Christian Kettler provides his nine thesis statements on the vicarious humanity of Christ in the theology of Thomas Torrance:
1. Christology includes the “double movement” of the way of God to humanity and the way of humanity to God, contra Docetism and 
Ebionitism. The “Creator Son,” “the Word of God,” is identical with Jesus of Nazareth (Athanasius). Thus, the radical significance of Christology is “the coming of God himself into the universe he created.”
2. God coming as a human being, not just in a human being removes all possibility of a “deistic disjunction” between God and creation. The possibility of the interaction of the living God with space and time is opened up.
3. The vicarious humanity of Christ is the heartbeat of salvation history. From the circumcision of Abraham to the Incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, the interaction of the humanity of Christ with creaturely form provides a basis for the knowledge of God and the reconciliation of humanity within the structures of space and time.
4. However, the reality of the humanity of Christ, as the reality of the “Creator Son,” “the Word made flesh,” is not limited to the structures of space and time. This is what is expressed in the Reformed doctrine of the so-called extra Calvinisticum, the significance of the vicarious humanity of the risen and exalted Christ.
5. The reality of the vicarious humanity of Christ stresses the inability of fallen humanity to know and respond to God. The Lutheran emphasis on finitum capax infiniti paved the way for the nineteenth century doctrine of the religious capacity of the human spirit.
6. This integration of the divine and creaturely provides the basis for the mediatorial ministry of Christ.
7. The divine Logos in human flesh, as the vicarious humanity of Christ, communicates the very life of God in humanity (Campbell). Salvation is based on the communication of this life (Irenaeus, Athanasius). In this way, Christology is dynamically related to soteriology. In effect, Christ becomes the “very matter and substance of salvation.”
8. The work of the vicarious humanity of Christ is based on the twin moments in salvation of substitution/representation and incorporation. Christ not only takes our place, and becomes our representative, thereby creating a new humanity (substitution/representation), but also incorporates us into this new humanity (incorporation). Our actions become his actions. Our life becomes his life, the life of God.
9. The “correlation and correspondence” produced by the vicarious humanity of Christ provides an “inner determination” of life. There is a “reciprocity” of being which creates “wholeness” and “integrity” and presents a “contradiction” to the forces of darkness. [Christian D. Kettler, The Vicarious Humanity of Christ, 127-28]
Athanasian Reformed 
There are so many things bound up here, good and bad, in ways that are frustrating to me. So perhaps I’m missing the point myself. But the most basic point I can make in reply is this: that we must have the humanity of Christ before we can speak of the vicarious humanity of Christ. And frankly, both the extra Calvinisticum and the infra Lutheranum — the notions that either the finite is not, or is, capable of the infinite — miss the point. Created things are never, of themselves, capable of divinity. And yet God does not merely dwell within creation as its Source and Ground, but also has concretely entered into creaturely being. Jesus Christ is the sole point of overlap between the spheres of divine being and creaturely being — the one who lives out of the innate fullness of both Creator and creature. Creation is not capable of self-transcendence — but God is omnicapable. And so as a Lutheran, sacramentally, I will insist to you that, under no intrinsic capacity of its elements, the eucharistic meal is the presence of God in flesh and blood — namely Christ.
As a Barthian, I’m obliged to relinquish the extremism of the capax — because it implies an Anknupfungspunkt that can be taken out of context, as in point 5. But as a Lutheran I still have to reject the extremism of the non capax — because when we lean equally hard on it, it can break point 1! Chalcedon provides the way out of this fruitless dilemma, as long as we refuse to grant ontology to the abstractions of the divine and human natures. These are genera, not species. The general run of creation is not capable of divinity, by nature. And yet Jesus of Nazareth, the only Son of the Father, is fully human and fully divine. This is the only way the equivalence of point 1 can be maintained. The reality of Christ’s humanity, of his full and complete creaturely being, is a Gregorian necessity. But the reality of Christ’s divinity, as the full and true indwelling of God, is reciprocally necessary, and upholds point 6. To say that, as the extra tends to, the divinity of the Son isn’t capable of the omni-whatevers of the Father is to mis-define the nature of God. No Hebrew would have made that mistake. We must, at peril to our metaphysics, state both and refuse to compromise.
Given the full and true humanity of Christ — as the humanity also of God — we may proceed to its vicarious nature as our humanity in Christ. And this is precisely where God’s way to us becomes our way to God: in adoption. Our adoption as joint heirs with Christ by fictive kinship in baptism, through the inevitable success of God’s accomplishment in Christ. And so also the indwelling in us of the Spirit, the conformation of our humanity towards Christ. The humanity of Christ is vicarious in that it becomes our humanity. Christ is our Anknupfungspunkt, our created point of contact — but only because God may make contact at any and every point as the Creator of the creature. So I honestly don’t see what the extra Calvinisticum provides that is of benefit to this insistently two-way Christological street.
