The Humanity of Christ: The Significance of the Anhypostasis and Enhypostasis in Karl Barth's Christology: 227 (Princeton Theological Monograph)

This work is a critical analysis of Karl Barths unique adoption of the concepts anhypostasis and enhypostasis to explain Christs human nature in union with the Logos which becomes the ontological foundation that Barth uses to explain Jesus Christ as very God and very man. The significance of these concepts in Barths Christology first emerges in the Gottingen Dogmatics and is then more fully developed throughout the Church Dogmatics. Barths unique coupling together of anhypostasis and enhypostasis provides the ontological grounding flexibility and precision that so uniquely characterizes his Christology. As such Barth expresses the Word became flesh as the revelation of God that flows out of the coalescence of Christs human nature with his divine nature as the mediation of reconciliation. This ontological dynamic provides the impetus for Barths critique of Chalcedons static definition of the union of divine and human natures in Christ from which Barth transitions to an active definition of these two natures. Not only does anhypostasis and enhypostasis explain the dynamic union between the divine and human natures in Christ but also the dynamic union between Jesus Christ and his Church which reaches its apex in the reconciliation of humanity with God in Christ. The ontological foundation of anhypostasis and enhypostasis in Christs union with his Church explains the importance of the royal man in understanding genuine human nature the exaltation of human nature and the sanctification of human nature. James P. Haley is Research Associate in Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology at Stellenbosch University. He also serves as Associate Pastor at Pleasant Grove Presbyterian Church and is an Adjunct Professor at Birmingham Theological Seminary.