Analyzing Doctrine: Toward a Systematic Theology

By Oliver D. Crisp

In  Analyzing Doctrine Oliver Crisp carefully considers the relationship of systematic theology to analytic philosophy, arguing that the tools of analytic philosophy can be fruitfully applied to traditional systematic theology. Doing so, as  Analyzing Doctrine reveals, creates a distinct and rich analytic theology.
 
Analyzing Doctrine employs traditional themes of systematic theology to structure Crisp’s analytic theological analysis. Crisp examines the doctrine of God, the mystery of the Trinity, and God’s intention in creating and relating to the world. He then addresses the incarnation, original sin, the virgin birth, Christ’s two wills, salvation, and, finally, the resurrection. In the process of making his constructive case, Crisp engages a range of historic theological voices from the tradition, as well as contemporary biblical studies and systematic theology.
 
Clear, accessible, and engaging,  Analyzing Doctrine establishes analytic theology’s place in the architecture of systematic theology while also challenging some of its misconceptions. By seamlessly weaving together Christian tradition and analytic philosophy to construct his theology, Crisp argues for the integral role that analytic theology plays in the theological imagination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baylor University Press
• Release date: Jul 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781481309882

Oliver D. Crisp

Oliver D. Crisp (PhD, University of London; DLitt University of Aberdeen) is Professor of Analytic Theology at the Logos Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology, St. Mary's College, the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. He is author of numerous books in analytic and systematic theology, including Analyzing Doctrine: Toward a Systematic Theology; Deviant Calvinism: Broadening Reformed Theology; Divinity and Humanity: The Incarnation Reconsidered; God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology; Retrieving Doctrine: Essays in Reformed Theology; and Revisioning Christology: Theology in the Reformed Tradition. Together with Fred Sanders, he is co-founder of the Los Angeles Theology Conference.

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Analyzing Doctrine

Toward a Systematic Theology

Oliver D. Crisp

Baylor University Press

© 2019 by Baylor University Press

Waco, Texas 76798

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of Baylor University Press.

Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover and Book Design by Savanah N. Landerholm

Cover image: Oliver D. Crisp, Reflected Light, oil on canvas board, 2003. Used with permission of the artist.

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For Ben Myers

frater alterius matris

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Analytic Systematic Theology

2. Picturing God

3. Divine Simplicity

4. Trinity and Mystery

5. God’s Eternal Purpose

6. Incarnation Anyway

7. Original Sin

8. Virgin Birth

9. Christ’s Two Wills

10. Salvation as Participation

11. Bodily Resurrection

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

The chapters that comprise this work were written in Los Angeles, at Fuller Theological Seminary, and in Scotland at the University of St Andrews. A number of them have also been written in connection with funding from the John Templeton Foundation for grants related to the Fuller Analytic Theology Project (2015–2018), entitled Prayer, Love, and Human Nature: Analytic Theology for Theological Formation, and to the Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology at St Andrews. I am grateful for the opportunities the beneficence of the foundation have provided me. I am also very thankful to the other members of the research group at the core of the Fuller Analytic Theology Project: Rev. Dr. James Arcadi, Jesse Gentile, Steven Nemeş, Dr. J. T. Turner, Dr. Jordan Wessling, and Christopher Woznicki. They have offered feedback on almost all of the chapters of this volume. Members of the Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology at St Andrews provided comments on talks and conference papers given there, including earlier versions of chapters 3 and 8–10. Jared Michelson read a penultimate draft of the whole manuscript and offered a number of helpful comments. Mike Rea deserves particular thanks for drawing my attention to a conceptual problem with chapter 11 when I presented a version of the argument to a seminar in the institute. I also benefited from comments given by an audience in the Theology and Ethics Research Seminar at New College, University of Edinburgh, where a version of chapter 10 was read in the fall of 2017. Earlier versions of chapters 5 and 6 were given as the Harold O. J. Brown Lectures at Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte, North Carolina, in March 2015. I am grateful to the seminary, and especially to Rev. Dr. James N. Anderson, for the invitation to give these lectures and for the hospitality I received there. An earlier version of chapter 9 was given at the Philosophy Department at York University in the United Kingdom at the invitation of Rev. Dr. David Efird and Dr. David Worsley. I am very grateful for the comments received on that occasion, and the welcome I received. Reverend Dr. Stephen Wright was very helpful in providing comments on an earlier draft of chapter 11. I am also grateful to my family for their support, and especially to my wife, Claire, for her encouragement on good days and on bad days.

