Unification Christology

Journal of Unification Studies Vol. 21, 2020 – Pages 51-76

In the history of Christianity theology, there has been a conflict between two types of Christology: “high” and “low” Christology. High Christology, which is orthodox Christology, holds that Christ, as the divine Logos “consubstantial” (homoousios) with God the Father, is actually God who assumes a human nature added as a “nature in the person” (physis enhypostatos) of none other than the divine Logos after the incarnation.[1] Christ, then, is not a human being in the same sense that we are human beings. By contrast, low Christology, which is liberal Christology, believes that Christ is a real man with a real human nature who assumes only some or no divinity.

Now, according to Unification Christology in Exposition of the Divine Principle, Jesus is “a man who has completed the purpose of creation.”[2] This certainly gives the impression as if Unification Christology were a low Christology. In actuality, however, Unification Christology is far from being a low Christology, as it recognizes his full divinity unlike low Christology which does not. Unification Christology firmly believes that Jesus as a man possesses “the same divine nature as God,” by completing “the purpose of creation” at the individual level, i.e., by becoming “a person of perfect individual character” who is “perfect as God is perfect”[3] and who is in “inseparable oneness with” God, assuming “a divine value, comparable to God.”[4]

If Unification Christology is thus not a low Christology, it is obviously not a high Christology, either. It goes beyond the tension between the two types of Christology. It is “head-wing” Christology, so to speak,[5] which can put an end to the never-ending conflict between right-wing high Christology and left-wing low Christology, by uniting them.

The reason Unification Christology can unite both types of Christology is that Unification ontology uniquely asserts that God and created human beings can be completely united because both have “dual characteristics” in common. God’s dynamic “dual characteristics” of Sungsang (original internal nature) and Hyungsang (original external form) and human beings’ dynamic “dual characteristics” of sungsang (internal nature) and hyungsang (external form) can completely reflect, resonate with, and act upon, each other for the inseparable unity of God and human beings.

Through dynamic dual characteristics God completely lowers, denies and sacrifices himself to show love, and so do human beings such as Jesus; and this is how they can be completely united.

But the reason why there has always been the conflict between high and low Christology in Christianity is that traditional Christian ontology has found it extremely difficult to say that God and human beings can be completely united. For it has not believed that God and the world have something like the above-mentioned “dual characteristics” in common. It rather has believed, under some influence of Platonism and Aristotelianism, that God is “pure act” or “pure form” without “matter,” thus being infinite, absolute and immutable, whereas the world has the dual characteristics of “form” and “matter,” thus being finite, relative and mutable. Hence a deep gulf between God and the world. This is a difficult issue which has not been overcome in traditional Christian ontology. In the honest words of the American evangelical theologian Millard J. Erickson, therefore, “The separation of God and the human race is still a difficulty that has not been overcome.”[6] According to him, Christology in this regard is “one of the most difficult of all theological problems, ranking with the Trinity and the relationship of human free will and divine sovereignty.”[7]

Believe it or not, however, the Christology of Martin Luther considerably resembles Unification Christology, which has a solution to the difficult problem of the separation between God and human beings. As a biblical scholar, Luther was not interested in the Ecumenical Councils’ ontological speculation of the divine Logos becoming incarnate so much as in the biblical depiction of how the concrete person of the historical Jesus as a man, when despised, lowers himself out of love for the sinful world in resemblance to God who, in turn, lowers himself to the level of the despised man Jesus. This way Luther was able to assert a real unity between God and the historical Jesus, thus being able to say that Jesus is fully divine as well as fully human. Significantly, it is related to his unique doctrine of God’s dual characteristics: the “hidden God” (deus absconditus) and the “revealed God” (deus revelatus).[8] This, which is somewhat similar to the Unification doctrine of God’s dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang, makes God truly relatable to the world, like the Unification doctrine does.

The present essay has three sections, which will deal with orthodox Christology, Unification Christology, and the Christology of Luther, respectively. The first section will explain in some detail how orthodox Christology was established as high Christology through at least the following three of the first seven Ecumenical Councils: First Council of Nicea (325), Council of Chalcedon (451) and Second Council of Constantinople (553). The second section will discuss that Unification Christology can well address both the problem of the gap between God and human beings and the problem of the conflict between high and low Christology, which have not been successfully addressed in the Christian tradition yet. The third section will show how the Christology of Luther resembles Unification Christology, thus being an important forerunner of Unification Christology, although there are understandably some significant differences between the two.

 

Orthodox Christology

This section will discuss, in some detail, about those three of the first seven Ecumenical Councils through which orthodox Christology was officially established as high Christology: First Council of Nicea (325), Council of Chalcedon (451) and Second Council of Constantinople (553).

1. First Council of Nicea

The First Council of Nicea, the very first Ecumenical Council, was convoked by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in 325, and approximately 300 bishops participated in it. Against the teachings of Arius (d. 336), it proclaimed that the Son is “of one substance” (homoousios) with the Father.

According to Arius, who was the main figure in the Arian controversy, the Son is not of one substance with the Father: “He is neither part of God, nor of any substance.”[9] The Son is not related to the Father by essence but only by will. Like other creatures, the Son was created ex nihilo by the Father: “there was a time when He was not.”[10] God created the Son as the first-born of creatures and then created the whole world with the Son as his agent of creation. Hence the Son is the intermediary between God and the world, neither true God nor part of the world. Even though he is the Son of God, he as a created being is “mutable” and “subject to change.”[11] Arius was apparently interested in protecting the oneness of God as a monotheist, when he decided that the Son is not part of God but a created being. He was also a follower of Origen (d. c. 254) in this matter, because the great Alexandrian had held the Son to be “a second God”[12] and a creature.[13]

But those who were against the teachings of Arius appealed to Origen’s other line of thought which had affirmed the eternal generation of the Son.[14] (Thus it is easy to see how Origen could be quoted on either side in the controversy.) The Council of Nicea led by those who were against Arianism officially condemned this heresy. This happened largely under the spiritual leadership of Athanasius (d. 373). Nicea formulated its creed as follows:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things, visible and invisible;

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down and became incarnate, becoming man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended to the heavens, and will come to judge the living and the dead;

And in the Holy Spirit.

But as for those who say, There was when He was not, and Before being born He was not, and that He came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is from a different hypostasis or substance, or is created, or is subject to alteration or change—these the Catholic Church anathematizes.[15]

The four anathemas in the last paragraph of the creed were specifically directed against the Arian teachings.

