LUTHER AND THE SEMANTICS OF 'NATURE'Dennis Bielfeldt, South Dakota State University

Bielfeld@mg.sdstate.edu

IWhile there has been much exploration of the theological debt

Luther owes the via moderna, there has been insufficient research

into his appropriation of the semantic resources of that

tradition, especially as they impact christological questions. In

1994 a book appeared which changed that. Written by Graham White,

Luther as Nominalist argues, inter alia, that the mature Luther remained

basically Ockhamist both in his christology and his semantics.1

This conclusion is quite at odds with that of Reinhard Schwarz,

who found in Luther's 1540 disputatio de divinitate et humanitate Christi a

significant departure from the christology of the via moderna.

According to Schwarz, while the Ockhamists argued for a

“suppositional union” in which the person of Christ “takes up” the

human nature without thereby changing it, Luther contended that

there was a real perichoresis or interpenetration of natures in the

1 Graham White, Luther as Nominalist (Helsinki: Luther-Agricola-Gesellschaft, 1994).

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personal union which actually effects a paradoxical change in each

nature within the union.2

The difference between White and Schwarz on this issue has

everything to do with semantics, particularly with how one

understands what Luther means by ‘nature’. While Schwarz seemingly

wants to ascribe some degree of ontological status to a nature3,

White claims that such phrases as “according to the human nature”

and “according to the divine nature”" must be understood adverbially,

that is, “they do not stand for second or third entities [but for]

2 Reinhard Schwarz, “Gott is Mensch: Zur Lehre von der Person Christi bei den Ockhamisten und bei Luther,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 63 (1966), 289-351. Schwarz says this about Ockhamism’s hypostatic union: “Durch die Konstruktion der suppositalen Union soll die Meinung ausgeschlossen werden, in der hypostatischen Union mit der göttlichen Person empfange die menschliche Nature selber personales Sein. Das geht nich an, weil der menschlichen Natur nur ein geschaffenes und kein göttliches, ungeschaffenes Personsein angemessen ist” (299). He is unambiguous about Luther’s departure from Ockhamism: “Die Terminologie des unitum esse in una persona enthält bereits einen Verzicht auf das ockhamistische Vokabular der suppositalen Union. Bewusster Widerspruch gegendiese sccholastische Lehrmeinung regt sich offenbar, wenn es heisst, in Christusseien Gott und Mensch una et eadem persona, wenn also gerade jene Einheit und identität des personalen Seins von Gott und Mensch in Christus hervorgekehrt wird, deren Abwehr hinter der Idee der suppositalen Union steht” (304). Schwarz continues: “Die Annahme der menschlichen Natur dedeutet indessen nicht eine Aufnahme in suppositale Abhängigkeit, sondern ein Geschehen im Sein der Person: illa persona est Deus et homo, est una persona et eadem, quae est ante mundum creatum, etiamsi non erat homo natus ex Maria virgine ante mundum, tamen filius Dei erat, qui nunc est homo” (305).3 It is apparent that Schwarz believes the mature Luther grounds the possibilityof the communicatio idiomatum upon a real exchange of properties of ontologically distinct natures. This differs from Luther’s early position where he explicitly rejects this possibility: “Was er nicht billigen kann, ist eine Teilhabe der menschlichen Natur an den Eigenheiten der göttlichen Natur, eine echte communicatio naturarum, die ihm später der Grund ist für eine über blosse Identitätsaussagen hinausführende communicatio idiomatum” (345).

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the way in which this one entity makes itself manifest.”4 White

thus believes that Luther’s talk of natures should be construed

nonontologically; a human nature is merely “everything that can be

affirmed of [an individual] as a human being.”5 Accordingly,

instead of two distinct de re natures, there is only a distinction

de dicto, one wherein “one self-sufficient entity [is] referred to

under two different descriptions.”6

While White supports his contention with a close reading in

which he searches for similarities of expression between Ockham,

d’Ailly, Biel and the Reformer, his main argument against

ascribing ontological status to natures is really quite simple:

1) Any de re distinction of natures entails the compositionality of Christ.

2) Luther rejects the notion of compositionality in Christ.