Earlier versions of a number of the chapters have been previously published in professional journals and, in one case, a symposium. All have been revised for inclusion in this work, some significantly. I am grateful to the publishers of the following material for permission to reprint: Analytic Theology as Systematic Theology, published in Open Theology 3 (2017): 156–66; A Parsimonious Doctrine of Divine Simplicity, published in Modern Theology (2019) as part of a symposium on divine simplicity guest edited by George Kalantzis and Matthew Levering; On Original Sin, in International Journal of Systematic Theology 17, no. 3 (2015): 252–66; and The Resurrection of Christ, in The Promise of Robert W. Jenson’s Theology: Constructive Engagements, ed. Stephen John Wright and Chris E. W. Green (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017), 141–58 (the argument of which is now significantly augmented).

Finally, this work is dedicated to my dear friend Dr. Benjamin Myers, whom I affectionately call the Beatnik Theologian. I am sure that Jack Kerouac would approve.

Introduction

Of all disciplines theology is the fairest, the one that moves the head and heart most fully, the one that comes closest to the human reality, the one that gives the clearest perspective on the truth which every disciple seeks. It is a landscape like those of Umbria and Tuscany with views which are distant and yet clear, a work of art which is as well planned and bizarre as the cathedrals of Cologne or Milan. . . . But of all disciplines theology is also the most difficult and the most dangerous, the one in which a man is most likely to end in despair, or—and this is almost worse—in arrogance. Theology can float off into thin air or turn to stone, and worst of all it can become a caricature of itself.

Karl Barth¹

Writing systematic theology is hard. There are several reasons for this. First, because it has the grand ambition of being systematic in its approach to theology, attempting to carve theology at the joints, so to speak (to borrow a term from the analytic philosophers). Such an ambition is a dangerous thing, and much that goes by the name of systematic theology is not truly systematic in nature, and/or does not carve theology at the joints—that is, does not actually get at the truth of the matter. Second, systematic theology is hard because it is conceptually demanding. Theology is often lampooned in secular Western culture as a subject that is intellectually bankrupt or at least flaky, a subject one step removed from alchemy or astrology. But in fact doing theology well is very challenging, for the theologian must be conversant with different literatures (biblical studies, history, philosophy, social and natural sciences, and so on) and be able to synthesize much of this material in a way that actually makes some progress on what has been previously said on a given topic. That is no mean thing when the theologian must engage with a tradition that is more than two and a half thousand years old.

Bad systematic theology is much easier to execute, much as bad examples of any particular intellectual enterprise are easier to find than good examples of the same thing. Anyone can draw a stick figure on a piece of paper. But far fewer people can paint something as arresting and powerful as Picasso’s black-and-white masterpiece Guernica (1937). Similarly, it is much easier to assemble quotations from other scholars, to cut and paste some bold assertions, and to warm over ideas that have been culled from someone like Anselm, or Barth, or Schleiermacher. It is much harder to produce constructive theology that deals with the issues Anselm, Schleiermacher, or Barth were concerned with—yet takes forward a distinct research project in one’s own voice.

I often say to prospective doctoral students that one of the things that distinguishes masters-level students from doctoral-level students is that the former only have to give some clear account of the ideas of other people, whereas doctoral students must find their own voices in order to make their own contributions. I think this is related to the point about how demanding systematic theology can be. Doing constructive work is hard because world building is hard. Whether the world you build as a writer is fictional or factual, metaphysical or poetic, it is hard work producing a conceptual structure that hangs together in a coherent way. But like any building (whether real or imaginary), it is only as strong as the framework that undergirds it. Theology that is attempted without sufficient weight-bearing structures is theology that will fail. It will not last any more than poorly drawn pictures will last, or poorly thought out fictions will endure.

