“Incarnation” @ the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Dale)

Kudos to the team at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for

1. their recent radical re-design, done by Josh D. May. Notable improvements include a nice print-friendly page feature, and the entries sorted by topic. Here are the Philosophy of Religion ones.
2. their new entry “Incarnation”, by University of Wisconsin Madison PhD David Werther, who teaches in their division of Continuing Studies. He does an excellent job of keeping it simple; it’s a brief and clear introduction to the Incarnation as treated by analytic philosophers, and is by design pretty ahistorical.

Missing in #2 are references to, if not summaries of, Tom Senor’s work, particularly his criticisms of the Stump/Leftow property-borrowing approach, and of the hoary qua-move. Maybe a couple of references to Hick would be appropriate as well, e.g. his criticism of two-minds theories. Positively, maybe a reference to van Inwagen on relative identity. But on the whole, I thought it was well done – congrats to David. And I hope we see more philosophical theology in the IEP.

One quick reflection: the piece is, like analytic philosophy tends to be, rather narrowly focused. There’s a problem of consistency while trying to stay in the bounds of orthodoxy – that’s it. I think there’s rather more to it… biblical interpretation in particular, and also the Incarnation in relation to Christian spirituality, and to wider issues in theology (e.g. atonement theories). I’m not criticizing the piece – a summary of such a rich and carefully wrought bunch of arguments should be tightly focused. My point is rather that we Christian philosophers need to approach these doctrine as thinking Christians, and not merely as philosophers – people who accomplish a narrow task (see – not provably inconsistent!) and then punt on all other issues (not my job, pal). Philosophical theology can take in a wider set of concerns without ceasing to be philosophical.