The "extra Calvinisticum" and "real presence"

I've been reading some Reformed theological papers and books recently which speak of the extra Calvinisticum.  This descriptive tag is not ancient, but the doctrinal material connected with it is.  Recently, during the Reformation, that doctrinal material was discussed again in polemics between the Reformed and the Lutherans over the nature of the "real presence" of Christ in the Lord's Supper.

I first learned the meaning of all this from reading Lutheran theology, in its polemic against the Reformed -- a polemic, by the way, that every serious Reformed theologue should read.  The Lutherans were the ones to invent the "new" term extra Calvinisticum.  They use this term to find fault with the Reformed doctrine of the Incarnation.  The claim is that the Second Person of the Trinity is incarnate in the human nature that was born and walked among us, died, and was buried, raised, ascended and now sits on the throne of heaven, BUT that (physically) outside that humanity, the Second Person of the Trinity is not incarnate, but pure God.  This "outside the incarnate human nature" of the deity of the Second Person is called by the confessional Lutherans the 'extra Calvinisticum.'  It's worth further study and contemplation, to assess the validity of this claim.

But, the Reformed have taken up the term extra Calvinisticum in many cases, and use it for their own purposes.  Generally speaking, the few Reformed references that I've read which explicitly refer to this term use the extra, which they believe in in their own way, to mean that the Second Person of the Trinity is not limited in his deity in any way to the 5 foot form of the man Jesus Christ who is sitting on the throne of heaven.

Of course, these two approaches reveal a different definition of the extra.  The Lutherans claim that the (bad) extra limits the incarnation to the physical body of Christ (including his invisible parts: soul), such that the omnipresent Person of the Son isn't a man.  The Reformed claim that the (good) extra doesn't limit the deity to that 5 feet.  Note that these comments made by the few Reformed that I've inventoried for this are making a false claim about Lutheranism, since Lutheranism does not limit the deity of the Son to the human body of Christ.  Just the opposite: They do not limit the humanity of the Second Person to that 5 foot figure on the throne of heaven.

All this bears further study, and goes back to the controversy between the Cyrillian (Alexandrian) Christology and the Antiochian Christology.

Before getting into this too deeply, it's worth pointing out that the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) proposed to describe the coming together of the human and divine natures in such a way that they each remained true to themselves, and yet worked together absolutely harmoniously.  So, it was right to say that there were two natures.  The Incarnate Christ was God.  The Incarnate Christ was a man.  However, it was wrong to say that the Person of the God-Man was a double person.  The right thing to say was that he was a single Person -- in fact, the same Person that he always was eternally -- but that he "took on" human nature, including not only the body of a man but his soul, too, and all other invisible attributes.  In result, the Second Person of the Trinity remained fully God and simultaneously became fully a Man, and yet remained a single Person.

Now back to the subject.

The Antiochian Christology has the desire to preserve the full manhood, as well as the full deity of Christ -- a worthy and serious goal of the ancient church, and one for which we can give thanks to God, that by this our religion has remained Christian.  However, this can be taken to an extreme, so that the two natures in Christ (human and divine) barely touch.  There is even a heretical version of this, called Nestorianism, in which the union of the human and divine natures in Christ is the union of the Second Person of the Trinity and one Mr. Jesus, to graphically explain it.  This violates the unity of the Person.

In the other direction from the Antiochian Christology is the Alexandrian (Cyrillian) Christology.  The emphasis of this approach is on the thoroughness of the coming-together of the natures in the single Person -- the Second Person of the Trinity -- God the Son.  The emphasis here is intended to prevent the God-Man from being considered as being in any sense two persons which don't entirely think the same way.  There is also a heretical extreme for this.  So-called "Eutychianism" sees the unity of the Person devour the distinction between the natures, so that the humanity effectively goes away, and some composite nature appears in its place.

Therefore, we can see that one side is concerned to keep the natures distinct, not mixed, but not separated from each other either, whereas the other side is concerned that the Second Person of the Trinity be seen as truly the Person of the God-Man in all times and places.  It is this ancient controversy, which has caused fights between orthodox churches for up to 1500 years, which in some similar sense, rears its head again in the controversy between the Lutheran and the Reformed over "real presence" of Christ in the Lord's Supper.  For the Lutherans, Christ in his sacrificed body and blood is spiritually ("real"-ly) received during the physical practice of the Sacrament, because the God-Man, being everywhere a man, can make himself spiritually received by faith, in both natures, even at the Table.  For the Reformed, Christ in his sacrificed human nature is not received literally at the Table, but spiritually by faith only.  The activities at the Table are symbolic of what transpires in the spiritual realm.

In my opinion, the ecclesiastical difficulty with this is that our Lutheran and Reformed Confessions force us to take sides on some things not yet well understood in the "catholic" theology.  We each presume ourselves "hyper-catholic" on this issue, and as a consequence introduce schism.

Perhaps more later, as thought develops.