Noteworthy in the creed are the expressions regarding the Son such as: “God from God, light from light, true God from true God,” “begotten not made,” and “of one substance (homoousios) with the Father.” The Greek word homoousios, although it had not occupied a prominent place in the Christian theological vocabulary prior to Nicea due to its associations with the Gnostics and Paul of Samosata, was nevertheless used in the creed as a test word to express the Latin consubstantialis. In the West, the consubstantiality between the Son and the Father had long been an orthodox teaching thanks to the work of Tertullian (d. c. 225) and Novatian (d. c. 257).

It is to be noted that after speaking of the Son’s homoousios relation-ship with the Father within the Godhead, the creed says that the Son “came down and became incarnate, becoming man.” This is indeed an approach “from above” in high Christology. Although right after that passage we read something a little different, i.e., that the Son “suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended to the heavens,” which may give the impression that Nicea also has an approach “from below” in low Christology, nevertheless we should say that no real approach from below exists here. The reason is that according to the creed the Son is still “God from God, light from light, true God from true God,” who would not have to ascend to the heavens in the sense in which someone other than God does. It can still be said, therefore, that the creed only has an approach from above.

2. Council of Chalcedon

While the First Council of Nicea decided that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, the Council of Chalcedon, the fourth Ecumenical Council, which was convoked by the Eastern Roman Emperor Marcian to be held in 451, and which more than 500 bishops participated in, took the incarnation further, affirming that the Son is consubstantial not only with the Father in divinity but also with us human beings in humanity except sin as a result of the incarnation. In this sense, Chalcedon was “the necessary complement and result of the discussion that led to the definition of Nicaea.”[16]

But, if the Son is thus both fully divine and fully human at the same time, what would be the relationship between the two in his person? In the fifth century, prior to Chalcedon, this was the biggest Christological issue, over which there were two different heretical positions: Nestorianism and Eutychianism. (Note, however, that these two heresies did not reject Nicene orthodoxy.) While Nestorianism made a real distinction between the divine and human natures of the Son, by saying that they are separate from each other, Eutychianism confused the two. The Council of Chalcedon condemned both extremes, taking a position midway between them.

Nestorianism, named after Nestorius (d. c. 450), is well summarized in his own words: “With the one name Christ we designate at the same time two natures… The essential characteristics in the nature of the divinity and in the humanity are from all eternity distinguished.”[17] In other words, Nestorius held that Christ has only one person but two separate natures of divinity and humanity in it—separate in such a way that the integrity of each of the natures is always retained. It was for this reason that he rejected the description of Mary as the Theotokos, “Mother of God.” Of course, he spoke of the relationship of the two natures in Christ in terms of “conjunction” (synapheia), but he preferred not to use the word “union” (enosis), except as a union of the will. Thus, he seemed to endanger the essential unity of the person of Christ. His teachings were, therefore, strongly criticized by Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444), who proposed the “hypostatic union” of the two natures and stood for the communicatio idiomatum (communication of properties) in the two. Nestorianism was also officially condemned in the Council of Ephesus (431), the third Ecumenical Council, which was presided over by Cyril.

Nestorius was a member of the school of Antioch, which appreciated the historical humanity of Christ much more than the school of Alexandria; so he separated the human nature from the divine nature in the person of Christ, thus affirming two separate natures. But he would not accept the more extreme idea of Diodorus of Tarsus (d. c. 390), founder of the school of Antioch, that there are in Christ two separate persons.

The other heresy, Eutychianism, was named after Eutyches (d. 454). He came from the school of Alexandria, whose Platonic, mystical tradition led him to see in Christ the full making divine of the human, thereby confusing the two natures of Christ to say that there is only one nature after the confusion: “I confess that our Lord was of two natures before the union… but after the union one nature.”[18] When he thus spoke of one nature after the union, Eutyches completely absorbed Christ’s humanity into his divinity basically in line with the Alexandrian tradition. Therefore he naturally denied that the body of Christ was consubstantial with us. Because of his formula of one nature after the union, Eutyches became the real founder of “monophysitism” (monos, one; physis, nature). He was condemned at a local synod in Constantinople (448) and also criticized by Pope Leo I’s Tome (449), which set forth the Latin orthodox formula of the communicatio idiomatum (communication of properties), according to which properties of the two distinct natures of Christ are united and communicated to each other in his one person. Eutyches was temporarily rehabilitated at the Robber Council (449), but was officially condemned again at the Council of Chalcedon (451).

Avoiding the two extremes of Nestorianism and Eutychianism, Chalcedon attempted to offer an orthodox settlement to the Christological controversy. The definition of Chalcedon reaffirmed the creed of Nicea as the standard of orthodoxy, setting the so-called Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed beside it. The definition also approved Cyril’s two Letters (against Nestorianism) and Leo’s Tome (against Eutychianism). The essential part of the Chalcedonian definition was what is shown below:

In agreement, therefore, with the holy fathers, we all unanimously teach that we should confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is one and the same Son, the same perfect in Godhead and the same perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, the same of a rational soul and body, consubstantial with the Father in Godhead, and the same consubstantial with us in manhood, like us in all things except sin; begotten from the Father before the ages as regards His Godhead, and in the last days, the same, because of us and because of our salvation begotten from the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, as regards His manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, made known in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, the difference of the natures being by no means removed because of the union, but the property of each nature being preserved and coalescing in one prosopon and one hupostasis—not parted or divided into two prosopa, but one and the same Son, only-begotten, divine Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets of old and Jesus Christ Himself have taught us about Him and the creed of our fathers has handed down.[19]

According to this, Christ has two perfect natures of divinity and humanity, as he is “consubstantial with the Father” and “consubstantial with us”; and these two perfect natures are united in his one person (prosopon or hypostasis) “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation” (asynchytos, atreptos, adiairetos, achoristos). Of the four celebrated negative adverbs, the first two were directed against the heresy of Eutychianism, and the last two against that of Nestorianism. Thus, it affirmed both the unity and the distinction of the two natures in Christ at once with a good balance.

