(b) The first of these attempts was made by the Socinians (see Socinus) in Poland in the 16th century. They rejected the Trinity, and held Christ to be not divine, but more than a mere man, in that he was conceived of a virgin, was absolutely holy and was finally exalted to absolute power. The Socinians gave birth to the modern Unitarians (q.v.), who reject the deity of Christ, and in varying degrees look on him as the ideal of humanity, °the best we or, at least, as one of the prophets. This shades off into (c) Pantheistic conceptioni, to which gave a powerful impulse. There is an essential unity of the hiiman and divine; humanity is itself divine. The :pre-eminence of Jesus is seen in that he first awoke to the consciousness of this fact, and represents •it in its purest and strongest form. The great body of Christian believers fail to find in the Unitarian or pan theistic statements a sufficient explanation of the Christ of •history and experience.
(d) The Kenotic theories propounded by Thomasius, Gess and Martensen, have a more orthodox origin and 'result: They are based on Phil. ii, 6-8, especially the words The emptied himself" (ekenosen), and are inspired by the desire to present the full human development of Christ. The Kenotists in varying degrees declare that the pre-existent Christ at the incar nation divested himself of the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, and became man, retaining, however, the essen tial attributes of truth, holiness and love. By thus depotentiating the divine nature to the level of the capacity of the human, it was hoped to overcome the dualism of the ancient state ment. These theories have had wide influence, but are severely criticised as metaphysically im possible.
(e) A theory of gradual or progressive in carnation was matured by Dorner (q.v.). There is no self-limitation of the pre-existent Logos, but a limitation of his self-communica tion to the human nature. Jesus Christ pro gressively became conscious of his divine nature and realized it fully only at the 'resurrection. Christ became conscious of his Godhood just as He became conscious of his manhood. Its opponents hold that this theory is Nestorianism in a more subtle form and does not really do away with dualism.
(f) The present dominant German theo logical school, the Ritschlian (see Rerscut, ALBRCHT), follows a new method of procedure. Instead of beginning to discuss the incarnation with a consideration of the self-witness of Jesus or of the apostolic testimony, it begins with the Christian's experimental knowledge of Christ as Redeemer, and consequently asserts that none but the possessor of a Christian ex perience can have any real knowledge of his person. What the believer has learned of Christ in his experience leads him to call Jesus God, for none but God can do for the believer what Jesus has done. Christ is the full and perfect revelation of God in His Grace and truth: Christ's will, too, is the will of God, namely, the establishment of the kingdom of God, and to found this was Christ's unique vocation in the world, a vocation to which He was absolutely true; in all his life and suffer ings He was absolutely independent of and superior to the world, and so gained unlimited sovereignty over it. But if we meet God in Christ so as to -experience the divine power and presence, God himself must be in Christ and in some true sense Christ must be God.
How this can be is a. matter of metaphysics which is insoluble and does not concern us. Ritschlianism thus attempts to prove the deity of Christ from experience, and to free Chris tianity from the entanglement of metaphysics on the one hand, and make it independent of the results of biblical criticism on the other. From such a viewpoint, it regards the doctrine of the two natures as a hindrance, and the virgin birth as a matter of indifference, something to be decided on the grounds of historical criti cism. The tendency of the leading living theologians of the school is toward a personal pre-existence, and some form of the doctrine of the Trinity. Kaftan declares that "Christ's historical person stands in a connection of nature with God which is altogether unique and can never be repeated.* Consult Garvie, 'The Ritschlian Theology.' Chap. 9.
(g) The modern conceptions of the universe, and especially of evolution, have had their in fluence on the modern belief in the incarnation. (I) In many different schools of thought, the idea gains currency that the incarnation was an ethical, not a metaphysical, necessity of God's nature, a necessity of His love and grace, and would have occurred in some form, even if sin had never entered the world. The incarnation was no afterthought to repair an unforeseen calamity, but has its place in the eternal purpose of God alongside of and conditioning the plan of creation which made sinning possible. (2) Theistic evolution suggests not only that Christ is the consummate flower of the race, "the end and goal of the whole ascent of life, the perfect man beyond whom there can be none higher," but that this perfect man is raised to the throne of divinity. (3) It is also seen that the finality of the Christian religion can be guaranteed only on the ground of the deity of Jesus Christ; for if Christ was one like us, however superior to all who have yet existed, there is no certainty but that during the ages another may arise su perior to Him. The incarnation is thus the cen tral doctrine of Christianity, and its mainte nance in some form or other is vital to its ex istence. See also CHRISTOLOGY.
Liddott, 'The Divinity of Our lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,' Bampton Lectures (1866) ; Bruce, 'The Humiliation of Christ> (1876); Gore, 'The Incarnation of the Son of God,' Bampton Lectures (1891) ; Gore,