Two Major Attempts to Articulate an Authentic Role for Christ’s Humanity in Salvation

Abstract

This paper cites selected works of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Karl Rahner as examples of a functional approach to Christology. While presuming the presence of a metaphysical unity in Christ, they centre their attention upon how Christ as man is related to and freely acts together with God the Word in their unity and also how Christ as man serves as the prime image of God, the recapitulating bond of the universe, and the singular saving mediator for all creatures. These approaches, similar but different, give flesh to the Council of Chalcedon’s christological formula that proclaims, from a human point of view, two pivotal unities in Christ: a metaphysical and, what can be interpreted as, a ‘functional’ unity.