May 10, 2026—Defenders · Reasonable Faith

Doctrine of Christ Part 4: Chalcedon and the Kenotic Challenge

Key Points

01The Chalcedonian Definition (451 AD) explicitly affirms Christ as "perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood, of a reasonable soul and body" — closing the door on Apollinarianism (which denied Christ a rational human soul) while equally closing the door on Nestorianism by confessing "one and the same Son" in two natures.
02The Definition’s four adverbs do the load-bearing work: "without confusion, without change" repudiate the Alexandrian instinct to fuse the natures; "without division, without separation" repudiate the Antiochian instinct to split them into two persons. Together they mark the safe channel for all subsequent Christological speculation.
03Person and hypostasis are used as synonyms in the Definition. This makes the Incarnation a mirror image of the Trinity: where the Trinity is multiple persons in one nature, the Incarnation is multiple natures in one person.
04Chalcedon does not explain the Incarnation; it excludes the two main wrong answers (Apollinarianism, Nestorianism) and provides the essential facts that any orthodox model must preserve.
05Kenotic Christology (from kenosis, Greek for "emptying," used in Philippians 2:7) emerged in the 19th century and represents the most serious modern departure from Chalcedon. It holds that in the Incarnation, Christ literally surrendered some divine attributes — typically omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence — in order to become truly human.
06D. M. Baillie’s critique (God Was in Christ, 1948) cuts to the heart of the matter: if the Logos divested himself of attributes essential to deity, then the Incarnation collapses into a pagan-style metamorphosis — God turning into a man — rather than the biblical doctrine of one who is simultaneously God and man.
07The decisive question Kenoticism forces on us is the content of the divine nature itself. Are omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence essential properties of God, or merely contingent ones he could shed? Craig signals the answer is the former — but the case will be developed in the next session.
08Moderate Kenoticism — Christ retains the divine attributes but freely refrains from exercising them during the Incarnation — is compatible with Chalcedon and was even held by many Reformed theologians under names like occultatio (a "masking" of the attributes). It is radical Kenoticism, which posits actual divestiture, that breaks orthodoxy.

Watch the Full Discussion

Summary

Dr. William Lane Craig revisits the Chalcedonian Definition (451 AD) before turning to the most serious modern challenge to it — Kenotic Christology. He reads the Definition in full and unpacks its four guard-rail adverbs: Christ’s two natures are united "without confusion, without change" (correcting the Alexandrian tendency to blend them) and "without division, without separation" (correcting the Antiochian tendency to split them into two persons). The result, Craig argues, is not an explanation of the Incarnation but a set of channel markers — safe waters for orthodox speculation. He then traces the controversy forward to the 19th-century rise of Kenoticism, which exploits the verb ekenōsen in Philippians 2:7 ("he emptied himself"). On the radical kenotic view, the Logos actually gave up certain divine attributes — omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence — in order to become truly human. Craig draws on D. M. Baillie to show why this is theologically intolerable: if Christ surrendered the very attributes essential to deity, then he ceased to be God during the Incarnation, which is incompatible with the biblical witness. The Incarnation is not God metamorphosing into a man, as in pagan mythology, but God remaining God while assuming a complete human nature. Discussion ranges over the Coptic (non-Chalcedonian) tradition, the limits of trichotomist Christology, the elohim language of Psalm 82, and the difference between moderate Kenoticism (Christ retains the attributes but freely refrains from using them — compatible with Chalcedon) and radical Kenoticism (Christ divests himself of the attributes — incompatible). Mark 13:32 — Christ’s ignorance of the day of his return — looms as the test case the next session must answer.

Scripture References

Detailed Outline

I. The Chalcedonian Definition Revisited

Craig opens by re-reading the full Chalcedonian Definition (451 AD), the settlement that aimed to resolve the Alexandrian–Antiochian controversy.
Christ is "the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body" — confessed in two natures, recognized in one person and one subsistence.
Chalcedon is a ringing endorsement of dyophysite (two-natures) Christology. The distinction between the natures remains even after their union in the Incarnation.
Apollinarianism is implicitly rejected: Christ is "perfect in his humanity," with "a rational soul and body" — explicitly contradicting Apollinarius’s denial of a human rational soul in Christ.
Nestorianism is also ruled out: there is "one and the same Son" — not two persons, not two sons.