The unity of the two natures is seen not only in the anti-Nestorian expressions, “without division, without separation,” but also in the repetitive use of the words “the same” for one and the same person of Christ and in the adoption of the title Theotokos for Mary. (Note, however, that the definition did not use the Cyrilline expression of “hypostatic union.”) The distinction of the two natures, on the other hand, is seen not only in the anti-Eutychian expressions, “without confusion, without change,” but also in the phrase, “in [en] two natures,” of the final version of the definition, which replaced the first draft’s phrase, “from [ek] two natures.”[20]

This decision by Chalcedon was apparently as satisfactory a position as was possible at that time of theological controversies. It was a balanced, middle position between Nestorianism and Eutychianism, and more generally, between the schools of Antioch and Alexandria. Frankly, however, the use of the four negative expressions, “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation,” was no positive, real explanation of the relationship of the two natures at all. Apparently, it was very difficult to explain it positively. Even Cyril of Alexandria said that it is “indescribable and inconceivable” and also “inexpressible and inexplicable.”[21]

According to J.N.D. Kelly, therefore, “Chalcedon failed to bring permanent peace.”[22] Although the West stayed loyal to Chalcedon, various kinds of monophysites in the East were still hostile to it as it was difficult for them to accept its explicit use of the “dyophysite” (dyo, two; physis, nature) term of “two natures,” which seemed to them to be the triumph of Nestorianism. They felt that Chalcedon had in effect repudiated Cyril and his achievement at Ephesus in 431, although Chalcedon’s use of “two natures” had never contradicted his Christology. The struggle was not just theological but political as well.

In order to reconcile especially with moderate monophysites, therefore, the Second Council of Constantinople was convoked by the Byzantine Roman Emperor Justinian the Great in 553, and it “subtly shifted the bias of the council [of Chalcedon], interpreting its teaching in a positive Cyrilline sense.”[23] The two distinct natures in the person of the Son were now interpreted to be considerably less distinct. This new position is called “neo-Chalcedonianism.”[24]

As will be shown in the following subsection, this neo-Chalcedonian interpretation was about the relationship of the two full natures of divinity and humanity in the person of the divine Logos incarnate, not considering the human nature apart from the incarnation.

3. Second Council of Constantinople

The First Council of Nicea and the Council of Chalcedon were the two most important Ecumenical Councils in the history of the Christian Church. The former “has always lived in Christian tradition as the most important in the history of the church,”[25] and the latter’s definition is “theologically second only to that [of Nicea] in importance.”[26]

But the Second Council of Constantinople had to take place in 553 to address the above-mentioned new tension between Chalcedonians and various kinds of monophysites. For their reconciliation, the council decided to be positively Cyrillian, showing its opposition to Nestorianism through its posthumous condemnation of the so-called “Three Chapters”: 1) the person and work of Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428), the precursor of Nestorianism; 2) certain writings of Theodoret of Cyrus (d. c. 458) against Cyril of Alexandria; and 3) the letter of Ibas of Edessa (d. 457) to Maris, which was against Cyrillianism and the Council of Ephesus. Pope Vigilius, in spite of his initial refusal to participate, eventually approved the council.

As a result, Christological orthodoxy now asserted the “hypostatic union” of the two natures and allowed the phrases, “from two natures” (as well as “in two natures”) and “one incarnate nature,” provided that “these are recognized as asserting unity of person and not confusion of natures or essences.”[27]

The council’s assertion of the “hypostatic union” also resulted in an endorsement of “theopaschism,” which teaches that when the incarnate Christ, who is the second person of the Trinity, suffers on the cross, God also suffers. Regarding this, the council stated: “If anyone does not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ who was crucified in the flesh is true God and the Lord of Glory and one of the Holy Trinity; let him be anathema.”[28]

In the sixth century, even before the Second Council of Constantinople, theologians such as Leontius of Byzantium (d. 543) made a more careful theological explanation, which greatly assisted Emperor Justinian’s neo-Chalcedonian cause. Based on the Aristotelian categories, Leontius argued that a “nature” (physis) is a species which cannot be conceived of except as exemplified in a “person” (hypostasis) which is a particular subsisting entity, so that no nature should really be impersonal or non-hypostatic. Therefore the human nature of the Son would be a mere abstraction or a “non-hypostatic nature” (physis anhypostatos) unless it could be exemplified or individualized in the person of the divine Logos incarnate, so that it is indeed an “in-hypostatic nature” (physis enhypostatos) in the sense of being a nature which finds its person only in the particular person of the divine Logos incarnate.[29] Hence it is clearly in the person of the divine Logos incarnate and nowhere else that the two full natures are united.

This explanation by Leontius was able to well address the question of the status of the human nature of the Son in relationship to his person. This question, which had long been left unaddressed since Chalcedon, was: If the divine nature of Christ is clearly derived from the person of the divine Logos consubstantial with that of the Father from the beginning, what kind of relationship does his human nature, being added later in the incarnation, have with the person of the divine Logos? Chalcedon had no clear answer to this question: “The definition [of Chalcedon] was… not preceded by any clear understanding of what was to be understood by [human] nature in relation to hypostasis. This was left for later discussion.”[30] This was finally taken care of by the neo-Chalcedonian clarification by Leontius.

So far, we have dealt with the First Council of Nicea, the Council of Chalcedon and the Second Council of Constantinople, through which orthodox Christology was established. We realize here that this orthodox Christology turned out to endorse high Christology. It started from above, by first talking about the full divinity of Christ (Nicea I), and then going on to add his full humanity to it (Chalcedon). And it was decided thereafter (Constantinople II) that his human nature is a “non-hypostatic nature” (physis anhypostatos), which has no person of its own, and that his personhood is only the person of the divine Logos incarnate as an “in-hypostatic nature” (physis enhypostatos). Christ, then, is not a man in the same sense that we are human beings. Some say that Christ is “not a man, but Man.”[31] Thus he has traditionally been called the “God-Man” (Theanthropos).

Like it or not, this was actually a tacit admission of a second-rate status of the human nature of the Son in spite of Chalcedon’s explicit recognition of his full humanity as well as his full divinity. For his human nature, even if it was said to be fully human, has no person of its own unlike ours. This marked the official victory of high Christology over low Christology. As a result, Christologists in orthodoxy have not been open to low Christology at all.

But the fact is that low Christology, which starts from the level at which Christ is a real man, has continuously revolted against high Christology. Low Christology has historically been advocated by adoptionism, the Ebionites, Dynamistic Monarchianism, Arianism, eighth-century Spanish adoptionism, some medieval theologians. After the Enlightenment, the influence of low Christology became much stronger. As has already been mentioned, the reason for the never-ending conflict between high and low Christology is that traditional Christian ontology has not been able to solve the problem of the gap between God and human beings, and more generally, between God and the world.

 

Unification Christology

Unification Christology claims to be able to offer a solution to the problem of the gap between God and human beings based on Unification ontology, which talks about the dynamic give and take action between dual characteristics shared commonly by both God and human beings. This is how Unification Christology is “head-wing” Christology which can unite high and low Christology.