This book is an attempt at such theological conceptual world building. It is not a complete system of theology. But it is a step in that direction, an attempt to provide something like a dogmatic sketch of some of the main load-bearing structures around which a systematic theology would be built. It is related to my earlier constructive work on Christology and atonement, although the present work can be read independently of this previously published material.² The current project is focused on what I take to be the theological core of the Christian faith—namely, the doctrine of God, of Christ, and of the nature of salvation. It is far from complete. But it is a beginning, perhaps the first step toward something larger and more intricate.

Like any great master, Picasso painted many studies of various aspects of Guernica in the years before he put all these various elements together into the finished product. In a similar way, this work is a series of studies toward the making of a larger, and as yet unwritten, synthetic project. They are interconnected and hang together as components of a larger whole that I hope will become clear as the reader proceeds. But they are also sufficiently distinct so as to be read individually as studies on a given doctrine. Nevertheless, the hope is that they have a certain integrity and coherence when placed together in this whole, giving an overview of some of the central tenets of Christian doctrine that make up the traditional loci or topics (literally, places) of systematic theology.

Some Key Terms

Before proceeding to give an overview of the different chapters and how they fit together to form this dogmatic sketch, let me say a word about how I am using terms like systematic, constructive, and dogmatic as ways of qualifying the English noun theology. For these are words that will recur as the book unfolds.

As the reader has probably gathered from the above remarks, I take systematic theology to be a particular way of doing theology. It is, I think, a term that denotes that branch of theological science or Wissenschaft that attempts to give an organized, integrated, and systematic account of the various doctrines of the Christian faith. There are different ways in which this can be done, as a brief glance at the history of theology will demonstrate, whether it is in question-and-answer format or in clipped scholastic sentences replete with careful distinctions, the rhythm and meter of poetry (consider Dante or Milton, whose work might be read as theological studies in particular doctrines) or the simple pellucid beauty of clean prose. In each case the author is attempting to give a systematic account of Christian doctrine, or at least to write with such systematic motivations in mind much as one might write a novel in a series with the broader backdrop of a particular fictional world informing the issues worked out in the story. I think systematic theology is also aimed at truth and truth-apt. These days this is a more controversial claim (as we shall see in chapter 1). Yet it is an almost universally accepted assumption in older theological works, and I follow this older tradition here. For I presume (with some important qualifications registered in the first few chapters) that theology is able to speak truthfully about the divine.

Systematic theology is also about conceptual world building—but of a particular sort. These days conceptual world building is back on the agenda for analytic philosophers after a hiatus that lasted for much of the middle third of the twentieth century. One can read recent works by philosophers trying to give a metaphysical account of the structure of the world.³ Systematic theologians have always had that ambition, but it is an ambition informed by the Christian tradition and supremely by Scripture. In other words, and unlike the world building of metaphysicians, the world building of systematic theologians depends in important respects on judgments about testimony, specifically the testimony of witnesses to divine revelation, and to theological and ecclesiastical leaders of the past whose work elaborating upon this testimony has generated a tradition of interpretation and theological judgment to which modern divines must pay attention. Theological world building, then, is an effort done in conversation with a great congregation of thinkers, most of whom are dead, and some of whom claim to be witnesses to divine revelation.

