Kenosis

KENOSIS.—The word κένωσις is not itself found in the NT, but the verb κενόω to empty, to make empty, occurs in Php 2:7, where Authorized Version renders ‘made himself of no reputation,’ but the Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 correctly ‘emptied himself’ (see Lightfoot’s Com. in loc., and Grimm-Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon). It is disputed among theologians as to the extent to which the Son of God stripped Himself of His Divine prerogatives, but it is not necessary here to discuss these differences, as the purpose of this article is only to collect the evidences the Gospels afford of the actual conditions of the Incarnation. But two questions may here be very briefly touched on before we pass to this subject.

(1) We may glance at the description of this Kenosis of the Son of God found in the Apostolic writings. The passage in Philippians (Php 2:6-8) lays stress on the surrender, on the one hand, of the form of God (‘the glories, the prerogatives of deity,’ Lightfoot), of equality with God; and the assumption, on the other hand, of the form of a servant, the likeness of man, self-humiliation and obedience ‘even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.’ In 2Co 8:9 St. Paul describes the Kenosis as the abandonment of wealth for poverty (the Divine for the human mode of existence). In four pregnant statements, in which the Christian salvation is brought into most intimate relation with the humiliation of the Son of God, this Kenosis is more fully defined: ‘God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh [He shared the flesh, but not the sin], condemned sin in the flesh’ (Rom 8:3); ‘God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law’ (Gal 4:4); ‘Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf’ [the penalty of sin was endured by the sinless for the sinful (2Co 5:21)]; ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us’ [Christ as the sacrificial victim ‘became in a certain sense the impersonation of the sin and of the curse,’ Lightfoot on Gal 3:13]. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews lays emphasis on the participation of the Son of God in flesh and blood, in order that He might be capable of dying (Heb 2:14); on His experience of temptation as enabling Him to sympathize with and succour the tempted (Heb 2:16, Heb 4:15); on the obedience He learned by suffering (Heb 5:8). The prologue to John’s Gospel may be regarded as Apostolic interpretation; and there the Kenosis is described in the words ‘and the Word became flesh’ (Joh 1:14, see Westcott in loco). It is the intention of all these statements to affirm the complete reality of the manhood of Jesus.

(2) We may glance at the attempts to define theologically the process of the Incarnation in the Kenotic theory, ‘which seeks to make the manhood of Christ real by representing the Logos as contracting Himself within human dimensions and literally becoming man’ (Brace’s The Humiliation of Christ, p. 136. This lecture contains the best account in English of the modern Kenotic theories. Bruce distinguishes four types, the absolute dualistic, the absolute metamorphic, the absolute semi-metamorphic, the real but relative. The differences in these theories concern two points, the degree in which the Logos laid aside the Divine attributes of omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience in order to become man, and the relation between the Logos and the human soul of Christ, as retaining distinctness, or as becoming identical. As regards the first point, the theories are absolute or relative; as regards the second, dualistic, metamorphic, semi-metamorphic). Of the speculative attempts to formulate the doctrine of the Incarnation, Ritschl says that ‘what is taught under the head of the Kenosis of the Divine Logos is pure mythology’ (Justification and Reconciliation, pp. 409–411). Without endorsing the terms of this condemnation, the present writer may repeat what he has elsewhere written on this matter. ‘The Kenotic theories are commendable as attempts to do justice to the historical personality of Jesus, while assuming the ecclesiastical dogma; but are unsatisfactory in putting an undue strain on the passages in the New Testament which are supposed to teach the doctrine, and in venturing on bold assertions about the constitution of deity, which go far beyond the compass of our intelligence in these high matters’ (The Ritschlian Theology, p. 271 note). The study of the facts of the life of Jesus proves undoubtedly the Kenosis, of which none of these theories offers a satisfactory explanation, as partly the data—the inner life of the Godhead—lie beyond our reach. We now confine ourselves to the data offered in the Gospels. (A useful summary of the data, although by no means exhaustive, will be found in Gore’s Dissertations, ‘The Consciousness of our Lord in His Mortal Life.’ Adamson in The Mind in Christ deals very thoroughly with all the data bearing on the knowledge of Christ).

