Edward Irving’s Incarnational Christology, Part 1

Edward Irving’s Incarnational Christology, Part 2

This is the third of a three-part series by Trevor Martindale. He gives us an in-depth look at how Edward Irving, one of the 19^th Century’s most important church leaders, understood the meaning of God coming in the flesh. What does that controversy have to teach us today?

Part Three: Assessing Irving’s Orthodoxy

“In my humble opinion, if the common interpretation of the Bible is to be followed, our friend [Edward Irving] is perfectly right, nay indubitably and palpably so: at all events, the gainsayers are utterly, hopelessly, and stone-blindly wrong.”[1] ~ Thomas Carlyle

Now that the framework of Irving’s theological views upholding his notion of Christ’s sinful flesh has been presented, this chapter evaluates his views in light of a wider perspective; by considering his historical position within the development of contemporary theology. The viability of his views will be assessed on this basis.

3.1.    Questioning Irving’s Heterodoxy

The initial obstacle to the task of assessing Irving’s orthodoxy regards the question of how the notion of ‘heresy’ is to be approached. In Irving’s day, heresy was certainly thought of as “teaching that is regarded as [being] contrary to the basic confession of the church in some central point or points, such that the confession is endangered by it.”[2] A heretic was, therefore, a Christian whose divergent stance with regard to the faith involuntarily bars him from the path of salvation.[3] Yet such treatment of this issue has recently attracted stern criticism.

Post-modernity has produced increasingly anti-authoritarian attitudes towards the established church. This has resulted in orthodoxy being understood as a dogma that is imposed on people by a coercive authority while a heretic is understood to be a victim of suppression by an intolerant church.[4] Walter Bauer’s thesis on Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity argues that there were many prevalent orthodox forms of belief within the universal Christian community.[5] Consequently, these widespread and varied views were regarded as heterodox while simultaneously being upheld as authentic Christian expressions. Christianity could exist in a variety of forms and the lines between orthodoxy and heresy were indeterminate. Certainly, the valuing of diversity of opinion within post-modernity makes it possible for contemporary theologians to suggest that the category of ‘heresy’ is no longer applicable in the church today.[6] Excommunication for heresy is, therefore, no longer a viable possibility, especially when today’s heresy may become tomorrow’s orthodoxy.[7] The general sway of conclusions over recent years about Irving’s views (i.e. from being heretical to orthodox) bears witness to this phenomenon.

To be sure, Bauer’s thesis is in line with the post-modern criticism that categories of orthodoxy and heterodoxy are notions used by the establishment of the church to impose a controlling influence upon others. This criticism could well be applied to Irving’s situation, as his eventual deposition and official condemnation as a ‘heretic’ was a direct result of the elders of his own church disagreeing with his decision to allow the manifestation and operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit within the church worship services. The ousting of Irving from the Church of Scotland could legitimately be viewed as a manipulation of religious politics that superseded the task of honest doctrinal inquiry. One could conclude, then, that any continuing debate over whether Irving was a heretic or not should be rendered obsolete, especially given that the Church of Scotland has since recanted from its incrimination of him.

However, the hasty rejection of notions of orthodoxy and heterodoxy, simply due to a critical attitude towards church government, carries with it the danger of a biased perspective. Exhibiting a willingness to entertain heresy based on the possibility of it becoming orthodoxy in future would be misguided, as there have been a number of heretical teachings that have consistently been opposed by the universal church in every generation.[8] H.E.W. Turner rejects Bauer’s overly critical thesis by arguing that the early church universally did, in fact, hold to a number of fixed elements of orthodoxy.[9] Howard Marshall emphasizes the presence of theological diversity among apostolic writers as well as a clear distinction between heretical and orthodox issues in the New Testament church.[10] Also, most evangelical authorities today agree that evidence within early church history and theology shows that boundaries for orthodoxy were present earlier and more widespread than Bauer had allowed.[11] Still, Turner agrees with Bauer’s call for the church to recognise the presence of theological diversity in the second century church, as well as the need for the recognition of doctrinal diversity within Christian teaching today.

Edward Irving’s Incarnational Christology, Part 1

This is the second of a three-part series by Trevor Martindale. He gives us an in-depth look at how Edward Irving, one of the 19^th Century’s most important church leaders, understood the meaning of God coming in the flesh. What does that controversy have to teach us today?

Part Two: The Crux of Irving’s Christology

This chapter will expose the fundamental concept underlying Irving’s Christology. Our treatment should not be understood to be exhaustive of his Christology on the whole. However, special consideration will later be given to the relationship between the Incarnation and the Atonement within our task.