On my way of thinking, dogmatic theology is a subfield of systematic theology. It is the sort of systematic theology that is focused on giving an account of dogma—that is, the conceptual core of the Christian faith as articulated in the great postbiblical statements of Christian faith like the great creeds and the confessions and catechisms of particular churches. Dogmatic theology, then, is systematic theology that has a particular interest in churchly theology and the ways in which the church has articulated the faith in the symbols she has produced—symbols like creeds and confessions. Often, the term dogmatics is used in contemporary systematic theology for all intents and purposes as a synonym for systematic theology. This is a pity. There is an important distinction to be made here, one that helps to track the way in which systematic theology may attend to certain sorts of sources in its theologizing (such as creeds, confessions, and other official church documents) or may privilege the more speculative task of theological construction. Although such distinctions are not hard and fast, they do serve a purpose.⁴

These days constructive theology can mean one of several things. Some theologians use the term as a way of demarcating their own projects from systematic theology that is shaped more consciously by the great tradition of past Christian thought. On this way of thinking, the difference between constructive theology and systematic theology is akin to the difference between building an extension to an existing structure and demolishing the structure to build a new edifice from scratch. That is not how the difference between systematic theology and constructive theology is understood in this volume. Instead, I use constructive theology as a way of connoting systematic theology in a constructive mode—more like the work of building the extension to the existing structure than to starting some building project afresh. A constructive theology is one that seeks to give an account of a particular doctrine or (if it is a systematic theology in the formal sense of a system of theology such as Calvin’s Institutes or Aquinas’ Summa theologiae) to give an account of the faith as a whole. Construction can be done on the basis of foundations laid by others, which is the point of the analogy of an extension to an existing building. Consequently, I do not see why constructive theology may not also be theology resourced by the great tradition of past theology. It may even be that one can do constructive dogmatic theology—that is, systematic theology focused on the task of churchly theology (as understood by one or more of the great symbols of the church in history)—but seek to offer a new way of looking at, or thinking about, such theology, perhaps even of moving beyond such historic statements in providing a new synthetic theological whole. I take Karl Barth’s magisterial Church Dogmatics to be a paradigm of such work.

With these preliminary distinctions in mind, we may turn to consider the substance of the chapters that follow.

Overview of Chapters

The chapters are arranged so as to follow the sequence of topics that one would expect to find in a standard textbook of theology, beginning with methodological matters and proceeding to the doctrine of God, the Trinity, God’s purpose in creation, the doctrine of sin, and the incarnation and reconciling work of Christ. Thus, the first chapter is on theological method; the second to fourth chapters are on the doctrine of God; the fifth and sixth chapters are about God’s intention in creating the world and his relationship to the creation; the seventh chapter focuses on the problem of original sin, which requires the work of salvation; and the eighth to eleventh chapters consider some key issues concerning the solution to this problem of human sinfulness provided by the person and work of Christ, culminating in the doctrine of the resurrection. A shorter concluding chapter draws the different strands of these studies together into a whole, offering a single vision of Christian systematic theology written as a piece of analytic theology.

There are notable absences from this list, however. For instance, there is no separate discussion of providence; no more general account of theological anthropology; no discrete doctrine of the person and work of the Holy Spirit; no mention of the order of salvation (ordo salutis) that includes calling, regeneration, justification, and sanctification; no clear doctrine of atonement;⁵ nothing about the four last things—death, judgment, heaven, and hell—let alone the new heavens and the new earth. But the reader will recall that the doctrinal studies in this volume are only steps toward a systematic theology. Even if some important topics are not addressed directly, the matters that are dealt with take their bearings from a more comprehensive theological vision, one that I trust the reader will understand from the hints given in the chapters that follow.

The first chapter is the one more methodological piece that appears in this volume. It is an apology for analytic theology as systematic theology. The thesis defended here is not that analytic theology just is systematic theology (though some analytic theologians have claimed this as the chapter explains). Rather, the thesis is that some analytic theology counts as systematic theology just as much as any other sort of systematic theology practiced today. A brief overview of the way in which several key contemporary practitioners of systematic theology think about their discipline yields the conclusion that there is very little consensus on the nature of systematic theology. What consensus there is, I gather together in what I call SHARED TASK. Then, using this consensus statement of the nature of systematic theology, I show that analytic theologians may practice analytic theology in a way that is entirely in keeping with SHARED TASK. This does not mean that all analytic theology is systematic theology. But it does mean that at least some analytic theology counts as systematic theology as much as any of the three exemplars of modern systematic theology canvassed in the earlier section of this chapter.