4 White, 249. To understand talk of natures adverbially is to admit that one makes no direct reference to a nature, but rather that one apprehends the entityin a “natured” way or manner. Just as the adverbial theory of perception holds that one does not experience the sense-datum red on the surface of the of the sensed object, but rather experiences the object in a red manner, so too the adverbial theory applied to christology claims that no reference is made by the christological language to the independent natures of Christ, but rather to the entity Christ after the manner of being “natured.”5 White, 282.6 White, 253. See White, 247: “There seems, in all this, to be basically only one entity involved; there may be various terms (‘Christ’, ‘the Son of God’, ‘the divine nature’, ‘the human nature’) which refer to it, but nevertheless, ifyou see Christ, you have also seen the divine nature; if you touch the Son of God, then you have also touched his divine nature as well; it is not inappropriate to worship Christ’s human nature, because this unity is also his divine nature.”

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3) Therefore, there is no de re distinction of natures in the person of Christ.

Accordingly, the human nature cannot be ingredient in the person; it

cannot be something which is “united” without being “mixed

together,” as Schwarz suggests.7 While there is “some sort of

differentiation” between natures, it is due in the end to the

development of a technical language to talk about the peculiar,

self-sufficeint entity known as the God-man. Simply put, the

differentiation of natures is linguistic, not real.8 White’s argument

is important, I think, for if it is correct, Luther’s mature

christology is in considerable tension with the Lutheran dogmatic

tradition, a tradition which robustly asserted an ontology of

natures.9

7 Schwarz, 303.8 White makes much of J.E. Murdoch’s notion of an “analytical language,” a language comprised of a “group of concepts, taken together with certain rules ofanalysis, which was used … for investigating problems in theology, natural science, and other areas” (White, 17). See Murdoch’s “From Social into Intellectual Factors: An Aspect of the Unitary Character of Medieval Learning,” in The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning, eds., J.E. Murdoch & E. Sylla (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1975), 275-348.9 I believe it difficult to read Martin Chemnitz’s De Duabus Naturis in Christo and consistently construe his talk of natures adverbially. See The Two Natures of Christ, J.A.O. Preus, ed. (St. Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House, 1971). White's adverbial theory of nature union also seems to be in considerable tension with the essays in Unio: Gott und Mensch in der nachreformatorishchen Theologie, ed.By Eeva Martikainen (Helsinki: Suomalainen Teologinen Kirjallisuusseura & Luther-Agricola-Seura, 1996).

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In this paper I will argue that, for Luther, natures should

not be construed merely adverbially; they are, rather,

ontologically constitutive of the entity of the God-man. In what

follows I suggest that 1) the adverbial analysis is in tension

with Luther’s suggestion that the human nature receives divine

properties, and the divine nature human properties; 2) the

adverbial analysis is not really needed to escape the

compositional construal of the natures Luther clearly rejects; and

3) even if the adverbial analysis could be made consistent with de

divinitate et humanitate Christi, it does not square well with other key

Luther texts, particularly the 1539 Von den Konziliis, and the 1528

Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper.

II

Luther’s disputation de divinitate et humanitate Christi was directed

against Schwenkfeld, who maintained that the glorified humanity of

Christ was uncreated.10 Luther declares that this is a very grave

error, for if one uses theological language to assert this, ome

10 WA 39, II, 92ff.

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might as well proclaim that there is no creature in Christ at

all.11

Luther points out throughout the disputation that both

syntactic and semantic mistakes have generated Schwenkfeld’s

error. To say that “Christ is a creature according to his human

nature, therefore Christ is a creature” is first of all to commit

the fallacy of composition in that one has ascribed a property of the

part to the whole.12 While creatureliness is a property of part of

the God-man, it does not hold of the whole of the God-man.

Moreover, such an inference is a instance of the fallacy of

simpliciter and secundum quid: just because something holds of a thing

considered from a certain aspect, it does not follow that it holds

of the thing simply. If an Ethiopian is white with respect to his

teeth, it does not follow that he is white.13 Again, just because

11 WA 39, II, 95: 3-4: “In speciem concedunt, verbum esse carem factum olim id negatari, obtento theatro, post negatam in Christo creaturam.”12 WA 39, II, 99:9-16: “Hoc Schwenkfeld non videt, ideo cum audit patres dicere, Christum secundum humanitatem esse creaturam, statim arripit dictum et depravat et abutitur pro se. Etiamsi dicant patres: Christus secundum humanitatem est creatura, hoc potest utcunque tolerari, sed Schwenkfeld scelerate advertit: Ergo Christus simpliciter est creatura. Quare tu nequam non addis: Christus secundum divinitatem est creator? Ergo est creatus. Sed non addit, quia dicit: Ego sino ita debilitari meam conscientiam. Ideo omisi, id est, scelerate feci. Ipse utitur fallacia compositionis et divisionis.”13 WA 39, II, 96:9-13: “Ut Aethiops secundum dentes est albus, potest grammaticus aliter sic dicere: Aethiops est albus detibus vel alborum dentium vel albis detibus. Quod si hoc non placet, dicat: Aethiops habet albos dentes, vel dentes in Aethiope albent, vel simplicissime, dentes Aethiopis sunt albi.”