2.1.    Orthodox Doctrine at Stake – Irving’s Christ as Sinner?

Before one can examine Irving’s views in any depth, it is necessary to first make note of the key theological presuppositions that surrounded the historical controversy between the years of 1827 and 1833. Irving’s encounter with Henry Cole provides a well-summarised glimpse into the theological issues that influenced the parameters of the controversy. The importance of this encounter should not be overlooked, as most who have written on this topic have inserted the encounter in their examination of the controversy. Yet very few have analysed the details of the theological presuppositions present within the conversation. We find this as sufficient reason for examining the theological issues pertinent to their confrontation, as follows:

My address and questions, and your answers, were as follows: ‘I believe, Sir, a considerable part of the conclusion of your discourse this evening has been upon the Person and Work of Jesus Christ.’ You answered in the affirmative. – I added, ‘If I mistake not, you asserted that the human body of Christ was sinful substance.’ You replied, ‘Yes I did.’ – I continued, ‘But is that your real and considerate belief?’ You answered, ‘Yes it is, as far as I have considered the subject.’ And here you produced a book, which I believe was some national confession of faith, to confirm your faith and assertions: in which you pointed out to me these words, (if I mistake not,) ‘The flesh of Jesus Christ, which was by nature mortal and corruptible.’ – Upon which I continued with amazement, ‘But do you really maintain, Sir, that the human body of Jesus Christ was sinful, mortal and corruptible?’ You replied, ‘Yes, certainly. Christ (you continued) did no sin: but his human nature was sinful and corrupt; and his striving against these corruptions was the main part of his conflict.[2]

It is evident that issues contained within Irving’s assertion regarded the questions of whether his body was mortal and corruptible. Before Cole had heard about Irving, he had authored a tract positing a theory that the incarnate body of Christ was inherently immortal, incorruptible and without any taint of sin.[3] The foundation for his belief was the presupposition that sin was totally absent from Christ’s body because “where there is sin, there must inevitably and unalterably be mortality: and where there is mortality, there must inevitably and unalterably be sin.”[4] The notion of Christ’s mortality was inconceivable for Cole as this could only be due to the defilement and pollution of sin within his body, which would in turn make him a sinner.

In this three-part series, Trevor Martindale gives us an in-depth look at how Edward Irving, one of the 19^th Century’s most important church leaders, understood the meaning of God coming in the flesh. What does that controversy have to teach us today?

Abstract
This dissertation examines the theological viability of Edward Irving’s notion of Christ’s ‘sinful flesh’. The foundational element of this notion determines that his belief in Christ to have been fully consubstantial with mankind necessitates the positing of his assumption of a fallen human nature under the same conditions that are common to all humanity. We argue that Irving’s contextual claims challenged the predominant doctrinal formulations of Federal Calvinism, which had departed from earlier Patristic and Reformed theological requirements for the vicariously salvific nature of the Incarnation and Atonement of Christ to be based primarily on ontological or substantial union with mankind.

Introduction

At the heart of the Christian faith is the resolute conviction that “the Word became human and lived here on earth among us.”^[2] The belief that Jesus Christ is “God with us”^[3] exhibits the foundational driving force of the Christian message – the Incarnation. While the origins of this doctrine are Biblically traceable,^[4] its development has often prompted intense controversy. From the great Christological controversies of the Patristic era^[5] to a more recent debate over the Incarnation as ‘myth’,^[6] such examples illustrate the church’s continual quest to understand what the Incarnation means for humanity within each generational context in which she finds herself. The importance of this doctrine cannot be underestimated, as the age-long struggle concerning issues pertaining to the Incarnation has often led to radical reinterpretation of foundational truths of the Christian faith[7] ­– interpretations that are not always welcomed by the established church community.

As we begin, some remarks concerning the methodology used to achieve this are necessary. The aim of Chapter one will be to provide a ‘bird’s-eye view’ of the historical controversy. This will involve a brief summary of pertinent biographical details of Irving’s life followed by a review of the significant literature that has been written both in support and rejection of his ideas since his death.

Jens Zimmermann, Incarnational Humanism: A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World, Strategic Initiatives in Evangelical Theology(Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 357 pages, ISBN 9780830839032.

Trinity Western University (Langley, British Columbia) Canadian research chair of Interpretation, Religion and Culture, Jens Zimmermann, argues that mainstream discourses on humanism are grounded in the religious reality of Christianity. He further proposes to read Christian humanism as the root of the western cultural heritage. With sources from the Greco-Roman antecedents, patristic, medieval, renaissance, and post-renaissance thinkers (chapters two and three) he corrects the dominant reading of humanism as an anti-Christian project of secularism in western intellectual history, especially found in the works of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Levinas, and Gianni Vattimo. These later thinkers were the focus of chapters four and five, even as Zimmermann also re-reads Marion’s phenomenology in light of Thomist and Barthian ontological emphasis, and with insights also to correct the works of contemporary philosophical hermeneuticians such as Richard Kearney and John Caputo in chapter five. Significant personalities mentioned in chapters two and three include Jesus Christ, Augustine, Nicholas of Cusa, Vico, Dilthey, and Gadamer. Chapter one provides an overlay of the current malaise of secularized western culture and its recent continental proposal about the return of religion, and argues that the exhaustion of secularism is because western civilization has cast aside its Christian roots. Theologians of culture would want to pay attention to the final chapter whereby he explains how transcendence and immanence meet as God’s presence in the world and in the church, with the Eucharist and the Sacrament of the Word understood as the heart of the Church and of incarnational humanism. Apologists and church leaders will find this publication a helpful reference, if they are not familiar with the primary canvass of secular humanism in western philosophy. Students in the philosophy of culture, cultural theological anthropology, or the ideological engagement of gospel and culture may find the introduction a good preliminary review. I suspect that scholars of religious interdisciplinarity would find the publication too concise, unless they read it with its companion-volume, Humanism and Religion (Oxford University Pres, 2012).