This is an important thing to establish because an oft-repeated criticism of analytic theology is that it is insufficiently theological, and is not systematic theology at all. But if SHARED TASK captures core commitments of much contemporary systematic theology—commitments shared by many practitioners of analytic theology—then it is much more difficult to see why analytic theology cannot count as systematic theology in principle. This sets the scene for the studies that follow, all of which are offered as instances of systematic theology (understood along the lines of SHARED TASK) that sometimes stray into dogmatic theology (for instance, chapter 8), and in many cases are instances of constructive theology as well (for instance, chapters 3, 4–7, 9, and to some extent 10). In each case it is hoped that the virtues of analytic systematic theology will be made clear through the examination of particular theological topics and issues.

With this in mind, chapter 2 considers another vexing problem in the dialogue between contemporary practitioners of what we might call analytic systematic theology and practitioners of non–analytic systematic theology—namely, the doctrine of God. In this chapter I set out two pictures of God. The first of these is often called the classical theistic picture. Although this is something of a term of art, it does represent a set of theological commitments that can be found among some contemporary practitioners of systematic theology and in much historic theology as well. It is characterized by a way of thinking about the divine nature that emphasizes the significant difference between God and creation and the way in which God’s life is unique. By contrast, in much contemporary analytic philosophy of religion and philosophical theology—including some analytic systematic theology—God is understood as something like a very large person. In recent times the Thomist philosopher Brian Davies has labeled such theology theistic personalism.⁶ Having set out these two pictures of the divine nature, I then consider their relationship to the debate about theological realism and antirealism, which has to do with whether God is mind independent or merely the projection or product of human imagination. This then leads into a discussion of a via media between classical theism and theistic personalism that I call chastened theism. I give an overview or dogmatic sketch of this alternative as a prelude to chapters 3 and 4 that focus on the two poles of the Christian doctrine of God—that is, his unity and triunity, respectively.

Turning to the matter of God’s unity, chapter 3 develops an account of divine simplicity. This is the notion that God is without composition. In recent systematic and philosophical theology, this doctrine has been the subject of scrutiny and criticism. Though it is a mainstay of classical theism (as the first chapter points out), it has come under heavy fire from both analytic philosophers and from modern theologians. In both of these constituencies the doctrine is often regarded as without sufficient theological warrant, and as confusing or even incoherent. Rather than attempting yet another defense of the traditional doctrine, this chapter focuses instead upon the task of offering a constructive account that may be a way forward in discussion of this aspect of Theology Proper (i.e., of the doctrine of God). This way forward involves setting out a model of the doctrine. A model in contemporary natural science is not the truth of the matter but a toy version of reality—a cut-down account that enables us to see something about matters that are actually much more complicated, such as a physics textbook diagram of an atom. I suggest that a productive way forward on the topic of divine simplicity is to construct a model of the doctrine that delivers much of what the classical theists want but that does not commit the theologian to the strong versions of the doctrine that are to be found in the Christian tradition, and that have drawn the ire of modern theologians and philosophers. Like a scientific model, this approximation to the doctrine is not necessarily the truth of the matter, but it is a useful fiction that can be used productively in giving an account of the divine nature that appeals to a wider audience than just classical theologians. It may also be of help in bringing divine simplicity to bear upon the dogma of the Trinity, which is something of a holy grail in contemporary dogmatic theology.

