Christ alone or the whole Christ?

Solus Christus (Christ alone) versus totus Christus (the whole Christ). If one wants to capture the difference between the evangelical faith and Roman Catholicism, here it is.

On the one hand, the evangelical stress on the uniqueness of Jesus’s person (the God-man) and His atoning work; on the other, the Roman Catholic insistence on the organic relationship between Christ and the Church.

Essential to Roman Catholicism is that the Church is considered a prolongation of the Incarnation, mirroring Christ as a Divine-human reality, acting as an altera persona Christi, a second ‘Christ.’ The threefold ministry of Christ as King, Priest, and Prophet is thus transposed to the Roman Church – in its hierarchical rule, its magisterial interpretation of the word, and its administration of the sacraments. There is never solus Christus (Christ alone), only Christus in ecclesia (Christ in the church) and ecclesia in Christo (the church in Christ).

A misleading view of totus Christus

The origin of the ‘Christ-Church interconnection’ goes back to a faulty interpretation by the Church father Augustine (354-430 AD) as he understood the relationship between Christ and the Church. One of the most controversial points of Augustine’s theology is his conception of the totus Christus, the ‘total Christ’: the idea that the unity of Christ with the Church is so deep as to form a single mystery. The head of the body is so united with the body of the head as to become a single Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that ‘Christ and his Church thus together make up the ‘whole Christ’ (totus Christus). The Church is one with Christ’.

On this doctrine, Roman Catholicism built its own theology of the prolongation of the incarnation in the Church. It is as if there was such an intrinsic and profound union between Christ and the Church as to make it possible, indeed necessary, to see the Church as the sacramental extension of the incarnation of the Son of God. Indeed, one can understand how Roman Catholicism was dazzled by the metaphor of the total Christ, going far beyond Augustine and developing it in the theology of the Eucharist (the ‘real presence’ of Christ) and the priesthood (the priest acting in altera Christi persona, in the person of Christ), and in the development of dogma (the Roman Church being endowed with the authority of Christ in promulgating dogmas).

Back to solus Christus

The Protestant Reformation was an attempt to face the damages of this inflated and distorted Christianity by putting the totus Christus back within its biblical boundaries. By arguing that the faith and life of the Church needed to be grounded on Scripture alone (Sola Scriptura), the Reformers wanted to reaffirm that the authority of God is exercised by Scripture over the Church. Sola Scriptura was a reminder that the Church is subject to the authority of God in the Bible.

By confessing that salvation comes to us by faith alone (Sola Fide), the Reformers wanted to recognise that we are saved by an external gift achieved by Christ alone and given to us by grace. There is nothing in us that deserves it. The Roman Catholic totus Christus had built a sophisticated system whereby the Church contributes to salvation through its sacramental system, and the faithful merits it through his good works. Sola Fide was a reminder that the gospel is indeed good news, because Jesus Christ alone has accomplished what is needed for our salvation. Salvation needs to be received by faith alone.

Ultimately, the Protestant Reformation wanted to re-focus the whole of the Christian faith and life on Christ alone (solus Christus): the Son of God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, Saviour of the world. totus The misinterpretation of Augustine’s Christus led the Roman Catholic Church to deviate from the biblical faith by endorsing an inflated view of Mary and the saints as mediators, an exaggerated view of the Church as the hierarchical and sacramental institution prolonging the incarnation, and an optimistic view of man’s ability to contribute to salvation.

Solus Christus is the best corrective to a blurred understanding of totus Christus and the best safeguard against the intrusion of alien elements into the Christian faith.