What Is Not Saved Is Not Assumed: Thomas Weinandy, Julian of Eclanum, and Augustine of Hippo on Whether Salvation Requires Christ's Temptations to Sin

Abstract

What Is Not Saved Is Not Assumed:Thomas Weinandy, Julian of Eclanum, and Augustine of Hippo on Whether Salvation Requires Christ's Temptations to Sin Joshua Evans Toward the end of the last book he ever wrote, Augustine of Hippo asks a crucial question that should resonate in today's Christological debates: "Did … that assumption of a human nature which made God and man one person contribute nothing to that man toward the excellence of the righteousness which you say he had from voluntary action?"1 While the question was originally put to Julian of Eclanum, Augustine's Pelagian archenemy, the question continues to be relevant, in large part because a number of theologians today adopt the same Christological principle advanced by Julian: "A different nature could not furnish an example. … Remove the basis of the example, and the basis of the price which he became for us will also be removed."2 That is, according to both Julian and a number of theologians today, if Jesus had a human nature that was importantly different from our nature, then he was not truly human and we are not truly saved. Recently, some theologians have framed the issue in a quasi-Augustinian manner by arguing that Jesus possessed fallen human nature. While there [End Page 563] are certainly a number of concerns motivating this trend in Christology, the primary concern is soteriological. The guiding star here is Gregory Nazianzen's principle, "what is not assumed is not saved."3 As Gregory argues, "if only half Adam fell, then that which Christ assumes and saves may be half also; but if the whole of his nature fell, it must be united to the whole nature of Him that was begotten, and so be saved as a whole."4 Those who say Jesus had a fallen human nature are concerned above all to establish that Jesus truly took on our human nature. According to this viewpoint, if Christ did not assume our fallen human nature, then we who inhabit that nature are not saved. One of today's most notable advocates of the claim that Jesus possessed fallen human nature is Father Thomas Weinandy, who advances the following thesis: "Our salvation is unconditionally dependent upon the Son's assuming a humanity disfigured by sin and freely acting as a son of Adam."5 One of the major soteriological concerns of thinkers like Weinandy has to do with Jesus's role as moral exemplar for the rest of us. Traditional Christology, which suggests Jesus had an importantly different kind of human nature from ours, leads to the following troubling questions: "How could one possibly follow an example set by God? Surely God is able to do what God does because he has powers that far exceed our own. How then could what God does as a precondition to becoming incarnate possibly be imitated by human beings?"6 The advocates of Christ's fallen human nature seek to avoid the apparent moral divisions between Jesus and us that are built into traditional Christology. According to these advocates, if we [End Page 564] attribute Christ's perfect life to his divinely human personhood, then he would not be truly human and we would not be truly saved. These thinkers rightly recognize that Christology and soteriology stand or fall together. Unlike the ancient Christological debates, there is essentially unanimous agreement today that Christ assumed many elements of what we call fallen human nature: Christ clearly had the ability to undergo hunger, pain, suffering, and death, though he never committed any actual sins. What is in dispute, however, is how we account for Christ's avoidance of personal, actual sins. Was the human nature of Jesus just like ours, so that Jesus had to actively work to avoid sins just like we do? Or, was the human nature of Jesus importantly different from ours, so that Jesus had the kind of human nature that was unable to sin? The issue of what accounts for Jesus's ability to avoid sins is a major source of division today in debates over the character of Christ's human nature. Oliver Crisp has helpfully identified two rival sides in the...