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Christ cannot suffer according to his divine nature, it does not

mean that he cannot suffer.

Luther finds Schwenkfeld making semantic errors as well. The

problem is that Schwenkfeld does not recognize that certain

phrases can stand for the same thing in christology; for instance

‘creature’ and ‘creator’ supposit for the same person Christ.14 On

the other hand, phrases might stand for different things in

christological contexts, even though they usually stand for the

same thing. For instance, while Luther claims that ‘humanitas’ and

‘homo’ are “the same synonymous signifiers” in philosophy,15 in

theology they do not always refer to the same thing, for ‘homo’ can

supposit for a concrete divine person having a human nature, while

White points out that the example actually goes back to Petrus Hispanus: “Ethiops is albus dentes; ergo Ethiops est albus” (White, 243).14 WA 39, II, 105, 4-7: “Creatura est in veteri lingua id, quod creator creavit et a se separavit, sed haec significatio non habet locum in creatura Christo. Ibi creator et creatura unus et idem est.” It is important to distinguish significatio from suppositio. According to Paul Vincent Spade, significatio is “a psychologico-causal property of terms … The psychological overtones of ‘to signify’ are similar to those of the modern ‘to mean’. Nevertheless, signification is not meaning. A term signifies that of which it makes a person think, so that unlike meaning, signification is a species of the causal relation.” See “The Semantics of Terms,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, eds. By Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 188. The term ‘suppositio’, on the other hand, is a property of a term within the contest of a proposition, and it means “to substitute for,” “to stand for,” “to represent,” or “to refer.” According toOckham, a term had personal supposition if it is used to signify that of which it isa sign. Such a term “impersonates” the object signified. See Philotheus Boehner,Ockham: Philosophical Writings (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964), xxxiv.15 See WA 39, II, 115:31-32 & WA 39, II, 117:16-17.

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‘humanitas’ stands for an abstract nature not having a human

person.16 While Christ is a homo, he is not humanitas; in

christological predication ‘humanitas’ does not denote the person

of Christ.

Luther provides another example. Consider this inference: For

one may not in fact say since “Christ is thirsty, a servant,

dead,” therefore “Christ is thirst, servitude, and death.”17 The

inference is apparently blocked because of the semantic difference

between ‘homo’ and ‘humanitas.’ While in normal discourse, the nouns

‘thirst’, ‘servitude’, and ‘death’ apply to the same set of

individuals that the terms ‘thirsty’, ‘servant’, and ‘dead’ apply

to, in christological predication ‘thirst’, ‘servitude’ and

‘death’ refer only to that aspect of Christ denoted by the term

‘humanitas’, and not to the person of Christ simply considered.

Simply put, because Christ is the Son of God He cannot be thirst

or death, but nonetheless because he is human he can be thirsty or

dead.

16 WA 39, II, 117:17-27 & WA 39, II, 115:14-116:3.17 WA 39, II, 93:11-12: “Non enim dicere licet, Christus est sitiens, servus, mortuus, ergo est sitis, servitus, mors.”

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From these textual clues White concludes that Luther follows

the nominalist tradition in holding that abstract nouns like

‘thirst’ do not refer to abstract or conceptual objects, but rather

to concrete individuals.18 Yet since abstract nouns refer to the

individual in a certain way (with respect to the state of affairs

making true the fact that the individual is thirsty), they do not

apply in a unqualified sense to the suppositum of Christ.19 Thus we

can say, “Christ is thirsty,” but not “Christ is thirst,” or

“Christ has a creature,” but not “Christ is a creature.” Christ is

the one self-subsistent entity about which one can develop certain

kinds of language, that is, one can say that he has a human nature,

but not that he is a human nature. Luther thus follows his

Ockhamist teachers in denying any essence to “being human” or “being

divine,” and in so doing denies that christological language can

pick out abstract natures which of themselves enter into real

relations with each other, and with the suppositum of Christ.

