Karl Barth’s interpretative construal of the anhypostasis and enhypostasis of Christ’s human nature in relation to historical Protestant Orthodoxy

While it is generally agreed that the anhypostasis and enhypostasis of Christ’s human nature have a place in Karl Barth’s Christology, there is little agreement over Barth’s interpretative construal of these concepts, particularly in relation to historical Protestant Orthodoxy. In this article I argue that Karl Barth adopts both anhypostasis and enhypostasis as a dual formula to explain how the human nature of Christ exists in union with the Logos. In this way Barth moves beyond Protestant orthodox tradition wherein the patristic Fathers, Lutheran and Reformed Scholastics, and the post-Scholastic dogmatics of Heinrich Schmid (Lutheran) and Heinrich Heppe (Reformed) consistently interpret anhypostasis and enhypostasis as autonomous concepts to explain how the human nature of Christ exists in union with the Logos. What Protestant orthodoxy understood as mutually exclusive concepts to explain the human nature of Christ, Karl Barth uniquely adopts as an ontological formula to explain how the human nature of Christ exists in union with the Logos.


Introduction
For Karl Barth, anhypostasis and enhypostasis was historically validated as a legitimate theological expression of Christ's human nature. is is important because Barth cites this formula as authoritative support for his own ontology of the God-man. Barth argues: 'What we therefore express as a doctrine unanimously sponsored by early theology in its entirety, that of the anhypostasis and enhypostasis of the human nature of Christ.' 1 F. LeRon Shults, however, argues that Barth misinterprets anhypostasis and enhypostasis contrary to the patristic Fathers as he received it through the dogmatics compilations of Heinrich Schmid and Heinrich Heppe. 2 Matthias Gockel argues against Shults that the protestant scholasticism that Barth worked through to develop his own understanding of this teaching was very much in line with orthodox tradition, and Barth's adoption of anhypostasis and enhypostasis as a formula is an innovation all his own. 3 I argue against Shults that Barth's interpretation of anhypostasis and enhypostasis di ers not only with the patristic Church Fathers, but with the scholastics and post-scholastics as well; all of which interpreted anhypostasis and enhypostasis as autonomous concepts to describe the human nature of Christ. Moreover, while I agree with Gockel that Barth's adoption of anhypostasis and enhypostasis as a formula is an innovation all his own, I demonstrate the progressive development of these concepts in Barth's Christology beginning in the Göttingen Dogmatics, and more fully developed in the Church Dogmatics.
Moreover, I argue that Barth appropriates the anhypostasis and enhypostasis formulation to explain how the humanity of Christ is brought into union with the Logos as the revelation of God in the esh, in His act of reconciliation with humanity. For Barth, the advent of Christ is not simply the union of divine and human natures in the Logos, but the incarnate Son in union with human nature, human nature that exists exclusively in this union. Consequently, Barth's appropriation of anhypostasis and enhypostasis becomes foundational to his Christology in working out how the Word of God became esh as the mediator and reconciler between God and humanity.

Anhypostasis and enhypostasis: Chalcedon and the Patristic Period formulation
Chalcedon's formulation of Jesus Christ as 'one hypostasis with two natures', coupled with theological opposition raised against it became the impetus for patristic writers to defend Christ's human nature where 'nature' or 'substance' (ousia) represents the qualities that constitute a being, and hypostasis (prosopon) is the acting subject. 4 e Council's de nition of divine and human natures in Christ precipitates further development of hypostasis and physis well into the eight century as the concepts of enypostaton and anypostaton were adopted by Chalcedon apologists to explain the human nature of Christ. We will consider four patristic Fathers whose writings were in uential and authoritative during this period: (1) John of Caesarea, (2) Leontius of Byzantium, (3) Leontius of Jerusalem, and (4) John of Damascus.