The Kenotic theories concern themselves specially with the three metaphysical attributes of God, manifest in His transcendent, yet immanent, relation to the world—omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience. The Gospels show that Jesus possessed none of these. He was localized in a body (Joh 1:14 ‘tabernacled among us’), and moved from place to place as His mission required. The cure of the nobleman’s son (Joh 4:50) does not prove omnipresence, but is explicable as an act of faith in God. In the absence of their Master the disciples become faithless (Mar 9:19), and He has to return to them to restore their confidence. In His farewell discourse He promises His constant presence as a future gift (Joh 14:18-19), and fulfils His promise after the Resurrection (Mat 28:20). His miracles do not prove omnipotence, as they were wrought in dependence on, with prayer to, God (Mar 9:29, Joh 11:41-42), were restrained by unbelief (Mat 13:58), seemingly involved physical strain (Mar 5:30), and sometimes were accompanied by means of cure (Mar 7:33-34; see The Expositor, 6th series, vol. vi., ‘The Function of the Miracles’). Jesus never claimed omniscience. He claimed to know the Father as no other knew Him (Mat 11:27), but, on the other hand, He confessed that His knowledge as Son was limited in so important a matter as the time of His Return (Mat 24:36 Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 , Mar 13:32). The express distinction between the knowledge of the Son and of the Father made in this utterance disproves the view sometimes advanced, that the Son’s perfect knowledge of the Father must include a knowledge of all the Father knows. It is the character, purpose, and activity of God as Father that the Son knows and reveals. When Jesus Himself thus confesses ignorance in a matter affecting Himself so closely, it is not reverence to claim for Him universal knowledge regarding such matters as the date and authorship of Old Testament writings, the causes of disease, the course of events in the remote future; nor is it any lack of homage and devotion to acknowledge the other evidences of limitation of knowledge the Gospels offer. He made a mistake regarding the barren fig-tree (Mar 11:13); He was sometimes surprised and disappointed [see art. Surprise] (Mat 8:10; Mat 26:40, Mar 1:45; Mar 2:1-2; Mar 6:6; Mar 7:24-25; Mar 7:36; Mar 8:12, Luk 2:49); information came to Him by the ordinary channels of hearing and seeing (Mat 4:12; Mat 4:17; Mat 14:12-13, Mar 1:37-38; Mar 2:17, Joh 4:1-3), and He sought it in this way (Joh 1:38; Joh 9:35, Mar 5:30-32, Luk 4:17). He asked questions not rhetorically, but because He desired an answer (Mat 16:13; Mat 16:15, Luk 8:30, Joh 11:34). He developed mentally (Luk 2:52), and during His ministry learned by experience (Joh 2:24; the verb used is γινώσκειν, see Westcott in loco). He sought guidance from God in prayer (Luk 5:16; Luk 6:12; Luk 9:18; Luk 9:28; Luk 10:21). The necessity of the cup offered by His Father’s will was not at first evident to Him (Mat 26:39), and, when convinced that His Father’s will required it, He was not sure that His strength to drink it would endure (Mat 26:42; cf. Heb 5:7-8). His cry of desolation (Mat 27:46) on the cross was not only the culmination of His Passion, but in being this it was also the temporary obscuration of His knowledge of the Father, who in that moment had not forsaken Him. Instances of supernatural knowledge are found in the Gospels. Some of these: the getting of the ass (Mat 21:2), and of the upper room (Mat 26:17-19), the finding of the money in the fish’s mouth (Mat 17:27), are only apparent, and allow another explanation. The statement to the woman of Samaria about the number of her husbands (Joh 4:17-18) is very perplexing; and possibly, as the conversation was probably reported by the woman, may have been made more definite by her guilty conscience than it actually was, even as she exaggerates in her account of what Christ had told her (Joh 4:29). The command to the disciples about casting their net (Luk 5:5) was probably an act of faith in God, even as the command to the storm (Mar 4:39). The other cases fall into two classes: prophetic anticipations (His own death and resurrection, the doom of Jerusalem), or exercises of an exceptional moral insight and spiritual discernment. We may admit occasionally, for the fulfilment of His vocation, miraculous knowledge as well as power, without the constant possession of omniscience or omnipotence.

