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Lutheran scholastics distinguished between the operative attributes of God (omnipotence,
omnipresence, and omniscience), and His quiescent attributes (infinitude, eternity, etc.), and
taught that only the former were transferred to the human nature. They were all agreed that
the communication took place at the time of the incarnation. But the question naturally arose
how this could be squared with the picture of Christ in the Gospels, which is not the picture of
an omniscient and omnipresent man. This gave rise to a difference of opinion. According to
some, Christ necessarily exercised these attributes during His humiliation, but did it secretly;
but according to others their exercise was subject to the will of the divine person, who
voluntarily left them inoperative during the period of His humiliation. Opposition to this
doctrine repeatedly manifested itself in the Lutheran Church. It was pointed out that it is
inconsistent with the idea of a truly human development in the life of Christ, so clearly taught
by Luther himself. The great Reformer’s insistence on the communication of attributes finds its
explanation partly in his mystical tendencies, and partly in his teachings respecting the physical
presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper.
2. OBJECTIONS TO THIS LUTHERAN DOCTRINE.
There are serious objections to the Lutheran
doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum.
a. It has no Scriptural foundation. If it is inferred from such a statement as that in John 3:13,
then, in consistency, it ought also to be concluded from I Cor. 2:8 that the ability to suffer was
communicated to the divine nature. Yet the Lutherans shrink back from that conclusion.
b. It implies a fusion of the divine and the human natures in Christ. Lutherans speak as if the
attributes can be abstracted from the nature, and can be communicated while the natures
remain separate, but substance and attributes cannot be so separated. By a communication of
divine attributes to the human nature that nature as such ceases to exist. Omnipresence and
omniscience are not compatible with humanity. Such a communication results in a mixture of
the divine and the human, which the Bible keeps strictly separate.
c. In the form in which the doctrine is now generally accepted by the Lutherans, the doctrine
suffers from inconsistency. If the divine attributes are communicated to the human nature, the
human must also be communicated to the divine. And if some attributes are communicated,
they must all be communicated. But the Lutherans evidently do not dare to go the full length,
and therefore stop half way.
d. It is inconsistent with the picture of the incarnate Christ during the time of His humiliation, as
we find it in the Gospels. This is not the picture of a man who is omnipresent and omniscient.
The Lutheran explanations of this inconsistency failed to commend themselves to the mind of
the Church in general, and even to some of the followers of Luther.