III

18 White, 283.19 The suppositum is the according to d’Ailly the “ens completum non constituens cum alio aliquid unum, nec alteri inhaerens, nec ab aliquo sustentatum” (White, 247). The term was widely used in christology to refer to the entity or person of Christ, that is, the subject of the various christological properties.

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I believe that White has overemphasized Luther’s nominalism.

A reading of 1540 christological disputation in light of Luther’s

mature theological writings suggests that Luther is advocating a

position closer to that Schwarz than that of White.20 It must be

remembered that Luther was suspicious in the eucharistic writings

about construing the communicatio idiomatum as merely an affair of

language. His rejection of Zwingli’s alleosis (that one can attribute

indistinctly to the two natures the properties rightfully

belonging only to one of them), and his ethopaeia (the attribution

of a character to something which it does not have by nature),

show his deep desire to assert a real, paradoxical unity of Christ

that is deeper than mere language.21 Luther rejects any analysis of20 White seems to recognize that his analysis of the disputation is in some tension with Luther’s mature christological explorations, but suggests that thisis due to the traditional nature of the conceptual apparatus employed in this disputation: “Luther’s thought, like all human thought, was conducted under the limitations of all human existence – and that means, in particular, that our techniques of thought, our conceptual apparatus, is never completely adapted to the task that we want it to perform” (White, 295).21 One could assemble copious textual evidence that Luther consistently asserts that theology is full of paradoxical unions of persons, natures, and substances.See, for instance, his discussion of the bread and body in LW37:296: “So against all reason and hairsplitting logic I hold that two diverse substances may well be, in reality and in name, one substance.” In a remarkable passage from the same 1528 Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper Luther clearly claims that language must reflect the underlying ontology of the union: “Logic rightly teaches that bread and body, dove and Spirit, God and man are diverse beings. But it should first seek the aid of grammar, which lays down a rule of expression applicable to all languages: when two diverse beings become one being, grammar embraces these two beings in a single expression, and as it views the union of the two beings, it refers to the two in one term … Here one must not speak of the beings

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“God suffered” in terms of “only the human nature within Christ

suffered, but because the person of Christ carried that nature we

can say ‘God suffered’ too.” Such an analysis is too Nestorian,

for it ascribes individuality to both natures and makes the unity

merely accidental.

But, on the other hand, Luther also rejects any Eutychian

downplaying of the distinction of natures within the unity. It is

not the case that the language of natures merely constitute

alternate ways of referring to the one self-subsistent suppositum of

Christ. While it is true that the extensions of the terms ‘God’

and ‘man’ make true the assertion that “God is man,” both terms

nonetheless retain their alternate significations, that is, both

connote their respective natures as well. In other words, there is

retained an intensional element in Luther’s semantics, for ‘God’

and ‘man’ succeed in causing the mind to think about divinity and

as diverse and distinct in themselves … but in terms of the nature of the union,according to the fact that the diverse beings have become one single being, eachin its own fashion. It is in truth the case that these diverse natures which thus have united have truly acquired a new, unique being by this convergence, whereby they are rightly and properly called a single being, even though each has its particular, unique nature” (LW 37:301).

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humanity, two clusters of abstract qualities which, in the case of

Christ, are possessed by the same being.22

In order to see this better, we must return to the main

argument in which White concludes there is but one natureless

self-sufficient entity called Christ. The argument states that

because Luther denies compositionality in Christ, and because

individual natures presuppose compositionality, there cannot be

individual ontological natures in Christ.

It is clearly correct to point out that Luther in this

disputation rejects compositionality between the two natures. The

Reformer writes: “For all [the Fathers] deny in fact that Christ

is a composite being, even though they do affirm he is

constituted.”23 In support of this, White quotes d’Ailly:

For neither is the person nor the divine nature composite, nor is Christ a composite of two natures (namely, divine and human), nor of three things (namely body, soul and divinity).24

22 Any hope of ascertaining Luther’s position depends upon the prior question ofhow we understand his language. If it is primarily to be understood as extensionalas the Ockhamists suggest (e.g., the meaning of the terms are their reference), then White’s analysis seems the better justified. If the language is construed as possessing an intensional element, as the via antiqua and the new humanists seemedto suppose (e.g., the meaning of the terms are the senses by which reference is made), then it would seem that there must be some “ontological correlate” of the“natures talk” Luther happily countenances.23 WA 39 II, 95:30-31: “Omnes enim negant, Christum esse compositum, etsi constitutum affirmant.”24 Quoted from White, 255.

