Philosophical Theology

It has been a delight to hear my wife enjoying RTS’ Dr. James Anderson’s lectures while she tends to her gardening, our home and preparing for guests. In a recent lecture on the varied disciplines of theology, Lisa relayed how James highlighted biblical, historical, systematic, and practical, before making a well-deserved case for philosophical theology. I wholeheartedly support all these approaches, yet I find myself in strong agreement with James regarding the profound value of employing rigorous analysis in our engagement with Scripture and doctrine. (No surprise there!) 

One thing I’ve learned is that we rarely solve theological debates with a quick verse check. Theological disagreements are usually accompanied by biases and sometimes even agendas. Because of this, my general approach on “Philosophical Theology” is to try to distinguish the point from all that is not the point, and if possible trace the implications of ideas to their final end. That is certainly my hope with this present installment. (I am more than happy to leave historical debates and the interpretation of past theologians to those far more adept in those fields.)

In that spirit, I wish to examine a specific, emerging development from Westminster Theological Seminary: the “adoption thesis” championed by Dr. David Garner, the seminary’s president. While the adoption thesis frames Christ’s adoption as an essential component of our own salvation, closer scrutiny reveals this proposal as a profoundly aberrant view. Contrary to traditional Reformed theology, it is my personal contention that this thesis undermines orthodox Christology, and by extension, theology proper and soteriology.

Some initial ground rules:

In the Incarnation, the eternal Son of God assumed a complete human nature, becoming what he was not without ceasing to be who he was. This union of two distinct natures within a single hypostasis does not create a second subject; rather, the Son remains the sole acting agent, his divine essence eternally consubstantial with the Father. Guided by the Spirit, the Church confesses that this union exists without confusion, change, division, or separation. Therefore, while the predicate “man” accurately describes the Son in his mediatory office, it does not necessarily imply change to his immutable divine substance.

Similarly, Christ was not publicly justified until his resurrection. That is to say, this new status of vindication before the world was not possessed during Christ’s state of humiliation. Accordingly, we may rightly say Christ “attained” justification, yet without implying a second person or a change in his divine nature. This demonstrates that attaining a new status, in and of itself, does not necessarily drift into heterodoxy, but rather accurately reflects the transition from humiliation to exaltation.

Applying these distinctions to the adoption thesis: 

Because the incarnation was a free and contingent act of God, (i.e., it was neither necessary nor impossible), and Christ was vindicated in his humanity, any charge against the adoption thesis that is based solely upon contingency or attaining a new status will be difficult. If so, then any successful refutation of the adoption thesis must argue within these theological fence posts. To ignore them in an attempt to defeat the thesis is to undermine the possibility of the incarnation and Christ’s vindication in the Spirit. 

Confessional orthodoxy does not preclude implicit heterodoxy:

Just as critics of the adoption thesis cannot rely solely on arguments about historical contingency, its supporters cannot defend themselves simply by affirming the Council of Chalcedon. The core issue is not whether proponents explicitly accept Chalcedonian Christology, but whether the logical implications of their adoption thesis actually undermine it. We must ask: does the claim of Christ’s adoption destroy Chalcedonian orthodoxy in a way that the incarnation and resurrection do not? I believe it does.

The essence of the critique: 

While the eternal Son united himself to our humanity, enabling him to grow in wisdom, suffer temptation, and die, he nonetheless remained the same singular subject throughout. In other words, it was the same divine person who experienced every human limitation without ever ceasing to be God, even unto the ultimate vindication in his humanity. 

With the Chalcedonian framework in place, we can clearly confess how the Son became man and was vindicated in that nature. But what does it mean that the Son was adopted according to his humanity? That Christ came, lived, died and was raised on the third day is settled Christian dogma, but if the second Person is one and undivided, what does it mean that he became a son by adoption in the flesh? How does this adoption thesis escape dual-sonship?

To introduce the category of adoption into the life of Christ is to approach a theological monstrosity. If Christ is the eternal Son by nature, the language of adoption is at best a hazardous misnomer, as it threatens to divide the divine second Person by suggesting a transition from servant to son, which his divine identity simply does not allow.