John of Caesarea (sixth century) is the rst to give prominence to the term enhypostatos in Christology. 5 In Apologia Concilii Chalcedonensis John coins a new term enupostatos, which he uses to describe a sense of 'existing' or being 'real' to explain the Christology of Chalcedon. 6 Consequently we do not say that our [i.e. the human] substance is enhypostatos in Christ, as a characteristic hypostasis on its own and being a prosopon, but insofar as it has a concrete existence and is. 7 John relates physis to nature (ousia) in explaining the Chalcedon formula of 'one hypostasis with two natures' through the concept of ousia, where he contrasts ousia with hypostasis to establish the two-nature formula. 8 John clari es ousia to express the 'real existence' of Christ's human nature and its relation to hypostasis while showing that being real in this sense does not make Christ's humanity a hypostasis. John argues for the closeness of the hypostasis concept to 'reality' or 'existence ', 9 and demonstrates what is common to ousia and hypostasis brings into relief and what is special, which di erentiates both, as John introduces the concept of enhypostaton into the discussion. 10 Moreover, John uses enhypostaton to explain that the reality of Christ's human nature exists in the hypostasis of Christ. Fundamentally, as existence or reality, it (ousia) is equivalent to hypostasis. e distinction therefore is not determined by a sense of reality, but in the mode of existing: 'the ousia exists as the universal in the individuals, while the hypostasis signi es the nal, concrete individual substance.' is means: 'to be real as hypostasis. e pre x en does not refer to another being in which this hypostasis would inexist, but rather to the proper reality of this concrete enhypostaton.' 11 Christ's human nature therefore is [enupostatos]  own hypostasis a human nature such that both divine and human natures exist together (without division or confusion) in the hypostasis of the Logos (i.e., 'enhypostatic'). 16 Furthermore, Leontius draws a distinction between enhypostaton and anhypostaton denying the idea that Christ's human nature must either exist as a separate hypostasis or else admit that this human nature is merely a gment of the imagination. 17 …enhypostaton indicates that something is not an accident, which has its being in another and is not seen in itself… A person who says that a nature, which is anhypostaton, does not exist makes a true statement but he does not draw a correct conclusion when he infers from it that the opposite of anhypostatos is a hypostasis…A nature or substance, which is anhypostatos, will therefore never exist, but nature is not hypostasis because the argument is not reversible: hypostasis is also nature but nature is not yet also hypostasis. 18 Leontius of Jerusalem (sixth century) wrote two theological treatises called Against the Nestorians and Against the Monophysites, which more distinctly develops Christ as one subject using the concept of one hypostasis with two natures, 19 and marks a shi in sixth century thinking. at is, hypostasis is conceptually distinguished from natures, not produced by them. For Leontius, 'the hypostasis itself is the foundation and not the product of being: it is the 'the underlying reality'. 20 e divine and human natures are 'enhypostasized', or realized, in one hypostasis. 21 Leontius therefore distinguished between a union of natures and a union of hypostasis where 'the Logos does not assume an additional hypostasis in order now to attain the perfection of the hypostasis; he possesses only the (hypostasis) which he also had a er the addition of the nature which he did not have '. 22 Moreover, Leontius argues that the human nature of Christ does not exist as anhypostaton, nor does it exist idiohypostaton (of its own), because it possesses its hypostasis in the Logos. 23 e two natures, we say, subsist in one and the same hypostasis, admittedly not as if one of the two could be in it anhypostatically, but rather that both can subsist in the common hypostasis…whereby each of the two natures is enhypostatic… us it is clear that the two enhypostata must not be heterohypostata (=hypostasis beside hypostasis), but are thought of as being in one and the same hypostasis. 24 In the eight century John of Damascus wrote De de orthodox as a collection of the theological thinking of the ancients. 25 John argues that the esh and the Word have one and the same substance; therefore one cannot speak of either nature as anhypostaton. 26 Moreover, John uses the Chalcedon formula to more explicitly explain Christ's humanity as enhypostatos; being in-existence, in the hypostasis of the Logos. 27 Again the nature which has been assumed by another hypostasis and has its existence in this is called enhypostaton. For this reason also the esh of the Lord which does not subsist by itself, not even for an instant, is not a hypostasis, but rather enhypostatos; for it came to subsist in the hypostasis of the Logos, having been assumed by it, and has obtained and still has this very hypostasis. 28 John introduces another sense of enhypostatos which describes a nature taken up by another hypostasis through which it exists. erefore, the human nature does not subsist by itself as a hypostasis, but rather is enhypostatos in the Logos. 29 For the esh of the God-Logos did not subsist with its own subsistence, nor has it become another hypostasis in addition to the hypostasis of the God-Logos, but it has rather become enhypostatos, subsisting in it [i.e. the hypostasis of the God-Logos] and not a hypostasis for itself with its own subsistence. 30

