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What is the Reformed/confessional opinion on the "communication of attributes?" Would this image be accurate?
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Communicatio idiomatum
- Thread starter JM
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DialecticSkeptic
Reformed
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It is more or less accurate, but incomplete in perhaps a crucial way. Reformed and Lutheran theologies share common ground in affirming the doctrine of the hypostatic union, but they differ significantly in how they understand and apply the communicatio idiomatum (communication of attributes). These differences stem largely from their Christological and sacramental frameworks.
SIMILARITIES
Both traditions admit that a full understanding of how the divine and human natures interact is beyond human comprehension.
Nevertheless, they both agree that Jesus Christ is one person with two distinct natures, divine and human (hypostatic union), and that the properties of each nature belong to the single person of Christ.
They also both reject Nestorianism (which divides Christ into two persons) and Monophysitism (which blends or confuses the natures).
DIFFERENCES
Lutheran Christology emphasizes the genus maiestaticum (the communication of majesty), where Christ's divine attributes (e.g., omnipresence, omniscience) are communicated to his human nature.
Reformed Christology stresses the genus apotelesmaticum (the communication of the offices), focusing on the unity of the person of Christ in carrying out the work of redemption, without blending the natures.
The Lutheran emphasis appears to be captured by your graphic. But the emphasis in Reformed theology on the communication of the offices seems to be missing. The genus apotelesmaticum is one of the categories employed to articulate how Christ's divine and human natures function together within the hypostatic union (i.e., every redemptive act of Christ is performed by his whole person, not by one nature alone).
This important category and crucial distinction is articulated in the Heidelberg Catechism under Lord's Day 6, addressing why the Savior had to be both God and man:
Why must the mediator be a true and righteous human? God's justice demands that human nature, which has sinned, must pay for sin; but a sinful human could never pay for others.
Why must the mediator also be true God? So that the mediator, by the power of his divinity, might bear the weight of God's wrath in his humanity and earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life.
SIMILARITIES
Both traditions admit that a full understanding of how the divine and human natures interact is beyond human comprehension.
Nevertheless, they both agree that Jesus Christ is one person with two distinct natures, divine and human (hypostatic union), and that the properties of each nature belong to the single person of Christ.
They also both reject Nestorianism (which divides Christ into two persons) and Monophysitism (which blends or confuses the natures).
DIFFERENCES
Lutheran Christology emphasizes the genus maiestaticum (the communication of majesty), where Christ's divine attributes (e.g., omnipresence, omniscience) are communicated to his human nature.
Reformed Christology stresses the genus apotelesmaticum (the communication of the offices), focusing on the unity of the person of Christ in carrying out the work of redemption, without blending the natures.
This important category and crucial distinction is articulated in the Heidelberg Catechism under Lord's Day 6, addressing why the Savior had to be both God and man:
Why must the mediator be a true and righteous human? God's justice demands that human nature, which has sinned, must pay for sin; but a sinful human could never pay for others.
Why must the mediator also be true God? So that the mediator, by the power of his divinity, might bear the weight of God's wrath in his humanity and earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life.
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