1. Neither a High Christology nor a Low Christology

Unification Christology holds that Jesus is “a man who has completed the purpose of creation,”[32] and that “he is not God Himself.”[33] This certainly gives the impression as if Unification Christology were a low Christology instead of being a high Christology. In fact, many Christians and Unificationists alike have received this impression, thinking that Unification Christology is a low Christology.[34] And orthodox Christologists, who are not open at all to anything other than high Christology, would immediately react to Unification Christology negatively, determining that it, not being a high Christology, is totally unacceptable.

But it should be clearly stated here that Unification Christology, while not being a high Christology, is not a low Christology, either. The reason is that it recognizes the full divinity of the man Jesus unlike low Christology which does not. Unification Christology firmly believes that Jesus as a man possesses “the same divine nature as God,” by completing “the purpose of creation” at the individual level, i.e., by becoming “a person of perfect individual character” who is “perfect as God is perfect”[35] and who is in “inseparable oneness with” God, assuming “a divine value, comparable to God.”[36] Thus he “may well be called God because, as a man who has realized the purpose of creation and who lives in oneness with God, he has a divine nature.”[37]

One might wonder if created human beings can really become fully divine like God. But we can be reminded that St. Peter referred to faithful people as “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). We can be reminded also that Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and not Catholic and Protestant Christianity in the West, has the idea of “deification” (theosis), according to which human beings can be made divine because of what happens in the incarnation. In the incarnation the divine Logos becomes flesh, taking on our human nature, so that we may become divine, taking on God’s divine nature. In the words of St. Athanasius (d. 373), “he was incarnate that we might be made god.”[38] We can even become fully divine like God through the incarnation, as it “makes man God to the same degree as God Himself became man” according to St. Maximus the Confessor (d. 662).[39]

Consequently, Unification Christology’s assertion that Jesus as a created human being can be fully divine is not entirely novel, although there are at least two recognizable differences between Unification Christology and the position of Eastern Christianity. A first difference is that whereas Eastern Orthodox Christianity is still based on high Christology in holding that the divine Logos taking on a human nature can make human beings fully divine, Unification Christology is not a high Christology in maintaining that Jesus is the first human being to become fully divine before all other humans can become fully divine after him.

A second difference is that whereas Eastern Orthodox Christianity may have no clear ontological explanation of how human beings can be fully divine other than its faith in the high Christology of the incarnation, Unification Christology has a unique explanation through Unification ontology, which will be shown in the following subsection.

From above, it is very clear that Unification Christology, which asserts the full divinity of Jesus, is not a low Christology. Nor is it a high Christology. Unification Christology, then, is “head-wing” Christology to unite high and low Christology, putting an end to the never-ending conflict between the two different types of Christology.

2. Unification Ontology

Unification ontology maintains that the whole of reality is characterized by what it calls “dual characteristics.” God has the dual characteristics of Sungsang (original internal nature) and Hyungsang (original external form); and the created world, in resemblance to God, has the similar dual characteristics of sungsang (internal nature) and hyungsang (external form).[40]

When God totally invests and sacrifices himself out of love for the world, he makes complete give and take action between his dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang centering on his Heart. When he does so, he can send his “acting energy,”[41] his vibration of love, as a divine input of encouragement for give and take action to completely occur not only between the dual characteristics of sungsang and hyungsang of each and every created being at the individual level, but also between two or more different created beings at the social level.

The world thus encouraged by God to be a unified world at the individual and social levels, then, responds to God on its part, by reflecting the complete unity of God’s dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang. When God thus receives the stimulation of the world’s reflection of himself, he feels “joy,”[42] and so does the world, of course. God would not be able to feel the stimulation of joy from the world, if the world were not discrete from him but identical with him. This joy is indeed “God’s purpose of creation.”[43] The realization of the purpose of creation this way means that God and the world reciprocally act upon each other to have the relationship of complete unity with each other, although they may be discrete from each other.

A good analogy of this unity between God and the world would be the unity of resonance between two different tuning forks, each of which has two prongs which would be equivalent to dual characteristics. When one tuning fork with its two prongs sends a vibration of sound, the other one with its two prongs receives it with the same frequency to start vibrating and sends it back to the first one. The first one, in turn, receives it to keep vibrating and sends it back to the other one. Thus the two discrete tuning forks continue to act upon each other, creating the resonance of unity with each other. Sun Myung Moon very often talks about the analogy of tuning forks because Unification ontology teaches the role of dual characteristics for the unity of love between God and the world. For example, he says:

When you live completely for others, you are reaching the very essence of God’s own being. God’s vibrations become your vibrations. God’s feelings are naturally transmitted to you. Living this way, you become a resonant body of God’s heart and love. As much as two tuning forks resonate together, you and God always resonate together.[44]

In case of Jesus, when the complete unity of God’s dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang is given to the man Jesus as a divine encouragement of unity, and then reflected by his added effort to complete the unity between his own dual characteristics of sungsang (mind) and hyungsang (body) at the individual level, and also by his added effort to complete his relationship of love with other human beings at the social level, God feels joy, and so do Jesus and other human beings, of course. God would not feel the stimulation of joy from Jesus, if Jesus were not discrete from him but identical with him. This joy is God’s purpose of creation. The realization of the purpose of creation here means that God and Jesus as a created man mutually act upon each other to bring forth their relationship of complete unity with each other, although they may be discrete from each other. In this complete unity between them, Jesus can fully inherit God’s divinity. Hence his full divinity as well as his full humanity.

“Divinity,” then, would not be something which is exclusively God’s. It would be something which human beings as the image of God, too, can possess when their dual characteristics completely resonate with God’s. If so, divinity must be referring to the state of the complete unity of dual characteristics in total investment of love and sacrifice for the sake of others; God certainly has it already, and human beings, too, can have it because they were created to completely resemble and reflect God through the dual characteristics.

What is to be noted here is that when the complete unity of God’s dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang is reflected volitionally by Jesus’ complete unity of his dual characteristics of sungsang (mind) and hyungsang (body) at the individual level, and also by his complete relationship of love with other human beings at the social level, it means that Jesus as a man of the complete unity of his mind and body is able to completely invest and lower himself to love all other human beings even including his enemies. This is well attested in the Gospels of the New Testament. In the same manner, God as a God of the complete unity of Sungsang and Hyungsang entirely lowers himself to love Jesus and all other human beings in the world.