Anhypostasis and enhypostasis: Scholastic and post-Scholastic formulation
Heinrich Schmid (1811-1886) wrote e Doctrinal eology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (1875) as a compendium of Lutheran dogmatics where Schmid uses anupostasia to argue both negatively and positively that Christ's human nature possesses no hypostasis outside its union with the Logos: erefore there is negatively predicated of the human nature the [anupostasia] inasmuch as the human nature has no personality of its own; and there is positively predicated of it the [anupostasia] inasmuch as this human nature has become possessed of another hypostasis, that of the divine nature. 31 Schmid applies anupostasia in a negative sense to Christ's human nature strictly before the incarnation, not subsequent to it. To emphasize this point Schmid makes the counter argument that the anupostasia can also be understood positively because the human nature of Christ is possessed by the hypostasis of the Logos, which imparts personality to Christ's human nature in their union. Moreover, Schmid distinguishes between anupostaton and enupostaton not as a dual formula, but to substantiate Christ's human nature does not exist as a separate reality outside its union with the Logos. 29  e personal union is a conjunction of the two natures, divine and human, subsisting in one hypostasis of the Son of God, producing a mutual and an indissoluble communion of both natures. 35 Anticipating objections to the peculiar subsistence of Christ's human nature in union with the divine hypostasis, Schmid cites Hollaz who argues: You say, 'If the human nature is without a peculiar subsistence, the same will be more imperfect than our nature, which is [authupostatos], or subsisting of itself.' Reply: ' e perfection of an object is to be determined from its essence, and not from its subsistence.' 36 Schmid also cites Johann Gerhard (1582-1637) 37 who argues that Christ's human nature is not [anupostaton] in the sense of having no subsistence 32 Andreas Quenstedt was a leading post-reformation Lutheran theologian, whose work includes eologia Didactio-Polemica Sive Systema eologicum. 33 Cf. Schmid, p. 300. 34 David Hollaz is regarded as the last of the so-called silver age of Lutheran orthodoxy, whose work entitled Examen was an in uential Lutheran dogmatics. Moreover, Heppe cites the Leiden Synopsis and argues that the Son did not assume a pre-existent person, but one anupostatos of its own hypostasis, (devoid of substance). 44 As such, Heppe uses anupostatos to a rm that Christ's humanity came into existence at conception where 'the Son of God, the second person of the sacrosanct Trinity, assumed into the unity of His person right from the moment of conception not a pre-existent person but one anupostatos of its own hypostasis or devoid of subsistence, and made it belong to himself.' 45 In summary, there is consensus agreement between Heinrich Schmid and Heinrich Heppe, together with the scholastics cited in their dogmatics compilations that anhypostasis and enhypostasis are autonomous concepts to explain the human nature of Christ, which is consistent with the orthodox patristic Fathers. Moreover, we see throughout these periods of orthodox Christological development that anhypostaton was not used in a negative sense to describe the existence of Christ's human nature, but simply to explain that it does not subsist in itself, but in the Logos.

Karl Barth's interpretive construal of anhypostasis and enhypostasis
Barth rst adopts anhypostasis and enhypostasis in the Göttingen Dogmatics (GD) primarily as autonomous concepts 46 where anhypostasis becomes the dominant theme. Interestingly, Barth judges that both the Lutherans and Reformed confused its meaning by denying the personality of Christ's human nature altogether.
Both Lutherans and Reformed, so as to obviate any possible misunderstanding, even went so far as to deny to Christ's human nature 43  For Barth, Christ's humanity cannot be separated in any sense from its union with the Logos, which becomes the Christological principle that Barth develops in explaining the anhypostasis of Christ's human nature. Jesus of Nazareth is not simply a historical gure, but the revelation of God in the esh. is ontological grounding is foundational for Barth given the paradoxical nature of the anhypostasis. But how can a human nature, which has no personality or reality in its own being, become real humanity in union with the Logos? Barth responds that: ' e incarnation implies that the Son assumes human nature.' 48 It is Christ's assumption of human nature that explains 'how revelation is e ected'.
