This is part of a series of posts exploring each of the views presented in The Incarnation Four Views edited by Andrew Hollingsworth and R.T. Mullins. In part one we explored the Narrow Scope Negation model. In part two we explored the Divine Preconscious model.

View 3: Kenotic Christology
C. Stephen Evans is a Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University. He was editor, as well as an author, for a collection of essays published in Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God.

Like Andrew Loke, Evans notes that his model for the Incarnation may not be “the correct account of how God became human.” ¹ Rather his model may be one of several possible models that could be true since it demonstrates that “the doctrine of the incarnation is [not] incoherent.” ²

Evans, like Loke, builds a model of the Incarnation on the idea of kenosis. He also notes, like Loke, that his model is not compatible with a strong view of classical theism. ³ However, he also argues that his model, like Pawl’s, is consistent with the conciliar understanding of Jesus.⁴

In evaluating Evans’ essay, the other contributors noted a lack of precision in several areas. These include what parts of the conciliar affirmations are required for orthodoxy and which can be set aside and what model of kenosis is adopted.⁵ To this I would add his essay lacked a clear definition of how he understands “nature” and “person”. ⁶

What is a nature?
Evans clearly holds that Jesus is fully human and fully divine possessing the essential properties of both. ⁷ However he rejects that Jesus has two concrete natures. Remember from part 1 that a concrete nature is, itself, a particular entity and is the instantiation of a universal abstract nature. For example, Socrates the human is a concrete nature in whom the abstract universal of “humanness” is real.

For the first two contributors the person Jesus, as incarnate, is a unique entity that possesses two concrete natures, which are themselves entities. Jesus has a concrete divine nature and assumes a concrete human nature, giving Him two natures in which there was no mixture or confusion. ⁸