At this juncture, the suffering of God needs to be mentioned.[45] If God feels joy when his dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang are reflected by the world at the individual and social levels, then God suffers when that is not the case. Even though God suffers in this sense, however, it does not mean that God is not omnipotent. God still is omnipotent, in that his Heart of love is so “irrepressible”[46] that he will win over any undesirable situations in the world in the end, no matter how much time it may take. In any case, God and the world are so closely related to each other that whatever happens in the world affects God. So, when Jesus suffered on the cross, God, too, suffered. In the words of Rev. Moon, “Who knew the miserable mind and heart of God who had to turn a blind eye to the death of His beloved son, Jesus?”[47]

3. As Compared with Traditional Christian Ontology

In order to understand Unification ontology better, it would be good to compare it with traditional Christian ontology.

In traditional Christian ontology, God is “pure act” or “pure form” without “matter,” thus being purely spiritual and completely actualized apart from the world, which, by contrast, is always imperfect because it has “matter” as well as “form.” So, God is not a God of dual characteristics, while the world has the dual characteristics of “form” and “matter.” There is, then, a sharp contrast between God and the world. God is perfect, infinite and immutable on his own, while the world is always imperfect, finite and mutable. God cannot be acted upon by the world, while the world can be acted upon by God. God, therefore, does not suffer at all, no matter what may happen in the world; for example, God did not suffer, when Jesus suffered on the cross in his human nature. There can be no reciprocal relationship between God and the world. God and the world, then, cannot become completely one.

This also means that God and human beings as part of the created world cannot become completely one, either. Thus, God cannot be human, and human beings cannot be divine. This deep gulf between God and human beings has not been overcome in traditional Christian ontology, as Erickson admits: “The separation of God and the human race is still a difficulty that has not been overcome.”[48]

Consequently, if Jesus is divine, he must be none other than God; and if he is human, he must be none other than a created man. He cannot be both God and a man at the same time, nor can he be both divine and human at the same time. Sounding contradictory to this, however, Chalcedon proclaimed that the Son is both fully divine and fully human at the same time, and that his two full natures of divinity and humanity are united in his person “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”

Chalcedon decided to follow the idea of Nicea that the Son is already consubstantial with God the Father. So, the only way for the Son to be both fully divine and fully human at the same time would be that he is God, who takes on a full human nature, and not a human being in the same sense that we are human beings. His human nature, therefore, would have no personhood of its own as a “non-hypostatic nature” (physis anhypostatos), finding its real personhood only in the person of the divine Logos as an “in-hypostatic nature” (physis enhypostatos), as was decided by neo-Chalcedonians such as Leontius of Byzantium in the sixth century.

Even so, the unity of the two full natures of divinity and humanity in the person of the divine Logos was believed by Chalcedonian orthodoxy to be “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.” Apparently, the use of the four negative adverbs, no matter how satisfactory they may have sounded for the refutation of both heresies of Nestorianism and Eutychianism at that time, was still an indication that Chalcedon was puzzled with how the two natures are united. This is why Erickson says that “the relationship between these two natures in the one person” is “one of the most difficult of all theological problems, ranking with the Trinity and the relationship of human free will and divine sovereignty.”[49]

Unification Christology has no such problem, as it can assert, based on the Unification ontology of dual characteristics, that Jesus as a man can completely unite with God, thus being able be fully divine, while at the same time being fully human.

Furthermore, when Unification Christology affirms the two full natures of divinity and humanity of the Son equally, it is neither a high Christology nor a low Christology. It can unite both types of Christology. For it talks about the reciprocal relationship of unity between God and Jesus, which contains both a movement from above and a movement from below at the same time. The movement from above descends from God to Jesus, as the complete unity of God’s dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang is given to Jesus as a divine input for unity; and the movement from below goes up from Jesus to God, as the unity of Jesus’ dual characteristics of sungsang and hyungsang at the individual level and his unity of love with others at the social level reflect God’s dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang for God to be stimulated to feel joy.

4. Assessing Chalcedon’s Four Negative Adverbs

When Unification Christology maintains that God and the created man Jesus are completely united with each other, it presupposes that they are discrete from each other. For there would be no real relationship of unity without discreteness of the relata.

The presupposition that God and Jesus are discrete from each other means that their unity is “without confusion” and “without change”; so Unification Christology is not Eutychian. Also, the conclusion that they are completely united with each other with the presupposition of their discreteness means that their unity is “without division” and “without separation”; so Unification Christology is not Nestorian, either. Therefore Unification Christology can support Chalcedon’s two anti-Eutychian adverbs, “without confusion, without change,” and its two anti-Nestorian adverbs, “without division, without separation,” although Unification Christology is about the unity of the two discrete figures of God and Jesus, while Chalcedon was concerning the unity of the two distinct natures of divinity and humanity in the person of the divine Logos.

Another difference between Unification Christology and Chalcedon, which is an important one, is that Unification Christology gives a positive explanation of the meanings of Chalcedon’s four negative adverbs based on the Unification ontology of dual characteristics, whereas Chalcedon does not show any positive explanation of them, given traditional Christian ontology’s lack of ability to explain the real unity of the two natures.

 

The Christology of Martin Luther

Believe it or not, something similar to Unification Christology’s solution to the problem of the gap between God and human beings can be seen in the Christology of Martin Luther (d. 1546), because his Christology has the doctrine of God’s dual characteristics between the “hidden God” (deus absconditus) and the “revealed God” (deus revelatus) based on his “theology of the cross” (theologia crucis) in resemblance to the Unification doctrine of God’s dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsung. So, for Luther’s Christology as well as for Unification Christology, Jesus is a man who is completely united with God to assume a full divine nature as well as a full human nature. In this sense, Luther’s Christology is a significant forerunner of Unification Christology.

1. Luther’s Soteriological Orientation

Luther believed that Christ has the two distinct, full natures of divinity and humanity united in his one person. In this sense he was Chalcedonian. He was actually knowledgeable of contents of the Ecumenical Councils including Chalcedon. In actuality, however, he was not interested in the Ecumenical Councils’ ontological speculation of how the divine Logos became human in the incarnation so much as in the biblical depiction of what the historical Jesus, already with the two full natures of divinity and humanity, did for our salvation. This point is evident in his following words:

Christ has two natures. What has that to do with me? If he bears the magnificent and consoling name of Christ, it is on account of the ministry and the task which he took upon himself; it is that which gives him his name. That he should by nature be both man and God, that is for him. But that he should have dedicated his ministry and poured out his love to become my savior and my redeemer, it is in that that I find my consolation and well-being.[50]

Thus, Luther was basically disinterested in the traditional speculation on who Christ is in himself in favor of a more soteriological appreciation of who Christ is for me. His soteriological interest in Christ apparently came from his deep awareness of the helpless situation of sinful human beings including himself. When he was an Augustinian monk, he existentially struggled because he could not feel confident of his own Christian salvation. That led him to the Bible, from which he learned that the grace of God replaces the wrath of God through one’s faith in Christ who, like God, chose to be despised on the cross out of love for sinners. Hence came his theologia crucis, which became the very foundation of his Protestant Reformation.

