“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” –St. John’s Gospel, 1:14
“Why do you incessantly call Mary ‘Theotokos’?” –Julian the Apostate, (Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, Vol. I, pg. 241)
“With all reverence let us praise the light of the world, the great orator and champion of the Mother of God; for by his fiery teachings he burned the heresy of Nestorius. Wherefore let us cry to him: O divine Cyril, intercede with Christ to strengthen the orthodox faith.” “Thy teaching has reached to the ends of the earth. For from the wellsprings of the Savior, O blessed one, thou hast poured forth a flood of doctrine which engulfs all heresies.”
–Eastern Troparion and Kontakion of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Patriarch and Doctor
By: Jay Dyer
Calvinist polemicist Tur8infan of Dr. James White’s Alpha & Omega Ministries has written what he perceives to be a response to the accusation I made that Calvinists are Nestorians, in that they end up denying the henotic union. He has issued an informal challenge, intending on doing a 13-part response to all of my claims about the implications of Calvinist theology, which I showed were Nestorian when brought to what Van Til called “epistemological self-consciousness.”
I couldn’t have dreamed of a better statement from him of his views, since he has admitted two of my accusations in his first response. This will not be difficult to dissect, and I hope for readers with an open mind to pay close attention, and by God’s grace, better their theology.
Tur8infan begins: Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh (Romans 8:3). Christ, however, (and only Christ) was immaculately conceived. He was like the sinful flesh of Mary from whom he (after the flesh) came, but his flesh was not itself sinful. He was a true human, but he was the second Adam. He was not under Adam’s federal headship and he did not inherit Adam’s fallen and depraved nature. This is, of course, not only the Calvinist position but also the position of at least most of the major early church fathers who addressed the subject. Read more of this post