We cannot dissever the intellectual from the moral life; and the development of the latter involves necessarily some limitations in the former. Omniscience cannot be ‘tempted in all points even as we are,’ nor can it exercise a childlike faith in God such as Jesus calls us to exercise along with Him. Moral and religious reality is excluded from the history of Jesus by the denial of the limitation of His knowledge. He was tempted (see articles on Temptation and Struggles of Soul). In the Wilderness the temptation was possible, because He had to learn by experience the uses to which His miraculous powers might legitimately be put, and the proper means for the fulfilment of His vocation. Without taint or flaw in His own nature, the expectations of the people regarding the Messiah, and the desires they pressed upon Him, afforded the occasions of temptation to Him. The necessity of His own sacrifice was not so certain to Him as to exclude the possibility of the temptation to escape it. That Jesus was Himself conscious of being still the subject of a moral discipline is suggested by His refusal of the epithet ‘good’ (Mar 10:18). Although morally tempted and developing, Jesus betrays no sign of penitence for sin or failure, and we are warranted in affirming that He was tempted without sin, and in His development knew no sin. But that perfection would have been only a moral semblance had there been no liability to temptation and no limitation of knowledge. As Son of God, He lived in dependence on God (Mat 11:27 a) and submission to Him (Mat 11:25, Mat 26:39). It is the Fourth Gospel that throws into special prominence this feature (Joh 3:34; Joh 5:19-20; Joh 8:28; Joh 15:15; Joh 17:1; Joh 17:8). The Son delivers the words and performs the deeds given by the Father. There are a few utterances given in this Gospel which express a sense of loss for Himself and His disciples in the separation from the Father that His earthly life involves (Joh 14:28), a desire for the recovery of the former conditions of communion (Joh 17:5), and an expectation of gain in His return to the Father (Joh 14:19-20). Jesus was subject to human emotion: He groaned (Joh 11:33; Joh 11:38), sighed (Mar 7:34; Mar 8:12), wept at the grave of Lazarus (Joh 11:35) and over Jerusalem (Luk 13:34; Luk 19:41, Mat 23:37). He endured poverty (Mat 8:20, Luk 9:58), labour (Mar 6:3), weariness (Joh 4:6, Mat 21:7), weakness (Mat 27:32), hunger (Mat 4:2; Mat 21:18), thirst (Joh 4:7; Joh 19:28), pain (Mat 27:34-35), and death (Mat 27:50, Joh 19:30). Some have conjectured from the evidence of Joh 19:34 that He died literally of a broken heart (see Farrar’s Life of Christ, note at the end of chap. lxi.). This Kenosis did not obscure His moral insight and spiritual discernment; did not involve any moral defect or failure, any religious distrust; did not weaken or narrow His love, mercy, or grace; did not lower His authority, or lessen His efficiency as Revealer of God and Redeemer of men; but, on the contrary, it was necessary, for only under such human conditions and limitations could He fulfil His mission, deliver His message, present His sacrifice, and effect His salvation. That He might receive the name of Saviour and Lord, which is above every other name, He must empty Himself.

Literature.—Works referred to in the art.; Liddon, BL [Note: L Bampton Lecture.] ; Gore, BL [Note: L Bampton Lecture.] ; Gifford, The Incarnation; Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, on the various passages quoted; Stalker, Christology of Jesus.

Alfred E. Garvie.

KENOSIS.—This word means ‘emptying,’ and as a substantive it does not occur in the NT. But the corresponding verb ‘he emptied himself is found in Php 2:7. This passage is very important as a definite statement that the Incarnation implies limitations, and at the same time that these limitations were undertaken as a voluntary act of love. 2Co 8:9 is a similar statement. The questions involved are not, however, to be solved by the interpretation of isolated texts, but, so far as they can be solved, by our knowledge of the Incarnate Life as a whole. The question which has been most discussed in recent years relates to the human consciousness and knowledge of Christ, and asks how it is possible for the limitations of human knowledge to coexist with Divine omniscience.