2. Free from High Christology

As long as he was not much interested in the Ecumenical Councils’ ontological speculation on Christ, Luther was basically free from traditional high Christology. Whereas high Christology starts from the divine Logos above and then has him take on a human nature, Luther believed that the concrete person of the historical Jesus, as seen in the Bible, is a man somehow composite of divine and human natures already. Hence, whereas orthodox Christology believes Christ to be the immutable divine Logos taking on a new manner of existence which contains a human nature, Luther believed Christ to be the historical Jesus who is God in a substantial union with a man.

This means that whereas traditional high Christology tacitly acknow-ledges a second-rate status of the human nature of Christ which as a later addition would be a mere abstraction or a “non-hypostatic nature” (physis anhypostatos) apart from the incarnation, Luther understood that the full human nature of the historical Jesus is the starting point of Christology: his human nature is “the holy ladder” to his divine nature.[51] This does not mean that he proposed a low Christology. In fact, he was very critical towards Arius.[52] So, if he was free from high Christology, he was also free from low Christology.

What is important is that Luther’s Christology actually went beyond the tension between high and low Christology, even being able to unite them. For it maintained that God and Jesus as a man are truly united because God sacrifices and lowers himself together with Jesus, who, in turn, sacrifices and lowers himself on the cross out of love for sinners. It is shown by Luther’s idea contained in his theologia crucis that God is “hidden in the despised man Christ” on the cross, and it is highlighted by the Swedish Lutheran theologian Gustaf Aulén (d. 1977), when he talks about Luther’s Christology’s unique ability to go beyond the tension between high and low Christology:

The characteristic viewpoint of faith is well expressed in Luther’s words that it is most vital to perceive that God who is “hidden in the despised man Christ [on the cross].” These words contain the whole inner tension of the confession of Christ—God in the humble circumstances of man. Here no attempt is made to escape the tension by means of a Christology of separation [i.e., low Christology] or theophany [i.e., higher Christology]. The revelation of God is a revelation “in secret.” The eye beholds a human figure who lived under historical conditions and was crucified on Golgotha, but in this lowliness faith sees nothing less than the incarnation of love. Christian faith thus preserves its twofold front [of high and low Christology].[53]

Needless to say, the ability of Luther’s Christology to unite high and low Christology is related to his view of the real unity of the two natures of Christ, which is his new interpretation of the communicatio idomatum beyond Chalcedon.

3. Luther’s Theologia Crucis

What, then, is Luther’s theologia crucis, from which we can see his soteriological appreciation of Christ, his Christology’s ability to unite high and low Christology, and his view of the real unity of the two natures in his new interpretation of the communicatio idiomatum?

His theologia crucis, succinctly expressed in the Heidelberg Disputation in 1518,[54] is a theology which believes that God is revealed only in the suffering and death of Christ on the cross: “God can be found only in suffering and the cross”[55]; “the visible and manifest things of God [are] seen through suffering and the cross.”[56] For God’s grace for us sinners is such that his only way to substantiate it is by stooping down to the lowly level of the despised man Christ in suffering, who sacrifices himself on the cross to love us.

This work of God in the lowliness of Christ can be understood and appreciated by those who truly despair of their sinful nature and who therefore humbly lower and deny themselves to be faithful in fear of God: “It is certain that man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ.”[57] But those who seek to ascend to the level of glorious accomplishment through their own “attractive and good” human works[58] cannot understand it. To them it is always “unattractive” and even appears “evil.”[59] It looks foolish to them, as they have no fear of God. They hate suffering and the cross in favor of the glory of their human works including human intellect. Hence Luther’s distinction between the “theology of the cross” (theologia crucis) and the “theology of glory” (theologia gloriae).[60] Paradoxically, while the former eventually leads to graceful victory over sin, the latter leads to sin.

What we can notice here is the polarity between the “hidden God” (deus absconditus) and the “revealed God” (deus revelatus), as understood by Luther. The hidden God stays in his absolute majesty, thus being transcendent and hidden from the world, but the revealed God is revealed to the world through Christ. The hidden God “in his own nature and majesty” is so transcendent that “nothing can be exalted” above him and “all things are under his majesty”; but the revealed God “is known to us and has dealing with us.”[61] The hidden God is unapproachable and even terrifying with his wrath, but the revealed God is approachable and graceful through Christ. So there is a tension between these two aspects of one and the same God.

According to Luther, this tension between the hidden God and the revealed God disappears, when the former is overcome by the latter for their unity. The former is overcome by the latter for their unity, when the latter works in such a gracious way that the believer is grasped by the latter who is revealed in Christ. But the unity of the two sides of God may not happen, when there are those who are not grasped by the latter. They are not grasped by the latter, as they are not faithful and humble enough to be able to understand the work of Christ who died on the cross. (In this sense, even the revealed God in Christ is still “hidden” from them.[62]) And they do not understand the grace of Christ which comes from the revealed God, with the result that they are only left with the hidden God who is unapproachable, terrifying and wrathful.

Luther holds that for the unity between the two sides of God to happen, those of us who are grasped by the revealed God are to begin by relating to Christ, in whom the revealed God is working; we begin from Christ: “Begin from below, from the Incarnate Son… Christ will bring you to the Hidden God… If you take the revealed God, he will bring you to the Hidden God at the same time.”[63]

Here we can see the dynamic relationship between the hidden God and the revealed God for the making of God’s close relationship with the despised man Christ and also for the making of Christ’s close relationship with the believer. This point by Luther was something unthinkable in traditional Christian ontology. For, as was already seen above, traditional Christian ontology believes that God as “pure act” or “pure form” is an absolute and immutable God of simplicity without having any dynamic polarity within himself, who therefore cannot have any close relationship with the created world.

Luther’s new thinking in this regard is considerably similar to Unificationism, as his view of the polarity between the hidden God and revealed God resembles the Unification doctrine of God’s dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang. In both cases, the real unity between God and human beings is established, when the give and take action between the two distinguishable sides of God centering on the selfless commitment of love and sacrifice for the sake of others is reflected by the same kind of give and take action at the level of human beings centering on Christ.

