“And it has been said that the dogma was proclaimed, when it was proclaimed, because it affirmed the divinity of Christ at a time when liberal Protestantism—followed within a generation or two by Catholic modernists—were rejecting it and the whole mindset of the early councils, as Greek essentialsm.”
No kidding! I never knew that, but I will agree that it certainly might tend to reinforce exactly that. I doubt any Eastern Christian could, at least since Ephesus (where we condemned poor old Pelagius btw), doubt the divinity of Christ.You understand that such a thing could only happen in the West, where the idea of some sort of sissy, wimp Christ seems to have taken root as opposed to the Eastern concept of the Pantokrator! :)But tell me, what was seen as deficient about Ephesus? I feel constrained to say that messing around with what the Ecumenical Councils proclaimed has seldom turned out good for the West (filioque, for example).
It relates to the influence of Kant, whose philosophy came to dominate Protestant thought in the 19th Century, the abandoment of metaphysics as a hopeless enterprise, and the growing acceptance of the claims of modern science as the only way to Truth. I think it is also a matter of the believe that
Greek—read pagan- thought had now contaminated Christianity. It is the whole “dehellenization” thing. Since the Christological dogmas are expressed in Greek terms that they are no longer persuasive.