The word kenosis, and the ideas which it suggests, were not emphasized by early theologians, and the word was used as little more than a synonym for the Incarnation, regarded as a Divine act of voluntary condescension. The speculations which occupied the Church during the first five centuries were caused by questions as to the nature and Person of Christ, which arose inevitably when it had been realized that He was both human and Divine; but while they established the reality of His human consciousness, they did not deal, except incidentally, with the conditions under which it was exercised. The passages which speak of our Lord’s human knowledge were discussed exegetically, and the general tendency of most early and almost all mediæval theology was to explain them in a more or less docetic sense. From the 16th cent. onwards there has been a greater tendency to revert to the facts of the Gospel narrative, consequently a greater insistence on the truth of our Lord’s manhood, and more discussion as to the extent to which the Son, in becoming incarnate, ceased to exercise Divine power, especially in the sphere of human knowledge. The question is obviously one that should be treated with great reserve, and rather by an examination of the whole picture of the human life of Christ presented to us in the NT than by a priori, reasoning. The language of the NT appears to warrant the conclusion that the Incarnation was not a mere addition of a manhood to the Godhead, but that ‘the Son of God, in assuming human nature, really lived in it under properly human conditions, and ceased from the exercise of those Divine functions, including the Divine omniscience, which would have been incompatible with a truly human experience.’ It has even been held that the Son in becoming incarnate ceased to live the life of the Godhead altogether, or to exercise His cosmic functions. But for this there is no support in the NT, and Col 1:17 and Heb 1:3 more than suggest the contrary.

J. H. Maude.

(Greek: an emptying)

Saint Paul (Philippians 2) says of Christ that He "emptied Himself." This emptying of self is to be properly understood of the abasement involved in the fact of the Incarnation, wherein the Second Person of the Trinity, retaining in the full sense His Godhead, assumed a lower nature with its limitations and imperfections. Often wrongly interpreted to mean that the Second Person voluntarily surrendered, for the time being, certain divine attributes which seemed incompatible with existence on a human plane.

A term derived from the discussion as to the real meaning of Phil. 2:6 sqq.: "Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But emptied [ekenosen] himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as man."Protestant opinionsThe early Reformers, not satisfied with the teaching of Catholic theology on this point, professed to a deeper meaning in St. Paul’s words, but Luther and a Melanchton failed in their speculations. John Brenz (d. 10 September, 1570), of Tübingen, maintained that as the Word assumed Christ’s human nature, so His human nature not only possessed the Divinity, but also had the power to make use of the Divinity, though it freely abstained from such a use. Chemnitz differed from this view. He denied that Jesus Christ possessed the Divinity in such a way as to have a right to its use. The kenosis, or the exinanition, of His Divine attributes was, therefore, a free act of Christ, according to Brenz; it was the connatural consequence of the Incarnation, according to Chemnitz.Among modern Protestants the following opinons have been the most prevalent:Thomasius, Delitzcsh, and Kahnis regard the Incarnation as a self-emptying of the Divine manner of existence, as a self-limitation of the Word’s omniscience, omnipresence, etc. Gess, Reuss, and Godet contend that the Incarnation implies a real depotentation of the Word; the Word became, rather than assumed, the human soul of Christ. Ebrard holds that the Divine properties in Christ appeared under the Kantian time-form appropriate to man; his kenosis consists in an exchange of the eternal for a time-form of existence. Martensen and perhaps Hutton distingusih a double life of the Word: In the Man-Christ they see a kenosis and a real depotentiation of the Word; in the world the purely Divine Word carries the work of mediator and revealer. According to Godet, and probably also Gore, the Word in His kenosis strips Himself even of His immutable holiness, His infinite love, and His personal consciousness, so as to enter into a human development similar to ours.Catholic teachingAccording to Catholic theology, the abasement of the Word consists in the assumption of humanity and the simultaneous occultation of the Divinity. Christ’s abasement is seen first in His subjecting Himself to the laws of human birth and growth and to the lowliness of fallen human nature. His likeness, in His abasement, to the fallen nature does not compromise the actual loss of justice and sanctity, but only the pains and penalties attached to the loss. These fall partly on the body, partly on the soul, and consist in liability to suffering from internal and external causes.As to the body, Christ’s dignity excludes some bodily pains and states. God’s all-preserving power inhabiting the body of Jesus did not allow any corruption; it also prevented disease or the beginning of corruption. Christ’s holiness was not compatible with decomposition after death, which is the image of the destroying power of sin. In fact, Christ had the right to be free from all bodily pain, and His human will had the power to remove or suspend the action of the causes of pain. But He freely subjected Himself to most of the pains resulting from bodily exertion and adverse external influences, e.g. fatigue, hunger, wounds, etc. As these pains had their sufficient reason in the nature of Christ’s body, they were natural to Him.Christ retained in Him also the weaknesses of the soul, the passions of His rational and sensitive appetites, but with the following restrictions: (a) Inordinate and sinful motions are incompatible with Christ’s holiness. Only morally blameless passions and affections, e.g. fear, sadness, the share of the soul in the sufferings of the body, were compatible with His Divinity and His spiritual perfection. (b) The origin, intensity, and duration of even these emotions were subject to Christ’s free choice. Besides, He could prevent their disturbing the actions of His soul and His peace of mind.To complete His abasement, Christ was subject to His Mother and St. Joseph, to the laws of the State and the positive laws of God; He shared the hardships and privations of the poor and the lowly. (See COMMUNICATO IDIOMATUM.)-----------------------------------Lombard, lib. III, dist. XV-XVI, and Bonav., Scot., Biel on these chapters; St. Thomas, III, Q XIV-XV, and Salm., Suar., IV, xi-xii; Scheeben, Dogmatick, III, 266-74; Bruce, Humiliations of Christ, 113 sqq.; Gobe, Bampton Lectures (1891), 147; Hanna in The New York Review, I, 303 sqq.; the commentators on Phil., ii, 6, sqq.A.J. MAAS Transcribed by Richard R. Pettys, Jr. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIIICopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

