50 Key Concepts in Theology

Carter Heyward).
The Council of Chalcedon in 451 settled the question of Jesus’ divinity
and humanity in the following formula (the so-called ‘Chalcedonian
definition’): Christ is ‘truly God and truly man … one and the same Christ,
Son, Lord, unique: acknowledged in two natures without confusion, without
change, without division, without separation’. Critics have argued that the
definition merely re-stated the problem, rather than explaining how the two
natures of Christ are possible.
Docetism: the belief that Jesus was God disguised as a human.
Incarnation: a term derived from the Latin for ‘to enflesh’. The
incarnation is the doctrine that God ‘took flesh’ to become a human being in
Jesus Christ.
Monophysitism: the view that Christ has only one nature – either human
or divine.
Kenosis: the idea, derived from the letter to the Philippians (2:6–8), that
Jesus ‘emptied himself’ of his divine nature in order to be human: ‘though
[Jesus] was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing
to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in
the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and
became obedient unto death.’
The messianic secret: the intriguing phenomenon in Mark’s Gospel
where Jesus appears to keep his christological identity a secret (see for
example, Mark 7:36).
The Myth of God Incarnate: the title of a collection of essays, published
in 1977, that drew considerable attention, and criticism, for suggesting that
Jesus was not God.

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The speculative Jesus: Hegel’s idea that the truth of Christ lies in his
eternal spiritual significance rather than in his historical identity. Hegel’s use
of the term ‘speculative’ is distinctive, meaning the spiritual dimension that
transcends the particularity of time.
BOOKS
Kelly Brown Douglass, The Black Christ (Orbis Books, 1994)
Gerald O’Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical and Systematic
Study of Jesus Christ (Oxford University Press, 1995)
John McQuarrie, Jesus Christ in Modern Thought (SCM, 1990)

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