This leads to the discussion of the Trinity itself in chapter 4. The history of theology is replete with accounts of this central and defining dogma. These can be grouped into two families of views, although there are some outliers that are not clearly examples of one or another family (such as the position of Jonathan Edwards⁷). The first of these families is often called the Latin Trinity, and is associated with such thinkers as Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas—members of the A Team of Christian thinkers. According to this view, the persons of the Trinity are to be understood in a rather thin way, in terms of the relations of origin in the Godhead. These are paternity (or being the Father); filiation (or being eternally begotten by the Father, in the case of the Son); and spiration (or being breathed out by the Father, in the case of the Holy Spirit). Everything else in God is shared between the divine persons in the divine essence. So God has one will, one center of action, and so on. The main family of views that represent an alternative to this picture is often called social Trinitarianism. On this way of thinking the distinctions in the Godhead are more pronounced. God is one in essence, but his internal life is thought to be more differentiated. Typically, social Trinitarians take this to mean that there are three wills and three centers of operation in God, consistent with the three divine persons of the Godhead. Then, in addition to these traditional families of views about the Trinity, there is the recent constitution view developed by Christian philosophers like Michael Rea, Jeff Brower, and (with important modifications) Peter van Inwagen. According to this view, the divine life is more like a statue composed of marble that is also a pillar so that there are several entities colocated in one place. There is the statue, which is composed of the marble. There is the pillar, also composed of the same slab of marble. Then there is the block of marble itself, from which the statue-pillar is hewn. We have three distinct but colocated objects in the same place—namely, the block-statue-pillar. But all three, though numerically distinct, are nevertheless composed of the same stuff—namely, the marble slab. Perhaps, say these philosophers, the Trinity is rather like this image. The one essence of God is like the marble shared between the persons, whereas the persons themselves are like the marble block, the statue, and the pillar, respectively. Together they compose the one God.

Attractive though each of these models of the Trinity are in different ways, each has significant conceptual costs. After setting out these options, I offer an alternative account. This alternative does not set out a further model of the Trinity as such. Rather, it is more like an approach to thinking about the existing models of the Trinity—a kind of metamodel or theory about the various models of the Trinity that exist. This theory is that no model of the Trinity is adequate because God is fundamentally mysterious and beyond our ken. We do not have an adequate conceptual grip on the Trinity, so rather than attempting to explain the Trinity, we might be better off acknowledging that we do not have a single account of the doctrine that makes complete sense, and that our various models of the Trinity are at best piecemeal attempts to grasp something beyond our comprehension. This position is called Trinitarian mysterianism.

Chapter 5 turns from the doctrine of Theology Proper to discussion of the created order. It deals with the relationship between what could be called protological issues in theology and eschatological issues. Put more simply, it deals with how the first things in the eternal purposes of God in creation are related to the last things. This is dealt with in dialogue with several accounts of the relationship between first and last things in recent systematic theology, particularly the works of Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jürgen Moltmann, and Robert Jenson. I set out and discuss the merits and drawbacks of three theses that these non–analytic systematic theologians have proffered in this connection. The first is the Hegelian Thesis; the second is the Hellenization Thesis; and the third is the Eschatological Identity Thesis.

Chapter 6 follows on from where the previous chapter left off. It sets out one version of an incarnation anyway doctrine, the view according to which Christ would have become incarnate without a fall, an issue that has begun to receive more attention in the recent theological literature. This version of incarnation anyway I call the christological union account. It is related to the union account of atonement that I have set out in my earlier study, The Word Enfleshed. In this chapter I argue that far from being theologically speculative in a pejorative sense, the christological union account sheds important light upon several related issues, such as the image of God and God’s ultimate end in creating the world. After setting out the doctrine in an extended narrative, I weigh up some of the principal reasons in favor of the view as well as potential objections that could be raised against it.

Chapter 7 switches tack from speculation about whether there would have been an incarnation without the fall to an account of the moral state of human beings given the fall. In my earlier work, I had endorsed a traditional Reformed account on the doctrine of original sin according to which fallen human beings have ascribed to them the sin, and guilt of the sin, of our first parents. Thus all fallen human beings possess both a corrupt moral nature, which is original sin, and the guilt that accompanies this, which is original guilt. However, further reflection on this topic, and on responses to my earlier position, has led me to change my mind. This chapter is the result. It sets out a constructive account of original sin that avoids the serious theological drawback of the doctrine of original guilt, drawing on resources from a minority report in the Reformed tradition in order to do so. I dub this account the moderate Reformed doctrine of original sin.⁸ I also argue that an adequate understanding of original sin must be open textured enough to accommodate some version of the story of evolutionary human development. Although I do not offer an account of how original sin is consistent with evolutionary human development, the doctrine set out here is commensurate with several live options on this controversial theological topic.