kḗ-nō´sis: The word “kenosis” (κένωσις, kénōsis) has entered theological language from Php 2:7, where in the sentence he “emptied himself” the Greek verb is ekénōsen. “Kenosis,” then, the corresponding noun, has become a technical term for the humiliation of the Son in the incarnation, but in recent years has acquired a still more technical sense, i.e. of the Son’s emptying Himself of certain attributes, especially of omniscience.

1. The New Testament:

(1) The theological question involved was one about as far as possible from the minds of the Christians of the apostolic age and apparently one that never occurred to Paul. For in Php 2:7 the only “emptying” in point is that of the (external) change from the “form of God” to the “form of a servant.” Elsewhere in the New Testament it is usually taken as a matter of course that Christ’s knowledge was far higher than that of other men (Joh 2:24 is the clearest example). But passages that imply a limitation of that knowledge do exist and are of various classes. Of not much importance are the entirely incidental references to the authorship of Old Testament passages where the traditional authorship is considered erroneous, as no other method of quotation would have been possible. Somewhat different are the references to the nearness of the Parousia (especially Mat 10:23; Mat 24:29). But with these it is always a question how far the exact phraseology has been framed by the evangelists and, apart from this, how far Christ may not have been consciously using current imagery for the impending spiritual revolution, although knowing that the details would be quite different (see PAROUSIA). Limitation of knowledge may perhaps be deduced from the fact that Christ could be amazed (Mat 8:10, etc.), that He could be really tempted (especially Heb 4:15), or that He possessed faith (Heb 12:2; see commentary). More explicitly Christ is said to have learned in Luk 2:52; Heb 5:8. And, finally, in Mar 13:32 parallel Mat 24:36, Christ states categorically that He is ignorant of the exact time of the Parousia.

(2) An older exegesis felt only the last of these passages as a real difficulty. A distinction constructed between knowledge naturally possessed and knowledge gained by experience (i.e. although the child Jesus knew the alphabet naturally, He was obliged to learn it by experience) covered most of the others. For Mar 13:32 a variety of explanations were offered. The passage was translated “neither the Son, except the Father know it,” a translation that can be borne by the Greek. But it simply transfers the difficulty by speaking of the Father’s knowledge as hypothetical, and is an impossible translation of Mat 24:36, where the word “only” is added. The explanations that assume that Christ knew the day but had no commission to reveal it are most unsatisfactory, for they place insincere words in His mouth; “It is not for you to know the day” would have been inevitable form of the saying (Act 1:7).