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Clearly Luther and d'Ailly are uncomfortable with calling Christ a

‘compositum’, but what follows from this? Does this entail that the

differences between the natures are merely verbal? I think not.

In an illuminating section running from thesis 37-47, Luther

tells us the ways in which he understands compositionality. He

points out that the natures are not composite in the sense that

the human is but a garment of the divine.25 Nor are they composite

like form and matter are,26 nor like fire and iron,27 nor like soul

and body.28 Finally, they are not composite in the way of the

moderni, who says that there is a human nature in Christ “carried”

by the divine person.29 What do all of these have in common?

Clearly these are all examples of accidental unities. Luther,

the consummate Chalcedonian, is uncomfortable with any simile he

judges deficient in amphasizing strongly enough the hypostatic 25 WA 39, II, 95:13-14: “Cum nihil possit magis dici haereticum, quam humanam naturam esse vestem divinitatis.”26 WA 39, II, 95:22-23: “Ita scholastici aliqui, dum divinitatis et humanitatis habitudinem sentiunt similem esse unioni formae ad materiam, non possent defendi.”27 WA 39, II, 95:26-27: “Neque illa consisteret, ubi divinitatem igni et humanitatem ferro similant, etiamsi sit pulcherrima similitudo.”28 WA 39, II, 95:28-29: “Neque illam ferre liceret, quam Athanasius ponit: Sicutanima rationalis et caro unus est homo, ita Deus et homo unus est Christus.”29 This is the passage upon which Schwarz bases much of his argument. WA 39, II,95:32-35: “Nulli vero insulsius loquuntur, quam Moderni, quos vocant, qui omniumvolunt subtilissime et propriissime loqui videri. Hi dicunt, humanam naturam sustentari seu suppositari a divina natura, seu supposito divino.”

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unity of Christ.30 But Chalcedon can easily declare a distinction

in natures without advocating a composition of the person31.

Luther’s seriousness about advocating the hypostatic union

actually prevents him from supporting the via moderna notion that

the human nature is borne by the divine suppositum, for such a view

can lead to thinking of the human as another thing added to the

divine person.32

It seems that even given an extensionalist construal of

Luther's semantics, Luther need not be forced into advocating a

position that would deny ontologically individuated natures in

Christ. But I have as yet sketched no positive view about how this

is possible for Luther the nominalist. This is the task of the

next section.

30 Cf. WA 40 III, 703:5-10: “Sed debemus credere et confiteri, quod illae duae naturae sunt unus filius, quia sunt iam unitae unione hypostatica, quandoquidem recte definitum est in concilio Chalcedonensi, ut vocetur Maria theotokos, id est, mater pariens Deum, non mater filii Davidis excludendo Deum, sed Deipara, theotokos.”31 It states that the two natures exist, “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation,” and that “the difference of the natures has been in no wise taken away by reason of the union, but rater the properties of each being preserved,” such that both concur in the “one Person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.” See Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in the Christian Tradition, trans. by JohnBowden (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975), 544.32 This seems to be the case for the ninth century figure, Paulinus of Aquileia,who responded to the Spanish adoptionistic threat by claiming that “the hypostasis of the Logos, who previously was simple, becomes composite.” See Jaroslav Pelikan, The Growth of the Medieval Theology (600-1300), (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 56.

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IV

It is true that Luther follows his Ockhamist teachers in

denying a common nature to humanity.33 But while Luther denied that

the same universal was instantiated both in Christ and all other

people, it does not follow that Christ is ontologically

natureless. Luther’s language about “conjoining”surely suggests

that different “things” are united. He writes in the disputation:

In Christ are two nature, the divine which is spirit, and thehuman which has flesh and bones. According to his humanity Christ is a creature, and according to his divinity Christ isalso God so conjoined, that there is one person in two natures.34

I suggest that the best way to understand these two “natures” is

as what contemporary philosophers now call tropes, that is,

particular properties and relations possessed by particular

individuals. On this view, the particular Christ has two sets of

particular properties, one associated with the notion of divine,

the other with the concept of the human. Christ’s particular

humanity, while not literally identical to John's humanity,

33 This is brought out very forcibly at TR 5, 653:6419.34 WA 39 II, 120, 7-10: In Christo sunt duae naturae, divina, quae est spiritus,et humans, quae habet carnem et ossa. Christus secundum humanitatem est creaturaet Christus secundum divinitatem est Deus coniunctissime etiam, ut una persona sint duae naturae.

