Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God

This collection of essays by a team of of Christian philosophers theologians and biblical scholars explores the viability of a kenotic account of the incarnation. Such an account is inspired by Pauls lyrical claims in Philippians 2:6-11 that Christ Jesus though God in nature emptied himself or made himself nothing by becoming human. The biblical support for such a view can be found throughout the four gospels and the book of Hebrews as well as in other places. A kenotic account takes seriously the possibility that Christ in becoming incarnate temporarily divested himself of such properties as omnipotence omniscience and omnipresence. Several of the contributors argue that this view is fully orthodox and that it has great strengths in giving us a picture of God who is willing to become completely vulnerable for the sake of human beings and one that is completely consistent with the very human portrait of Jesus in the New Testament. The proponents of kenotic Christology argue that the philosophical accounts of Gods nature that have led to rejection of this theory ought themselves to be subjected to criticism in light of the biblical data. Some essays test the theory by raising critical questions and arguing that traditional accounts of the incarnation can achieve the goals of kenotic theories as well as kenotic theories can. The book also explores the implications of a kenotic view of the incarnation for philosophical theology in general and the doctrine of the Trinity in particular and it concludes with essays that examine the validity of the ideal of kenosis for women and a challenge to traditional Christology to take a kenotic theory seriously. CONTRIBUTORS: C. Stephen Evans Gordon D. Fee Sarah Coakley Stephen T. Davis Ronald J. Feenstra Bruce N. Fisk Ruth Groenhout Edward T. Oakes SJ Cornelius Plantinga Jr. Thomas R. Thompson Edwin Chr. van Driel.