2. Dogmatic:

(1) Yet the attempt so to misinterpret the verses is not the outcome of a barren dogmatic prejudice, but results from a dread lest real injury be done to the fundamentals of Christian consciousness. Not only does the mind of the Christian revolt from seeing in Christ anything less than true God, but it revolts from finding in Him two centers of personality - Christ was One. But as omniscience is an essential attribute of God, it is an essential attribute of the incarnate Son. So does not any limitation of Christ’s human knowledge tend to vitiate a sound doctrine of the incarnation? Certainly, to say with the upholders of the kenosis in its “classical” form that the Son, by an exercise of His will, determined to be ignorant as man, is not helpful, as the abandonment by God of one of His own essential attributes would be the preposterous corollary. (2) Yet the Biblical data are explicit, and an explanation of some kind must be found. And the solution seems to lie in an ambiguous use of the word “knowledge,” as applied to Christ as God and as man. When we speak of a man’s knowledge in the sense discussed in the kenotic doctrine, we mean the totality of facts present in his intellect, and by his ignorance we mean the absence of a fact or of facts from that intellect. Now in the older discussions of the subject, this intellectual knowledge was tacitly assumed (mystical theology apart) to be the only knowledge worthy of the name, and so it was at the same time also assumed that God’s knowledge is intellectual also - “God geometrizes.” Under this assumption God’s knowledge is essentially of the same kind as man’s, differing from man’s only in its purity and extent. And this assumption is made in all discussions that speak of the knowledge of the Son as God illuminating His mind as man. (3) Modern critical epistemology has, however, taught man a sharp lesson in humility by demonstrating that the intellect is by no means the perfect instrument that it has been assumed to be. And the faults are by no means faults due to lack of instruction, evil desires, etc., but are resident in the intellect itself, and inseparable from it’ as an intellect. Certain recent writers (Bergson, most notably) have even built up a case of great strength for regarding the intellect as a mere product of utilitarian development, with the defects resulting naturally from such an evolution. More especially does this restriction of the intellect seem to be true in religious knowledge, even if the contentions of Kant and (espescially) Ritschl be not fully admitted. Certain it is, in any case, that even human knowledge is something far wider than intellectual knowledge, for there are many things that we know that we never could have learned through the intellect, and, apparently, many elements of our knowledge are almost or quite incapable of translation into intellectual terms. Omniscience, then, is by no means intellectual omniscience, and it is not to be reached by any mere process of expansion of an intellect. An “omniscient intellect” is a contradiction in terms. (4) In other words, God’s omniscience is not merely human intellectual knowledge raised to the infinite power, but something of an entirely different quality, hardly conceivable to human thought - as different from human intellectual knowledge as the Divine omnipotence is different from muscular strength. Consequently, the passage of this knowledge into a human intellect is impossible, and the problem of the incarnation should be stated: What effect did Divine omniscience in the person have on the conscious intellect of the manhood? There is so little help from the past to be gained in answering this question, that it must remain open at present - if, indeed, it is ever capable of a full answer. But that ignorance in the intellect of the manhood is fully consistent with omniscience in the person seems to be not merely a safe answer to the question as stated, but an inevitable answer if the true humanity of Christ is to be maintained at all.

Literature.

Sanday’s Christology and Personality, 1911, and La Zouche, The Person of Christ in Modern Thought, 1912, are among the latest discussions of the subject, with very full references to the modern literature.

This is a teaching concerning Jesus’ incarnation. The Kenosis attempts to solve some paradoxes between the nature of God and of man as united in Jesus. For example, how could an all knowing God become a baby, or how could God be tempted? The Kenosis maintains that God, when becoming a man, divested Himself of some qualities of being a man. In a sense, the Kenosis is God minus something; God subtracting some qualities of deity to become a man. The Hypostatic Union is God plus something; God adding human nature to Himself. The Kenosis, then, jeopardizes the true incarnation because it puts in doubt the full indwelling of God among men in the person of Jesus. (Compare with Hypostatic Union.)