15

nevertheless so closely resembles that humanity, that the term

“human” can be applied to both. The resemblance of tropes thus

"does the work" of the universals Luther rejects35.

It is interesting to find that White himself suggests for

Ockham a view of tropes that I would defend for Luther.

One can also speak of the human nature (and also the divine nature) of Christ; this is, roughly speaking, the set of human (or divine) properties of the one suppositum, it is really distinct from the suppositum (for example, it is not a self-sufficient entity, but the suppositum is; it does not satisfy any divine predicates, but the suppositum does; and so on).36

Luther’s view, according to White, is that there is one particular

that can be described in different ways for different purposes by

different analytical languages. I would suggest, however, that

there are, for Luther, clusters of properties possessed by Christ

that really are incongruent, yet coinstantiated.

Ockham certainly seems to countenance such particulars in

passages like the following:

“… in the person of Christ … ‘man’ refers to the suppositum of the son of God carrying the human nature, and ‘human nature’ [refers] to the nature that is carried, and these are really

35 David Armstrong writes: "Wherever the Universals theory postulates a universal, the Tope theory can substitute an equivalence class of exactly resembling tropes" (Universals: An Opinionated Introduction (Boulder, CO.: Westview Press, 1989), pp. 1222ff.36 White, 250.

16

distinguished in Christ like ‘which’ (quod) and ‘by which’ (quo).37

This allusion to the ‘which’ and the ‘by which’ recalls the fact

that Ockham appears to allow two basic kinds of particulars into

his ontology; concrete particulars or substances, and abstract

particulars or qualities.38 If Ockham were willing to allow both

particular substances and particular sensible qualities, it should

not be concluded too quickly that Luther denies ontological status

to the particular set of human properties Christ assumed in the

incarnation.39

This assignment of tropes to Luther should not be seen as

anachronistic, for the view is very ancient. Aristotle, whom

37 White, 258. The quote is from Ockham’s Sentences III, q.1, p. 29: “In personaChristi, quia ibi homo supponit pro supposito Filii Dei sustentificantis naturamhumanam, et humanitas pro natura sustentificata, et ista distinguuntur realiter in Christo tamquam quod et quo.”38 Ernest Moody writes: “… Ockham’s analysis is a restriction of the domain of reference of terms, or of the domain of objects constituting possible values of the variable of quantification, to individual substances and singular (not common) sensible qualities. Ontologically, this means that the only things that there are, are individual substances and equally individual qualities. See Ernest Moody, “Willaim of Ockham,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 8:306-316 (New York: MacMillan, 1967), 311.39 It must be added, however, that in all other cases Ockham held that terms could signify no entities other than those signifiable by substance terms. We should also notice that Ockham’s conception of substance is not that of the intelligible essence, but rather that “being which subsists by itself,” that which is a subject of all accidents. Moody believes his view is not unlike that of Locke’s for Ockham’s view suggest a substratum as the “something I know not what.” Ockham’s notion of sensible qualities being entities distinct from substances, also foreshadows the 17th century treatment of sensible qualities assecondary. See Moody, p. 313.

17

Luther knew well, seems to have held that concrete particulars

possess properties or qualities which themselves are particulars.

Keith Campbell writes:

Scholars are, on the whole, inclined to think that Aristotle held that qualities in objects were particular, and that suchqualities have a universal nature only in thought.40

If Aristotle did countenance abstract particulars, and some kind

of “resemblance theory” between this tropes, then it would seem that

Luther’s Ockamist-inspired rejection of universals need not entail

that all particulars are concrete, for there are abstract

particulars as well. The set of human qualities is Christ’s human

nature, and the set of divine qualities his divine nature.41

In the B version of the disputation, Luther writes:

The Sophists distinguish between formaliter and realiter, but in theology this is not done. ‘Homo’ in theology signifies the person; ‘humanitas’ however does not. ‘Humanitas’ signifies theform; ‘homo’ the subject with the form.42

This is significant because the word ‘forma’ has a long history.

