Concerning the Son (excerpt from a letter)

In our recent discussion concerning an anhypostatic Christology .. that the human nature of Jesus has no subsistence apart from union with the λογος, having its being only "in" the subsistence, or enhypostasis of the incarnate Son, I logically inquired concerning what implications the kenotic understanding of Christ's Incarnation had for this formula. In response you commented on Christ's submission, that it was not the emptying out of his nature or person, but of his powers. I find this somewhat problematic for a number of reasons, aside from the problem also of whether or not this formula should be accepted as taught by the Fathers or is a relatively late development in Protestant Scholasticism (contra Leontius of Byzantium for example).

1) In regard to his "person" (hypostasis, prosopon, persona: First Council of Constantinople)

I find it inconceivable to think of a "person" without its corresponding capacities (whether these capacities are freely given up i.e. suicide or surrender, or forcibly taken i.e. murder or the inducement of death). A person minus its corresponding capacities is nothing more than the void, or in the case of a kenotic Christ, human entièrement. But this obviously conflicts with the anhypostatic formula, since there is no subsistence apart from union with the λογος. In other words, a kenotic understanding of Christ cannot co-exist (whether this means a Christ sans divine nature or power) concurrently with an anhypostatic one unless one is willing to empty the notion of hypostasis of any meaning. This is obviously not a possibility within the orthodox paradigm.