(Yes, I need to read more Torrance — that may be what I’m not getting — but I would love a kick in the right direction.)
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I’m beginning to suspect that the maxim finitum (non) capax infiniti does no real work for theology, precisely because of the distinction that Matt raises between genus and species. Oftentimes, the Reformed likely used it more as an analogy than as a decisive metaphysical principle. Where they didn’t, it was a category mistake.
This is interesting stuff, and I see a great deal of value in here (including the close correlation of Christology and soteriology). I’m not trying to pick on Kettler, but a few more observations are in order:
(1) Athanasius did not believe that the “Word of God” and Jesus of Nazareth are identical subjects, full-stop. Athanasius is instrumentalist in how he conceives of the Incarnation, such that he would insist upon qualifying any such identification even more profoundly than would Chalcedon. Point (2) is very good, in that it bolsters the real point of (1) — contra Athanasius.
(4) If this is what the extra Calvinisticum meant — that the humanity of Christ is both humble and exalted — I’d be entirely on board with it. Unfortunately, it’s not. The extra has historically meant precisely the opposite — i.e., it is a wedge between the exalted Logos and the humanity He assumed in space and time. On the view of the extra, the humanity is most definitely limited to space and time.
(5) “The reality of the vicarious humanity of Christ stresses the inability of fallen humanity to know and respond to God.” Does it? Since Torrance believes that the humanity Christ assumed is our fallen humanity, one would think that his vicarious humanity stresses just the opposite. He did not bring with him a flesh that bore an extraordinary capacity “to know and respond to God,” but took on our brokenness. What the vicarious nature of his humanity seems to point to instead is the necessity of its sanctification — i.e., that in Christ it is re-created, made to be more than it is.
“The Lutheran emphasis on finitum capax infiniti paved the way for the nineteenth century doctrine of the religious capacity of the human spirit.” That’s quite a claim, which I assume Kettler and/or Torrance defend with some historical work.
Thanks, Bobby!
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Hey guys,
Thanks for the feedback. I am not necessarily advocating what Kettler has provided here. I just thought it would be good to have for future reference, and so I thought since I’m a blogger I’d share it here instead of a secret index or something. Doing it this way comes with the added benefit of getting feedback from insightful guys like you 😉 .
I am at the families house for the remainder of the weekend; I hope to be able to come back and engage what both of you have said here early next week. I really appreciate what you guys have to say; especially around the extra, I agree that the way this has been used (by some) poses problems.
Darren, on the Lutheran ‘human spirit’ point; I agree that that is quite the claim, and thus far Kettler hasn’t defended that. I know TFT would critique this through his critique of the container notion of space.
I’ll be back.
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My hunch on 5b — because as a Lutheran I find it easily plausible — is bolstered by Tillich for a rationale. He makes the claim that it gives Christian warrant for the Romanticism of German culture in the modern period. It’s not so much that that’s what it was for — we only bothered saying it in order to insist that the fullness of divinity indwelt in Jesus Christ, and that the real presence indwelt in the eucharistic elements. The more appropriate statement would have been that “the finite is not incapable of infinity” — there’s nothing about the creature that prevents God from being fully in creation. The Creator is not barred from creation, IOW. But having said “the finite is capable of infinity,” Lutheran pietists were all too willing to take that experientially. My hunch is that the statement has to do with the connections of pietism and romanticism. Perhaps Nietzsche’s complaints against Wagner have some relevance?
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@Matt,
Kettler may well have Tillich in mind with this; he has already surveyed Tillich’s theology earlier in the book. I bet your hunches about Kettler’s reading are correct.
I think what TFT believes about the Incarnation would be commensurate with what you sketched above, Matt. Torrance’s idea of a Novum relative to what took place in the incarnation make it a totally unique thing that resists being pigeonholed by classically delimiting factors. I am still in the nascent part of my own research, and so be sure there will be more to come; and at some point I will be able to point you to some TFT resources (Incarnation is a helpful volume to give insight into some of the issues that you are concerned with, I would suggest that volume). I think TFT is a paleo-Reformed theologian (meaning that he rests much heavier on the ‘Fathers’ than many, at least, contemporary Reformed theologians). And so all that you’ve said in critique of the ‘extra’ I think TFT would probably, amen.
@Darren,
1) On Athanasius. Agreed, his Word-flesh Christology is not one that I can fully applaud.
4) Yes, I am with you on the exaltation and humiliation point as well; so is Kettler, I will share a quote from him at the end of my comment here that will make that clear (at least Kettler’s reading of TFT).
5) Yes, but TFT doesn’t stop at sanctification; his theology of resurrection and ascension provides a proper counter-balance to the more negative implication of vicariousness that you note. Again, the quote I will share from Kettler should provide a little more context to that.
See Matt’s point on the Lutheran ‘human spirit’ point; I defer to Matt’s “Lutheraness” 😉 .