Having set out reasons for thinking that an incarnation is required for God’s unitive purpose in creation, and having considered the doctrine of original sin, chapter 8 turns to a solution to the problem of human fallen-ness in the doctrine of the person and work of Christ. We begin by focusing on the traditional doctrine of the virginal conception of Christ. In a significant recent study of the doctrine, the biblical scholar Andrew Lincoln has argued that there are good biblical and theological reasons for rejecting the traditional position in favor of the view that the generation of Christ’s human nature was like that of any other mere human being, and was not the result of some miraculous divine act. In the course of laying out his argument, Lincoln makes a point of engaging my earlier work in this area, in which I defended a version of the traditional dogma of the virginal conception.

In this chapter I return to the topic in order to deal with Lincoln’s revisionist account of the doctrine. Along the way I argue that the biblical and theological objections Lincoln brings against the traditional position can be rebutted by those who favor the traditional dogma. Although it is perfectly possible for God to bring about an incarnation without a virginal conception, there may be good reasons why God does bring it about in this manner, reasons having to do with indicating the importance of the one being conceived—which is a common enough biblical trope. (Consider the circumstances in which John the Baptist was conceived and born, or Isaac or Samson in the Old Testament.) So although the virginal conception is not a requirement for incarnation, it is how God has brought about the incarnation according to at least some strands of the biblical witness, and the witness of the church catholic to the apostolic teaching. For these reasons, I maintain that Christians should retain the dogma.

One fundamental issue in Christology concerns the relationship between Christ’s human will and his divine will. It is fundamental because it raises the question of how it is that one person can have two wills—an issue about the very coherence of the incarnation. In chapter 9 I give a defense of the traditional catholic doctrine that Christ had two wills (dyothelitism). This has recently come under fire from some analytic philosophical theologians who favor a monothelite (or one-will) understanding of the incarnation. I set out some reasons for wanting to retain the traditional doctrine and then consider the recent argument for monothelitism given by J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig. They provide a sophisticated and theologically nuanced case in favor of their position and against the catholic doctrine. More recently, Jordan Wessling has come to their aid in his attempt to provide reasons for thinking that appeal to the traditional catholic view over other considerations (such as the weight of biblical testimony and of reason) is not sufficient to reject monothelitism. I rebut these arguments, showing that the traditional doctrine is a plausible way of understanding the incarnation, and that there are good theological reasons for retaining the doctrine enshrined in the confessional tradition of the catholic creeds rather than abandoning them for something like a neomonothelite alternative.

Chapter 10 moves to the consideration of the reconciling work of Christ in terms of theosis, or divinization, and participation in the divine life—hence the chapter’s title, Salvation as Participation. There has been a renewal of interest in theosis among academic theologians, who have found evidence of the doctrine in a range of Western thinkers, including Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards. Yet there is some difference of opinion on what the conceptual core of the doctrine entails. There is also a lot of recent work in biblical studies and systematic theology that has tried to show how important language of union and participation is in giving an account of salvation in Christ. (Here one thinks of the work of biblical scholars like Douglas Campbell, Grant Macaskill, and Michael Gorman, and of theologians like Julie Canlis, Carl Mosser, Todd Billings, William B. Evans, and many others.) However, there is much less by way of explanation with respect to this language of participation and union. What do we mean when we say that believers are partakers in the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4) or that in salvation we are united with Christ (Rom 6; Eph 5:32)?

In this chapter I set out one account of theosis and offer several possible ways of thinking about participation in Christ. This may then provide the raw materials for a model of theosis and participation in Christ consistent with much of the recent biblical and theological literature that seeks to retrieve these notions for contemporary theology. Such notions are of considerable interest for theologians trying to give some account of how participation and union language may be related to the means by which Christ’s work reconciles us to Godself. In