Theological Term of the Week: Extra-Calvinisticum

extra-Calvinisticum
“The belief of the Reformed church, in agreement with the Catholic tradition, that the Son exists beyond the bounds of the human nature assumed into union in the incarnation. The term was coined by the Lutherans, who claimed that the assumed humanity received divine attributes, including omnipresence, by virtue of the hypostatic union. .”1 

• From Systematic Theology by Robert Letham: 

  [T]he Reformed maintained that the person of the Logos is not confined to the union established with the assumed humanity. As God, he transcends the bounds of the incarnate union. Conversely, Lutheranism, with its idea of the transference of divine attributes to the humanity, strenuously held that since the humanity partakes of omnipresence, the Son is never beyond its bounds. In calling the Reformed formulation the extra-Calvinisticum, or “the Calvinistic beyond,” Lutherans contended that is was a departure from orthodox Christology.

  However, Luther and the Lutherans were the innovators.  … At least as early as Athanasius, this idea was commonplace. 

• From Calvin’s Institues of the Christian Religion, Book 2, Chapter 13, Section 5:

  [A]lthough the boundless essence of the Word was united with human nature into one person, we have no idea of any enclosing. The Son of God descended miraculously from heaven, yet without abandoning heaven; was pleased to be conceived miraculously in the Virgin’s womb, to live on the earth, and hang upon the cross, and yet always filled the world as from the beginning.

Learn more:

1. Theopedia: Extra calvinisticum
2. Kevin DeYoung: Theological Primer: The Extra Calvinisticum
3. For the Church: The Extra Calvinisticum

Related terms: 

• christology
• communicatio idiomatum
• deity of Christ
• humanity of Christ
• hypostatic union

Filed under Person, Work, and Teaching of Christ

1From Systematic Theology by Robert Letham.

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