For Ockham the forma seems to be the structure of the material

40 Keith Campbell, Abstract Particulars (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 4.41 It should be recalled that Ockham fancied himself as the proper interpretor of Aristotle. Rejecting the reifying tendency of some, he interpreted Aristotle’s ten categories as positing only particular substances and qualities.42 WA 39 II, 116:2-7: “Sophistae distinguunt formaliter et realiter, in theologia non. Homo in theologia significat personam, humanitas autem non. Humanitas significat formam, homo subiectum cum forma.”

18

parts of the thing. To say, however, that the structure of Christ

has the form signified by ‘humanitas’ is to say that there is in

Christ a human nature; not an entity that is connected with the

person Christ — no non-Nestorian would hold this — but a definite

human property structure of the divine suppositum.

Thus, on this view, the signification of a term is the

pyschologico-causal property by which the term makes a person

think not merely of concrete particulars, but abstract qualities

or cluster of qualities as well. Accordingly, to say that Christ

is both human and divine is to say that the term ‘humanitas’

signifies the set of properties necessary and sufficient for the

being to be a human being, and the term ‘divinitas’ the set of

properties necessary and sufficient for the being to be a divine

being. To say that Christ has both is to say that both of these

complementary sets are coninstantiated by the second person of the

Trinity.

V

The expression that the two distinct natures are united in

the undivided person of Christ appears often in Luther’s

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Christological expressions.43 That there are two kinds of discourse

about Christ, and two kinds of actions of Christ are assumed by

Luther. I believe these two types of discourse are based on two

already existing natures, that is, two already existing clusters

of abstract particulars which append to the same concrete

particular, the suppositum of Christ.44

43 In the disputation we have been examining one finds these: “Ex hac veritate geminae substantiae et unitate personae sequitur illa, quae dicitur, communicatio idiomatum” (WA 39 II, 93:4-5). “… quod in Christo sit divina et humana natura et illas duas naturas in una persona, ita ut nullam aliam rem coniunctas esse, et tamen quod humanitas non sit divinitas, nec divinitas sit humanitas, quod neque illa distinctio quicquam impediat, set potius confirmt unitatem.” (97:10-14). “Non sunt duo filii, non duo iudices, non duae personae, non duo Iesus, sud propeter unitam coniunctionem et unitatem duarum naturarum fit communicatio idiomatum …” (98:7-9) “Est res incomprehensibilis, sicut etim ipsi angeli non possint capere et comprehender, quod duae naturae in una personaunitae sunt” (98:13-15). “…quia humanitas et divinitas in Christo constituunt unam personam. Sed illae duae naturae sunt distinctae in theologiae, scilicet secundum natura, sed non secundum personam” (100:18-20). “Arctius sunt coninuctae humanitas et divinitas in Christo, quam anima et corpus in homine, ideo non possunt diversa dici de naturis” (101:7-10). “Humanitas coniuncta cum divinitate adoratur, Christi humanitas adoratur, not est falsum, quiae est inseparabilis a divinitate et additio huius genitivi Christi solvit argumentum” (106:3-7). “Ergo Christus est homo, quia est hoc concretum significans personaliter, sed abstractum significat modum naturae vel naturaliter …” (108:13-17). “Christus non constat ex anima et carne, sed ex humanitate et divinitate. Assumsit autem humanam naturam, id est, illam, quae constat ex animaet carne, et in symbolo hom debet construi cum anima rational” (110:22-14). “Nostamen non tantum facimus proportionem, sed unitatem finiti et infiniti” (112:17-19). Propsitiones de accidentibus hominis et Dei in Christo non sun castae, ideoparce loquendum et standum in unitate. Haec tam arcta et coniuncta est, ut in tota rerum natura nullum possit simile exemplum dari. Propinquissima similitudo est hominis natura. Nam sicut hoc constat duabus distinctis partibus, anima scilicet et carne, sic Christi persona constat duabus natuis unitis, sed tamen anima tandem mortuo homine separatur a carne” (114:12-18).44 WA 10 I1, 147:11.

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It is interesting to note that while Luther expresses

reservations in the 1540 disputation about comparing the two

natures of Christ to the body and soul making up a human being, he

uses the simile repeatedly throughout his writings. In fact, he

even uses it in the same disputation.45

I suspect that Luther’s increasing uneasiness with crypto-

Nestorianism motivated his rejection of compositionality in the

1540 disputation. His 1539 Von den Konziliis und Kirchen reveals the

effort to which he went to explain repeatedly the dogmatically

proper view: Christ’s two natures possess idioms proper to each.

