The Humility of the Eternal Son

Bruce Lindley McCormack is Charles Hodge Professor of Systematic Theology at the Princeton Theological Seminary.

• I. A Critical History of Kenotic Christologies and their Antecedents: An Overview: 1. Chalcedon and its legacy; 2. Self-emptying: as either depotentiation or divestment: the failure of nineteenth centure Kenoticism to repair Chalcedon; 3. Divine Kenosis as proper to the Eternal Son: Barth, Bulgakov and von Balthasar; 4. The Post-Barthian temptation: collapse of the Eternal Son into Jesus and surrender of an immanent trinity in protology; II. Returning to Holy Scripture: 5. The self-humiliating God in Paul's theology (and in Hebrews); 6. The Christological subject in the synoptics and in John; III. Repairing Chalcedon: 7. Towards a reformed version of Kenotic Christology; 8. Looking forward.

'Based on a lucidly presented history of Chalcedonian Christology and firmly grounded in biblical exegesis, Bruce McCormack advances a novel thesis: The shortcomings of Chalcedonian Christology can be repaired, if one maintains a precise understanding of kenosis as the 'ontological receptivity' of the eternal Son to the fate of the human Jesus. McCormack's view that divine passibility can be squared with divine immutability makes his readers hungry for the second volume of the promised trilogy.' Christoph Schwöbel, University of St Andrews