It is not, then, a changing or alteration of the divine nature of the Son, but with His divine mode of existence the Son takes a human mode of existence, uniting it -the "grace of union" -to His person, just as the divine mode of existence is eternally united to His person, yet without in any way altering His divine mode of existence. 49 Barth emphasizes the kenosis of the incarnate Son in union with human nature, rather than the union of divine and human natures in the Logos. So that even in the Son's emptying of His divine majesty in His incarnation, Christ does not cease to be the eternal Son; otherwise, the incarnation would not be the revelation of God. Rather, in the kenosis, the Son of God becomes the Son of Man, an uncompromising unity of the Logos with human nature in Christ. 50 Human nature is 'compressed' into one individual in Christ; human nature, which 'has never existed anywhere as such' and has 'no independent existence alongside or apart from him'. 47 Cf. Barth, e Göttingen Dogmatics, trans. Geo rey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,1990), p. 90. 48 Cf. Ibid., p. 156. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. e humanity of Christ, although it is a body and soul, and an individual, is nothing subsistent or real in itself. us it did not exist prior to its union with the Logos. It has no independent existence alongside or apart from him. 51 is ontological framework establishes the revelation of God not in the human individuality of Jesus, but in the Logos who takes to Himself human nature in Jesus.
is idea, the idea of humanity, and this individual who incorporates it, cannot for a single moment be abstracted from their assumption into the person of the Logos. e divine subject who unites Himself with them makes them revelation. 52 It is here that Barth uses anhypostatos as a negative construct that delimits the humanity of Christ in union with the Logos, which moves beyond protestant orthodoxy. Despite the fact that anhypostasis was never accepted by historical orthodoxy as one side of a two-sided formula to explain Christ's human nature as Barth suggests, Barth refers to an 'assumed' formula with anhypostatos as the negative side of the enhypostasis; that is, a…'formula in which the description culminates. Or, more positively, it is enhypostatos. It has personhood, substance, reality, only in its union with the Logos of God.' 53 We discover here an ontological cleavage between Barth's argument and historical orthodoxy, which did not use anhypostasis to describe Christ's human nature negatively, but strictly as a way to describe what Christ's human nature 'is not'.
Interestingly, this is the only passage in the Göttingen Dogmatics where Barth refers speci cally to the enhypostatos of Christ's human nature. e thrust of Barth's thinking centers on the negative idea that Christ's human nature, being anhypostatos, has no real subsistence (in itself) in union with the Logos. is is somewhat counter-balanced by Barth's adoption of enhypostatos, which he uses to describe how Christ's human nature (positively) has personhood, subsistence, and reality in union with the 51 Cf. Ibid.,p. 157. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. Logos. 54 As a result, anhypostatos and enhypostatos explain opposite sides of the same Christological coin to explain how Christ's human nature is united with the Logos. While Jesus is a real human being, the revelation of God in Jesus is not derived strictly in the esh, which in Barth's thinking is nothing more than a 'divinization of the creature'. 55 Rather, as anhypostatos, the human being of Jesus exists only in and through Christ.
In the Church Dogmatics Barth transitions from a rather incongruous treatment of anhypostasis and enhypostasis to an ontological union of these concepts to explain Christ's human nature. In the Doctrine of the Word of God (CD I/2), while Barth's understanding of anhypostasis and enhypostasis remains consistent with the Göttingen Dogmatics, he sets the stage for further development of the interrelationship of these concepts by their coupling into one ontological statement (i.e. the formula anhypostasis and enhypostasis). First, Barth explains anhypostasis as the negative characteristic of Christ's human nature in the event of the egeneto.
Anhypostasis asserts the negative. Since in virtue of the [egeneto], i.e., in virtue of the assumptio, Christ's human nature has its existence -the ancients said, its subsistence -in the existence of God, meaning in the mode of being (hypostasis, "person") of the Word, it does not possess it in and for itself, in abstracto. Apart from the divine mode of being whose existence it acquires it has none of its own; i.e., apart from its concrete existence in God in the event of the unio, it has no existence of its own, it is [anupostatos]. 56 Barth argues that the Logos assumes to Himself a human nature that did not exist prior to this union, and accurately notes that this was the argument of the ancients (patristic Fathers). Moreover, the absence of being outside its union with the Logos logically demands the human nature to be understood negatively as anupostatos.
is, however, moves beyond historical orthodoxy, which did not apply anupostatos to Christ's human nature as a negative characteristic of His being. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid,p. 158. 56 Cf. CD I/2,p. 163. Barth applies the second half of the formula as the positive aspect of Christ's human nature where enupostatos means to have 'concrete existence' of its own by virtue of the egeneto.
