metaphysics (specifically theories of substance, including the problem of universals and the relation to accidents). This route would include the Intro- duction, Parts I and IV, Chapter 6, and Excursus 2. Obviously, medieval ways of doing theology will not suit all forms of contempor- ary Christology; neither will all medieval discussions be even tangentially relevant to modern ones. But many parts of medieval Christology will be of interest to any theologian who thinks that a clear understanding of the metaphysics under- lying the Incarnation is an important element in understanding the doctrine as a whole—even if the modern theologian should (wrongly, in my view) come to regard medieval contributions as ultimately misguided. We learn from the mistakes of our viii  forebears as much as from their successes. My conclusions about the relevance of medieval Christology for modern thought might turn out to be quite surprising. My argument is—in a nutshell—that medieval understandings of the individuality of the assumed human nature in Christ can be used to buttress a very strong two- minds Christology of a sort that might be thought to be desirable by a theologian anxious to stress the autonomy and limitation of the assumed human nature. This much is just standard medieval insight. But I show too that the medieval theories can be used to develop a Christology that the medieval theologians themselves would have found undesirable—a Christology that entails divine passibility and mutability. Indeed, part of my argument is that any properly worked out doctrine of the Incarna- tion straightforwardly entails these divine limitations. My choice of period is deliberate, from both an historical and a systematic point of view. Doing Christology of an analytical kind requires a firm grasp of some sophist- icated metaphysical ideas. The first medievals to combine the relevant philosophical skills with a real theological interest in expounding Chalcedonian Christology are thirteenth-century: specifically, Bonaventure and Aquinas. (The twelfth-century Peter Abelard does not count here, because of his distance from Chalcedonian insights.) And the general contours of the medieval debates are, with one significant exception (which I mention in Chapter 7), established by the time of Scotus. This is not to say that no original Christology was done after Scotus; but the work tended more to the consolidation of positions already established, the proposal of novel and increasingly sophisticated arguments for and against existent theories. In any case, a study of the Christology of the high Middle Ages—on any account one of the most fecund periods in the history of theology and philosophy alike—hardly requires defence. Within the period, I have had to make choices about what to include, though I have tried to be as comprehensive as possible. To make the whole of a reasonable length, I focus on those areas which satisfy both of the following criteria: first, that there is a reason- able varietyof Christological views, where this variety springs from conscious debates in the period; secondly, that there is specifically Christologicaldebate. For example, there was a huge debate about the distinctions between the divine person and the divine essence. But this debate, while interesting in itself, did not have a great directly Christological focus. So Part II, where I look at Trinitarian issues, is relatively short, since the main debate is not Christological in nature. Equally, there was a reasonable degree of consensus about the question of the communication of properties, which I examine in Part III. This part too is, therefore, relatively short. There is one group of thinkers in my period whom I judge to be worthy only of scant attention: Dominicans after Aquinas. These thinkers—with one possible exception—have little of any originality to say, largely either following Aquinas or failing to develop their ideas with any philosophical or theological sophistication. They are minor figures, functioning at a considerably lower intellectual level than the theologians I focus on here. So there is less on Dominicans than there is on other (secular and Franciscan) theologians.  ix My choice of title, too, is a considered one. I make no pretensions to having written a complete account of scholastic Christology, still less of the Christology of the high Middle Ages as such. My aim is more modest: an account merely of the metaphysical aspects of the doctrine. I make very little attempt to integrate the highly abstract material I examine here into the many other aspects of medieval Christo- logical speculation. This is largely because it is not clear to me that there are any obvious links either way; if there are, I am happy to leave it to my readers to spot them and point them out at leisure. R. C. Oriel College Oxford