Kenosis or sovereignty? Christ Jesus and the disclosure of the divine mind

Abstract

This article is the fruit of engagement with Bruce McCormack’s comprehensive The Humility of the Eternal Son: reformed kenoticism and the repair of Chalcedon (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and with Christoph Schwӧbel’s essay ‘The generosity of the Triune God and the humility of the Son’ in Paul Nimmo and Keith Johnson’s Kenosis: the self-emptying of Christ in Scripture and theology (Eerdmans, 2022), a collection of contemporary essays dedicated to McCormack. Drawing on research set out in Church, Gospel and Empire: how the politics of sovereignty impregnated the West (Wipf & Stock, 2011), it investigates the difficulty that theologians have with arguing directly from Jesus’ kenotic life to God’s. The article begins by considering McCormack’s attempt to resolve the inherent contradictions necessary for the repair of Chalcedon. Recognizing that the statements about the Incarnation found in Philippians 2.5–11 from which the word ‘kenosis’ derives are the earliest we have, the article investigates his treatment of these and the difficulties that arise. It suggests an underlying problem that is itself ongoing evidence of the assumption by theologians that God is a hierarchical sovereign power. McCormack’s extraordinary answer to the question of whether there is a kenosis of the Father and the Holy Spirit with an emphatic ‘No’ is cited as evidence of this. Finally, Schwӧbel’s suggestions for a conversation with McCormack in his essay are considered as a means to a sympathetic way forward.