Because of the hypostatic union, the idioms of each can be applied

45 WA 39 II, 114, 16-19: “Nam sicut hoc constat duabus distictis partibus, animascilicet et carne, sic Christi persona constat duabus naturis unitis, sed tamen anima tandem mortuao homine separatur a carne.” Cf. The following remarkable quote: “You see, a person has both a body and a soul. The body is of a completely different nature than the soul, and the soul of a completely different nature than the body. Still the body and soul form one person, for thesoul without the body is no man, but the body and soul come together in a singleperson, not two people, and both are therefore united, so that whoever touches aherrlein on the person, must mean that he touches the entire person. The same, whoever strikes an arm or a leg has struck the entire person with body and soul.Therefore see a person who sleeps, because the body sleeps but at the same time the soul does not, but has its own reflection and movement, its breath or life; therefore the man sleeps and does not sleep, he lives and does not live, he smells and does not smell, and so both natures are one thing and one body, even though at the same time they form two distinctive natures. But the body and soulcannot be split away from each other, if a living person is to remain” (my translation, WA 47, 55:21-34).

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to the person, and the idioms of one nature can be attributed to

the other as well.46

Two concluding points must be made. Consider how construal

of the communicatio as referring to “one self-sufficient entity”

under various descriptions makes problematic the syntactic fallacies

Luther identifies in the disputation. If there are no real natures,

how can one understand the truth of “Christ did not suffer secundum

quid,” and the falsity of “Christ did not suffer simpliciter”? Surely

the truth of the first rests upon the fact that there is a monadic

state of affairs of Christ-being-impassible. But what does this

presuppose? The best answer is the traditional one: there is some

property of being impassible possessed by the divine suppositum. But

how can it be true that being impassible is not true of Christ

simpliciter? Again it seems the best answer is that the suppositum

Christ also possesses the property of passibility, and to say that

the suppositum has impassibility simply (or passibility simply) is

to say what is not so. Christ-having-impassibility is true with

respect to the set of properties identifiable as “Christ’s divine

nature,” it is not true in an unqualified sense of the divine

46 See WA 50, 289ff.

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person — although there may be occasions in which it would be

proper to say that “Christ does not suffer.”

Finally, notice how problematic becomes any transfer of

properties between natures on White's view that the communicatio is

merely adverbial. How does his position square with this statement

in the Tischreden?

As for what happens to and befalls this person Christ, it happens to and befalls both this God and this man. From this it follows that these two natures in Christ communicate theirattributes and their properties the one to the other; that is, that which is the peculiar property of one nature is communicated also to the other.47

Surely, later Lutheranism’s discovery in Luther of the genus

maiestaticum and the genus tapeinoticon itself becomes deeply

problematic on the adverbial theory of natures, for if there are

no natures, then there are no “things” upon which to transfer

properties. All talk about relations between the natures become

suspect, for how can there be relations without relata? Moreover,

what becomes of the ubiquity of the physical body of Christ on

this view?

47 TR 4, 67ff. See also WA 47, 199:19-28. See the discussion in Marc Lienhard, Luther: Witness to Jesus Christ, trans. by Edwin Robertson (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing, 1982), 339-345.

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VI

In my opinion, the genius of the Lutheran theological

position has always been to hold as central the real paradox of

the infinite becoming finite. By emphasizing the ontological

unity of Christ through application of the adverbial theory of

natures, White threatens to dissolve the ontological paradox at

the very heart of the incarnation. If White is correct in his

reading of Luther, though the God-man is a very peculiar (and

mysterious) entity, the constitution of this God-man involves no

ontological contradiction. Christ merely becomes a "third thing"

mixed from the humors of the infinite and the finite. Such a view

squares neither with the subsequent Lutheran tradition, nor with

other traditional accents of Lutheran theology. (What becomes of

the "real presence" on this view? Is the bread-body a "third

thing" too?) Such a view endangers Lutheran theology at its

center.

Fortunately, if I am correct, Luther did not hold the view

White suggests, and thus was not systematically misread by the

subsequent Lutheran theological tradition. While Luther was

deeply influenced by the nominalist tradition, he remained an

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Augustinian whose christology was deeply informed by the Greek

fathers. I believe that a correct understanding of his semantics

must include not only the study of elements he inherited from the

nominalists, but that which he found in late medieval

Augustinianism and the via antiqua as well.

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