Enhypostasis asserts the positive. In virtue of the [egeneto] and in virtue of the assumptio, the human nature acquires existence (subsistence) in the existence of God, meaning in the mode of being (hypostasis, 'person') of the Word. is divine mode of being gives it existence in the event of the unio, and in this way it has a concrete existence of its own, it is [enupostatos]. 57 e positive enupostatos of Christ's human nature is therefore joined to the negative anupostatos of the same human nature. Even so, we ask if this formulation of the positive aspect of Christ's human nature legitimately represents the fullness of His existence. Barth repeatedly addresses this question throughout the Church Dogmatics where as enupostatos Christ's human nature enjoys existence in union with the Logos, giving it His own existence; 'man's nature, man's being, and so not a second existence but a second possibility of existence, to wit, that of a man.' 58 e paradoxical fence that Barth struggles to climb over is explaining how the 'lack' of subsistence embodied by the anhypostasis does not deny true humanity to the human nature of Christ in spite of the assumed counter-balancing of the enhypostasis. Barth argues that the absence of the human nature's self existence does not deny true humanity to Christ because this argument misunderstands the Latin term impersonalitas, which was occasionally used for anhypostasis by the early writers to deny individualitas to Christ's human nature, but not personality. 59 Barth's provocative formulation of anhypostasis and enhypostasis becomes foundational to his Christology in working out how the Word of God became esh. For Barth, the anhypostasis of Christ's human nature must be included with the enhypostasis if we are to properly understand how the human nature of Christ subsists solely in its union with the Logos. 60 is 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid, p. 164. 60 While in Göttingen (1924) Barth writes to urneysen that those who accuse him of harboring a docetic view of the human nature of Christ do not understand the proved to be important for Barth not only because this formulation (in his view) carried with it historical orthodox authority, but also because it provides a more precise expression of how the eternal Word of God revealed (O enbarer) Himself through the humanity of Jesus as the reconciliation (Versöhner) of humanity. 61 Barth counter-balances the paradoxical union of anhypostasis and enhypostasis by pointing to the Scriptures and arguing that this doctrine is well adapted to clarify the reality of Jesus Christ is the reality of a divine act of Lordship which is unique compared with all other events, 'and in this way to characterize it as a reality held up to faith by revelation. ' 62 It is in virtue of the eternal Word that Jesus Christ exists as a man of esh and blood in our sphere, as a man like us, as an historical phenomenon. But it is only in virtue of the divine Word that He exists as such. If He existed in a di erent way, how would He be revelation in the real sense in which revelation is intended in Holy Scripture? Because of this positive aspect, it was well worth making the negative a dogma and giving it the very careful consideration which it received in early Christology. 63 In the Doctrine of Creation (CD III/2) Barth argues that the creation of Christ's humanity does not diminish its indissoluble union with the Logos. It is therefore: Not two juxtaposed realities -a divine and then a human, or even less a human and then a divine -constitute the essence of man, this man, but the one, divine reality, in which as such the human is posited, contained, and included. He is as He is in the Word of God.
therefore, Christ is distinct from all other humanity as enhypostasis, as 'a real man only as the Son of God.' 67 is absolute union of humanity in the Logos undergirds Barth's understanding of Christ's humanity, and grounds his appropriation of anhypostasis and enhypostasis in God's reconciliation of humanity to Himself. e eternal Christ takes true humanity to Himself, not a man into whom God changed Himself. is is 'no less than the unity in which as man He is the Son of God, and as the Son of God man; and nally no less than the universal relevance and signi cance of His existence for all other men.' 68 Moreover, the enhypostasis explains how humanity exists in union with the Logos as the ruler and sustainer of the world. 'He exists in and with the Son of God' and yet di erentiated from God who maintains and rules the world. God's existence is not 'in any sense identical with that of the world, or the existence of the world with that of God', but God has and maintains 'His own existence in relation to the world, and the world in relation to God.' 69 e union of humanity in the Logos is therefore not compared to human relationships (between two self-existent persons) because the humanity of Christ is also anhypostasis, a relationship 'between the divine Logos and human esh (anhypostasis).' 70 Interestingly, Barth understands the union between Christ (divine essence) and His Church (human essence) to exist as anhypostasis and enhypostasis as well. While the church is not divine essence, it does not exist independent of Him. It exists anupostatos and enupostatos in and in virtue of His existence. 71 protestant orthodoxy, which viewed anhypostasis strictly in the preincarnate sense. Second, Barth's coupling of anhypostasis and enhypostasis as an ontological expression of Christ's human nature is unique to his Christology. is coupling provides a balance to Barth's understanding of the paradox manifested in the human nature of Christ, which Barth continues to work through in his Christology to explain Jesus Christ as very God and very man.