II. The Four Guard-Rail Adverbs

The Definition introduces a series of four adjectives describing the union: "without confusion, without change, without division, without separation."
The first pair — "without confusion, without change" — is aimed at the Alexandrian tendency to fuse the two natures together into one blended divine-human nature. "Con-fusion" literally means "fusing together"; this is forbidden.
The second pair — "without division, without separation" — is aimed at the Antiochian failure to achieve a true union of the natures, with the result that they collapse into two persons. The unity of Christ’s person must not be compromised.
These four words become the imperative of orthodox Christology: do not confuse the natures, and do not divide the person.
The Definition does not itself explain how this can be. It sets up channel markers — safe waters for Christological speculation. Any model staying within these markers stays orthodox.

III. Class Discussion — Psalm 82, Coptic Christology, Trichotomy

On John 10:34–36 and Psalm 82 ("you are gods"): Craig resists any reading on which humans literally share the divine nature. The dividing line between Creator and creature is never erased. We do not become God in a literal sense — we become Christlike in moral character through sanctification, but we are not deified into omnipotence or aseity.
On the Coptic Church (still non-Chalcedonian today): the Coptic tradition reflects the Alexandrian school and leans monophysite. Coptic Christians have written to Craig disputing the characterization, but as he understands the tradition it does reject the two-nature Chalcedonian formula.
On trichotomist Christology (body + soul + spirit, with the Logos taking the place of the human spirit): this is dangerously close to Apollinarianism. The question for the next session will be whether the view can be reformulated so as to avoid the errors Apollinarius was condemned for.

IV. From Chalcedon to the Reformation

Craig briefly notes that the old Antioch–Alexandria debate replayed itself in the Reformation between the Lutheran theologians (more Alexandrian — tending to a communication of attributes from divine to human nature) and the Reformed theologians following Calvin (more Antiochian — insisting on the strict distinctness of the two natures).
He sets these aside in order to move directly to the most serious modern challenge to Chalcedonian Christology.

V. Kenotic Christology (19th Century Onward)

The school takes its name from Greek kenosis, "emptying," drawn from Philippians 2:5–7: Christ "did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant."
Definition: Kenotic Christology is the view that, in the Incarnation, Christ ceased to possess certain attributes of deity in order to become truly human. He literally gave them up — omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and so forth.
Different Kenotic theologians answered the extent and the limits of the kenosis in different ways: how far does the emptying go? Which attributes are surrendered and which retained? What is the relationship between the Logos and the man Jesus during the emptied state?
Kenoticism represents a non-Chalcedonian Christology because it requires that the Logos changed in his nature in the Incarnation — which Chalcedon explicitly forbids with "without change."

VI. D. M. Baillie’s Critique

D. M. Baillie, in God Was in Christ (1948), poses the decisive question: Does Christianity teach that God changed into a man — that for a period of about thirty years he was transformed into a human being?
Baillie answers: the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation means nothing like that. It would be grotesque to compare the Incarnation to the metamorphoses of ancient pagan mythology (Zeus turning into a swan or a bull).
The deity and humanity of Christ are not successive stages, as if he were first God, then a man, then God again. Christ was God and man simultaneously, throughout the Incarnation.
Baillie therefore charges that Kenoticism, while affirming the Son of God keeps his personal identity in becoming human, in fact requires that he divested himself of the distinctly divine attributes — which means in becoming human he ceased to be divine.

VII. The Deeper Question — What Belongs to the Divine Nature?

The Kenotic challenge forces a foundational question: which properties are essential to deity?
Baillie holds that any change to the attributes of God is an essential change from deity. The Kenotic theologians dispute this — they argue that omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence are merely contingent properties of God, not essential ones; they could be given up and God could still remain God.
The decisive assessment of Kenoticism will turn on whether so radical a divestiture is an accidental change (compatible with God’s nature) or an essential change (incompatible with God’s nature).
Craig flags that this will be the work of the next session, where he begins constructing his own proposed model of the Incarnation.

VIII. Class Discussion — Moderate vs. Radical Kenoticism

A student raises a key distinction: many self-described Kenotic theologians do not in fact claim Christ surrendered his omni-attributes. They claim he simply willed not to use them — like a sighted person voluntarily closing his eyes.
Craig accepts that this moderate position exists and is even close to what many Reformed theologians historically called occultatio — a "masking" of the divine attributes during the Incarnation. This version is compatible with Chalcedon.
The radical version — Christ actually relinquished omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence — is the form under attack and the form Craig will reject.
Colossians 2:9 ("the whole fullness of deity dwells in him bodily") emerges as the prooftext that shipwrecks radical Kenoticism: Paul does not believe Christ had surrendered the fullness of deity during his earthly ministry.
Mark 13:32 — Christ’s admitted ignorance of the day of his return — is identified as the most difficult passage for the anti-Kenotic position, and the test case the next session will need to address.

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