Two options: 

It’s painfully difficult to apply attained sonship to Christ’s divinity. Accordingly, it must apply to his humanity. Yet, this raises a fatal Christological conundrum. How can Christ be adopted in his humanity without that humanity being a distinct person? If adoption presupposes a change in filial status for a human subject, how does it not require a human person who was not previously a son? The implication of an orphan Christ is built into the eschatological adoption that’s integral to the adoption thesis. Therefore, the question is, how can the adoption thesis avoid attributing a separate personal identity to Christ’s humanity, the very error of Nestorianism?

Back to first principles: 

We must decide whether Christ’s mediation flows from his eternal identity or requires a newly acquired status. The adoption thesis implies the latter, a second adoptive sonship that is distinct from the Son’s eternal generation. By attributing a new mode of sonship to the incarnate Lord, the adoption thesis inadvertently moves beyond two natures and unwittingly implies two sons, one natural and one adopted. Consequently, the adoption thesis divides the Son’s relation to the Father, suggesting that the one person subsists not only in two natures, but in two competing modes of sonship.

With that general assessment in mind, we can consider more easily two practical implications of this distorted Christology, focusing specifically on salvation and prayer.

For us and our salvation: 

As it relates to salvation, the question is whether Christ’s mediatorial work is the singular expression of the Son’s undivided identity or if it necessitates the acquisition of a second, adoptive mode of sonship. If we follow the trajectory of the adoption thesis, the hypostatic union is forced to accommodate two distinct filial identities. If proponents deny this entailment, they will strip adoption of its substance, reducing it to a purely forensic label devoid of any relational import. Accordingly, they are forced to maintain the fullness of adoption, grounding it in the resurrection, which creates a fatal chronological discord, placing the Savior’s filial status as Son after the cross. This anachronism has far-reaching implications, as developed below.

A delayed sonship implies that Jesus earned not only our salvation but also the Father’s love and divinity through merit. Such a construct risks presenting a finite savior, one incapable of offering the infinite sacrifice required for the sins of the world. By creating this Nestorian rift, we are left with a merely human Jesus, while the Father is reduced to an impersonal onlooker. After all, if the Father must await the anticipatory sonship of Jesus, He could not have been in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. For how can a Savior who is not yet adopted mutually indwell the Father? 

Furthermore, if the Son was adopted upon his vindication, then Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice was offered by a subject whose status was not yet the undivided, mediatorial Son. But for Christ’s sacrifice to have atoning value, the mediator must act from his eternal, natural sonship throughout the entire passion. A delayed sonship, one in which opposes the unity of the Son’s two natures since Christ’s inception, leaves the cross occupied by a mere candidate for glory, rather than the Lord of Glory himself, effectively stripping the atonement of its divine efficacy.

Final implications: 

Entering into a mode of sonship in power, even as an eschatological telos, does not solve the Christological conundrum. Adoption contemplates a transfer from non-son to son (or one family to another). It’s really that simple. If the Son is the natural Son of the Father without remainder, adoption is a philosophical surd. 

The adoption thesis must be abandoned, as it denies that Christ was the Son of God by virtue of the hypostatic union at the moment of conception. Instead, it inaccurately suggests that he who is already the personal Son was somehow adopted into sonship. If this were true, the Father’s love for the Son would be reduced to a conditional, transactional arrangement, rather than an eternal and strictly natural bond. Consequently, the resurrection would be the cause of Christ’s status, rather than its vindication. Thankfully, this is not the case. 

The Lord’s Prayer (Scofieldism):

With the main and rather straightforward theological concerns aside, there’s one reductio of the adoption thesis that pertains to a hermeneutical assumption, which isn’t as conceptually lofty. If the Christ’s adoptive sonship was only attained at the resurrection, we are left with a liturgical vacuum in the Gospels. Apropos, how do we account for Jesus’ command to his disciples to pray “Our Father” if the very basis for their adoption, the Son’s own adoption, was not yet operative? How were the disciples not being schooled in dispensationalism? Jesus would have been teaching a pattern of prayer that his own Christological status had not yet validated. This cannot be correct.