Here is the quote from Kettler on the place of humiliation and exaltation in the theology of the vicarious in TFT:
This sounds very Pauline, Barth[ian], and Torrancean. Darren when you close your comment on the vicarious humanity point, and you write about humanity in TFT’s theology: “to be more than it is”, what do you mean? Are you suggesting that in TFT’s theology that he is operating with a humanity that is ultimately eschatological? I’m not totally sure I grasp what you are implying with that. Are you saying that TFT’s doctrine is too metaphysical when it comes to explicating his vicarious humanity, and thus leaves him open to an almost docetic understanding of humanity, simpliciter?
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Reeeally? 2 Cor 4 supports that statement? ‘Cause I don’t hear Paul say anything about human nature, at any point. Let alone Christ having taken on a “dark and fallen” one. And I wonder to what extent the “humanizing of dehumanized man” and “the exaltation of man into the life of God and onto the throne of God” manage to coexist. At that point, we are no longer speaking of Christ’s vicarious humanity — we have moved on to our vicarious divinity, which cannot be upheld. One of the key points of Chalcedon is to avoid the mixing of the genera. God is not reduced to creaturely being, and we are not elevated to divinity. We are not enthroned at God’s right hand. That is not a way in which Christ’s humanity is normative for us, much less a way in which Christ’s humanity suffices for our creaturely being. “Not I, but Christ in me” — this always points to the rightly-ordered creaturely existence of the obedient apostle. When we are raised up with Christ, it is not to be enthroned as God. This is not what theosis/divinization means — this is not how we participate in the divine life. Only one takes his place — his rightful place — in the godhead: the one who has been God from all eternity, Jesus Christ.
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Matt,
I definitely don’t hear TFT saying what you’re saying he is saying. For TFT we become sons of God by adoption; while he by nature. If you ever get the chance you should read Myk Habets’ Theosis in the Theology of Thomas Torrance, he will help to clarify how TFT went about this. The humanity we are speaking of, the one enthroned next to the Father, is the one that Christ mediates to us through his as our high priest. There is no mixing of genera as long as one keeps grace and adoption in the forefront of such an account. I think you need a broader context through which to read Torrance’s itemizing of things. I doubt I can do the necessary work in order to provide that here on the blog. Again, Habets’ book is the best (and only) explication of this stuff relative to TFT’s doctrine of Theosis. But you’ve misread either me, Kettler, or TFT to arrive at the conclusions you have about the language of humanizing of Jesus of dehumanized man. For TFT anthropology is eschatological, and thus soteriological; with Christ as the telos (Col 1.15ff). But I think the most pivotal missing piece in your interpretation of this is the distinction that Torrance presses over and again; we are sons of God by grace and adoption, while Christ is the Son by nature.
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Hi Bobby,
I had to do a little remedial exploration in latin to begin to join the fray here. A Mr. Hendel did what appears to me to be a thorough article on finitum capax…, and for noncapax, I ended up at Theologia Crucis. Mr Hendel wrote on the back and forth arguments between the Zwinglians and Luther. I believe the Zwinglian arguments themselves seem quasi-gnostic to me, being dualistic in the extreme, and to their logical conclusion, feed Luther’s argument that they would keep Christ in Heaven and not incarnate. On the other hand, I believe the argument of finitum capax infiniti answers a question that Scripture does not ask. Certainly God could have made the moon out of blue cheese. The question is, did He?
Mr. Hendel wrote:
“Luther defended the value of physical eating. Such eating, when done in faith, is, in fact, spiritual. Because Christ’s body is eaten, the promise of forgiveness is also fulfilled through such spiritual physical eating. (40) Furthermore, as it partakes of the everlasting food which is the body and blood of Christ, the human body is also assured that it will live forever. (41) For Luther, then, the Eucharist is not only spiritual food for the soul but also bodily nourishment which literally assures everlasting life to the body. Physical eating is, therefore, essential and beneficial, but it is not sufficient. Those who partake must also eat spiritually. As they eat the bread and drink the wine physically, they must also believe that they are eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ. (42) Both physical eating and spiritual eating, or believing, are necessary if the sacrament is to be beneficial to both body and soul.”
My dispute: Then, those Christians who do not hold to the real presence of our Lord in the Eucharist are severly handicapped, and are probably in fact, sub-Lutheran Christians, at worst even dubious Christians – we do not “believe that [we] are eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ”. Furthermore, what we believe to be the efficatious Incarnation, vicarious life, sacrificial death and resurrection of our Lord, signified by the words “It is finished” is not complete nor are sins remitted, without the sacrament of the eucharist. This is a highly critical issue that separates the “real presence” believers from the “Do this in rememberance of Me” believers, although you would never notice it in the liberal church of which I’m a member.
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Duane,
I am Reformed on this issue 😉 , or Calvinian. You’ll have to read Julie Canlis’ book “Calvin’s Ladder” to see what I mean 🙂 . I grew up Zwinglian, but have switched to Reformed.
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