4. The Real Unity between God and Christ (and Human Beings)

Consequently, Luther’s theologia crucis would affirm the relationship of real unity between the infinite God and the finite human nature, supporting the idea that the finite is capable of carrying the infinite (finitum capax infiniti).[64] The full divinity of God can be embodied in the full humanity of Christ.

This is related to Luther’s new view of the communicatio idiomatum. Whereas Chalcedon and the Christian tradition thereafter simply meant by the communicatio idiomatum that the properties of the two distinct natures of Christ are each predicated of his person, thus being still distinct from each other in their communication, Luther in a non-traditional way used the formula to mean that they can have their own mutual participation, interchange and intercommunication directly with each other: “Those things, which are human, are correctly predicated of God, and on the other hand, those things which are divine are correctly predicated of the homo.”[65]

Suffering, for example, is undoubtedly a property of the human nature of Christ, and according to the Chalcedonian tradition, it is distinct from his divine nature, so that while Christ does not suffer in his divine nature, he suffers in his human nature. According to Luther, however, suffering as a property of the human nature can directly be predicated of the divine nature, so that Christ suffers in his divine nature as well. According to Luther, therefore, God suffers. Hence he says: “This is the communication of attributes. Those things which Christ suffered are attributed to God since they are one.”[66] This certainly echoes the Unification understanding of God’s suffering. It should be recalled, however, that the Second Council of Constantinople, because of its Cyrillian reinterpretation of Chalcedon, was able to talk about the suffering of God long before Luther.

The reason for Luther’s new view of the communicatio idiomatum was that he believed that when the cross completely unites God and the man Christ in accordance with his theologia crucis, the divine and human natures are no longer abstract concepts in separation from each other but things which are lively involved in the concrete person of Christ united with God. In the words of Luther himself, “Abstract concepts should not be cut loose, or our faith will become false. But one believes in a concrete sense (in concreto) saying that this man is God, etc. Then the properties are attributed.”[67] Going beyond the abstract level, all properties of the two distinct natures of Christ acquire new meanings to be interchangeable.

5. Differences between Luther’s Christology and Unification Christology

In spite of the above-mentioned important similarities between Luther’s Christology and Unification Christology, however, there are a few significant differences between them.

First, the hidden God and the revealed God in Luther’s Christology may not be exactly the same as God’s Sungsang and Hyungsang in Unification Christology. Luther’s theory of the polarity of God tends to be existential, whereas the Unification doctrine of God’s dual characteristics looks more scientific. Luther’s spiritual journey started with his experience of the wrath of the hidden God as a struggling Augustinian monk, and it was followed by his discovery of the tremendous grace of the revealed God in Christ; but God’s dual characteristics of Sungsang and Hyungsang in Unificationism are induced from our observation of the created world that each and every being in it has the dual characteristics of sungsang and hyungsang.

So, the hidden God and the revealed God in Luther are not necessarily mental and physical, respectively, unlike God’s Sungsang and Hyungsang in Unificationsim. Also, how the two sides of God are united is explained rather differently by Luther and Unificationism (although the selfless commitment of love and sacrifice is recognized similarly by both as the center of the unity of God’s two sides). According to Luther, their unity is reached, when the hidden God is overcome by the revealed God who grasps the believer in Christ. But, according to Unificationism, their unity constitutes an encouragement of unity to Christ and the believer.

A second difference is related to the first. It is that although both Luther’s Christology and Unification Christology similarly involve the dynamics of dual characteristics to come up with the real unity of God and Jesus (and other human beings), nevertheless both approaches have quite different presuppositions. Luther’s Christology presupposes the helplessly sinful condition of human beings to argue for the need of the grace of the revealed God in Christ, from which a theory of God’s dual characteristics is developed, whereas Unification Christology presupposes the idea of God’s dual characteristics as part of the principle of creation in the ideal world and applies it even to the salvific providence as a legitimate principle. It is interesting to observe that this difference between Luther’s Christology and Unification Christology still results in the same kind of dynamics of dual characteristics which involves the commitment of love and sacrifice.

Third, Luther’s Christology believes in the necessity of Christ’s particular cross of Golgotha as its core, whereas Unification Christology does not, as it treats the cross as a more generic and universal symbol of all Christ’s acts of sacrificing and lowering himself out of love for others (including his cross of Golgotha which already happened). Unification Christology believes that Christ could have lived much longer on the earth, by continuously bearing the cross to live for the sake of others for the transformation of the world, without dying at Golgotha at such a young age.[68]

A fourth difference concerns married messiahship. We know that Luther married Katharina von Bora, a former nun, and positively talked about God-centered marriage: “It is the highest grace of God when love continues to flourish in married life.”[69] Perhaps it was a good step towards appreciating married messiahship. Understandably, however, Luther still fell short of talking about it, just focusing on the mission of Christ as a single Messiah without marriage, although marriage would not be entirely strange to the historical Jesus, who is a man completely united with God, as seen by Luther. Unification Christology, by contrast, believes that Jesus as a man was supposed to marry to complete his messianic mission.[70] Thus it believes that after his crucifixion “the resurrected Jesus and the Holy Spirit” became “spiritual True Parents” to give “spiritual rebirth” to believers.[71] It also believes from the biblical description of the “marriage of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:7-10) that the Christ of the Second Coming goes beyond the individual level to marry his Bride at the social level to be “True Parents” to give “rebirth both spiritually and physically” to believers.[72] If Christ is “a man who has completed the purpose of creation,” his Bride must be a woman who, too, has completed the purpose of creation. This is a unique yet important feature of Unification Christology, although it is beyond the scope of the present essay.

In conclusion, Unification Christology holds, based on Unification ontology, that Jesus is a man who has full divinity as well as full humanity by being able to completely unite with God. Unification Christology, therefore, is neither a high Christology nor a low Christology. It is a Christology which can unite both types of Christology, putting an end to their never-ending conflict which has been caused by traditional Christian ontology’s lack of ability to solve the problem of the gap between God and created human beings. But Luther’s Christology has a unique theory of God’s dynamic dual characteristics in his theologia crucis in resemblance to the Unification ontological doctrine of God’s dual characteristics which involves the selfless spirit of carrying the cross out of love. So Luther’s Christology can say that the historical Jesus is a man who has full divinity as well as full humanity by completely uniting with God through the cross. In this sense, Luther’s Christology is a great forerunner of Unification Christology, although there are still some significant differences between them.

 

Notes

[1] This will be further explained in the first section below.

[2] The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, Exposition of the Divine Principle (New York: HSA-UWC, 1996), p. 166. Henceforth abbreviated as EDP.

[3] EDP, p. 166.

[4] EDP, p. 164.

[5] The term “head wing” was coined by Sun Myung Moon, and by it he means a central position which has the capacity of uniting together the left and right wings.

[6] Millard J. Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, 3rd ed., ed. L. Arnold Hustad (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2015), p. 260.

[7] Ibid.

[8] This will be further explained in the third section below.

[9] Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., A Source Book for Ancient Church History (New York: AMS Press, 1970), p. 302.

[10] Ibid., p. 303.

[11] Ibid., pp. 303-4.

[12] Origen, Contra Celsum, trans. Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 296.

[13] Ibid., p. 294.

[14] In his First Principles, trans. G. W. Butterworth (London: S.P.C.K., 1936), p. 18, Origen says: “This is an eternal and everlasting begetting, as brightness is begotten from light.”

[15] J.N D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, rev. ed. (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1978), p. 232.

[16] Ayer, Source Book, p. 516.

[17] Ibid., p. 502.

[18] Ibid., p. 514.

[19] Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, pp. 339-40.

[20] Later, the expression, “from two natures,” became the slogan of monophysitism.

[21] Henry Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 47.

[22] Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p. 342.

[23] Ibid., p. 343.

[24] The term, “neo-Chalcedonianism,” was coined by Joseph Lebon in 1909.

[25] Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970), p. 108.

[26] Ayer, Source Book, p. 516.

[27] G. W. H. Lampe, “Christian Theology in the Patristic Period,” in A History of Christian Doctrine, ed. Hubert Cunliffe-Jones (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), p. 144.

[28] See “The Anathemas of the Second Council of Constantinople.” http:// www.grace.org.uk/faith/2cconst.html.

[29] Lampe, “Christian Theology in the Patristic Period,” p. 144. He indicates that Leontius expressed this argument in his Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos.

[30] Ayer, Source Book, p. 516.

[31] Nels F. S. Ferré, “Know Your Faith.” https://www.religion-online.org/book-chapter/ chapter-2-the-son-of-his-love/.

[32] EDP, p. 166.

[33] EDP, p. 167.

[34] Durwood Foster, a Christian theologian, for example, says that Unification Christology is “typically a ‘low’ Christology of the Antiochian type”; see his “Unification and Traditional Christology,” in Ten Theologians Respond to the Unification Church, ed. Herbert Richardson (NY: Rose of Sharon Press, 1981), p. 183. Young Oon Kim, a Unification theologian, also thinks Unification Christology to be a low Christology, when she says that “Unificationism agrees with the recent trends in Christology that Jesus was human, as well as somehow divine”; see her Unification Theology (New York: HSA-UWC, 1987), p. 162.

[35] EDP, p. 166.

[36] EDP, p. 164.

[37] EDP, p. 167.

[38] Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation, tr. John Behr (Yonkers, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011), p. 167.

[39] G. E. H. Palmer et al., ed, Philokalia, vol. II (London: Farber and Faber, 1981), p. 178.

[40] EDP, pp. 17-18.

[41] Unification Thought Institute, New Essentials of Unification Thought: Head-Wing Thought (Tokyo: Kogensha, 2006), p. 8. Henceforth abbreviated as NEUT.

[42] EDP, p. 33.

[43] Ibid

[44] Sun Myung Moon, “True Unification and One World.” Founder’s Address at World Media Conference, Moscow, USSR, April 10-11, 1990. https://www.tparents.org/ Moon-Talks/sunmyungmoon90/SM900410.HTM.

[45] For a fuller treatment of God’s suffering from a Unificationist perspective, see Theodore Shimmyo, “How a God of Omnipotence and Perfection Can Suffer: A Perspective from Unification Theism,” Journal of Unification Studies XIII (2012): 33-72.

[46] NEUT, pp. 23-24.

[47] Sun Myung Moon, “Sun Myung Moon’s Insights on the Heart of God (Part 1 of 3). http://www.tparents.org/ Moon-Talks/Moon-Other/SunMyungMoon-Heart-1.htm.

[48] Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, p. 260.

[49] Ibid

[50] Martin Luther, Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar: Herman Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1883), 16, 27. Henceforth referred to as WA. Cited in Thomas G. Weinandy, Does God Change? (Still River, Mass.: St. Bede’s Publications, 1985), pp. 101-2.

[51] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut Lehman (Philadelphia and St. Louis: Fortress Press and Concordia Publishing House, 1955-), 29, 111. Henceforth referred to as LW.

[52] LW 12, 54-55.

[53] Gustaf Aulén, The Faith of the Christian Church, trans. Erick H. Wahlstrom (Philadelphia; Fortress Press, 1983), p. 193. Italics added.

[54] Martin Luther, Heidelberg Disputation. http://bookofconcord.org/heidelberg.php.

[55] The proof of thesis 21, Heidelberg Disputation.

[56] Thesis 20, Heidelberg Disputation.

[57] Thesis 18, Heidelberg Disputation.

[58] Thesis 3, Heidelberg Disputation.

[59] Thesis 4, Heidelberg Disputation.

[60] Thesis 21, Heidelberg Disputation.

[61] LW 33, 139.

[62] The sense in which even the revealed God of love in Christ is “hidden” from those who are far from faithful and humble is to be distinguished from the sense in which the hidden God in his absolute majesty is literally hidden from the world. It can be seen in Luther’s writings. For example, the proof of thesis 21 of the Heidelberg Disputation says: “He who does not know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering”; italics added.

[63] Luther’s words, as cited in Dennis Ngien, The Suffering of God according to Marin Luther’s ‘Theologia Crucis’ (Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College Publishing, 1995), p. 121.

[64] Ngien, The Suffering of God, p. 57.

[65] WA 39.2, 93, 3-9.

[66] WA 39.2, 120, 21-22.

[67] WA 40.3, 707, 22-27.

[68] Regarding this, see Theodore Shimmyo, The Unification Doctrine of the Atonement,” Journal of Unification Studies XII (2011): 11-40.

[69] “Christian History Sampler: Martin Luther on marriage,” https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/ magazine/article/christian-history-sampler-martin-luther-on-marriage.

[70] Even within Christianity, there are some scholars who seriously argue for the marriage of Jesus. See, for example, William E. Phipps, Was Jesus Married?: The Distortion of Sexuality in the Christian Tradition (Harper & Brothers, 1970).

[71] EDP, p. 172.

[72] Ibid.