Once again. Nothing at all ever changes in its essential nature. That's what it means for it to be an essential nature.
Alan actually stumbled onto this fact about 2:30 in. He points out that God's changing His mind isn't a change just like it isn't for any person.
The problem is that the Immutability of God is supposed to be something that is special about God. We're not saying something that is just like any person.
Oddly enough, Alan moved to a subject that was a baby step toward the truth in the comments that immediately followed. He spoke of the fixed disposition of God that does not change. But if people change, that fixed disposition may appear different to them.
This is the correct way to go as far as I can tell. To say something special about God we have to say that all change, essential and accidental, that God appears to undergo is only appearance. What is really happening is that the world is changing and different fixed features of God are revealed to its inhabitants because they have changed so that they can see them.
The analogy I would use is to say that if you are traveling on a train and looking out the window, you might comment on how the landscape is changing. But the landscape isn't changing at all. You are changing.
God doesn't change at all. Neither in His essence (of course) nor in His accidents. How could He? He is not a being in time as we are. He freely created time from nothing.
"God's accidents" is another way of referring to His free choices, including the creation of time. His accidents, His free choices, do not change. We will not see all of His free choices, and even the few we do see will not be seen in a single glance. We must move and change in time to see them, though they were made once for all eternity.
As for the incarnation, the teeth of this challenge isn't even that it's an attack on Immutability. It's that it's an attack on the very coherency of Christian dogma. The challenge is best seen as pointing out that God changed His nature when He took on human nature. If such really is the case, if there is a time when God does not have human nature and a time when he does, if God simply put on human nature like SCUBA gear, then He has undergone essential change and yet survived it. But that's a contradiction.
The answer is to say that His assumption of human nature is from all eternity. There was never a time when He didn't have it. There was a time (before the incarnation) when it wasn't fully revealed to us.
The answer is to say that His assumption of human nature is from all eternity. There was never a time when He didn't have it. There was a time (before the incarnation) when it wasn't fully revealed to us.
Human nature is not Divine nature and is created by God and thus not eternal or a part of God. God cannot change from Divine into a human or meld with humanity and remain unchanged. But He can indwell or take on human nature as in the case of the Messiah, where the Word (God) became (Greek=took) flesh and dwelt among us. This by eternal decree apart from change.
Human nature, like Unicorn nature, Square nature, and every abstract entity, certainly is eternal and part of God.
That the second person of the Trinity exemplifies Human nature is also an eternal fact based on God's freely taking on Human nature. Like all facts about God, they prevail independent of time.
If the "Human Nature" is Eternal with God it becomes the Divine Nature, only God is eternal. This would leave Christ with only one nature, the Divine.
The Older Theologians spoke of "Hypostatic Union" where the Divine Nature attached to Human nature. Like gluing two boards together, neither convey its intrinsic properties to the other.
Human nature is not the Divine nature because everything is what it is and not something else.
Human nature is freely assumed by the second Person of the Godhead from all eternity.
That does not make human nature identical to the Divine Nature. Indeed the fact that it is freely assumed means that is cannot possibly be identical to the Divine Nature.
The communication of attributes is part of the standard doctrine of the incarnation. The two boards analogy could easily devolve into Nestorianism. The two natures, it would seem, could come apart.
A better analogy is the red-hot iron poker. The heat is one thing, and remains what it is...the heat doesn't replace the iron. The iron is another thing, and remains what it is..the iron doesn't replace the heat. The result is a red-hot iron poker that does everything it does as both iron and red-hot. At the same time, this whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. There is no third thing hot-iron separate from the heat and the iron.
Well, for one thing, I think sweet reason compels much of what I'm saying.
God created time. (Basic Premise)
So, God is not a being to which time predicates can apply. (1)
So, there cannot be any time when the Second Person of the Godhead really lacked a human nature (or any property) and another time when He had it. (2)
So, either the Second Person of the Godhead has a human nature for all time, or He never has one at all. (3)
The Second Person of the Godhead does have a human nature. (Basic Premise)
So, the Second Person of the Godhead has a human nature for all time. (4, 5)
Also, The Second Person of the Godhead might not have had a human nature. (4)
So, if the Second Person of the Godhead has a human nature, He freely chose to have this nature. (7)
So, the Second Person of the Godhead has a human nature for all time, and He freely chose to have this nature. (6, 8)
As for the communication of the attributes, how are you going to say that God suffered and took my sins upon Himself, if you don't have the Divine Nature in Christ working with the human nature? The human nature clearly suffered, but how is that God suffering in my place, if God also does not suffer (in His Second Person)?
Now, I think these ideas are also Biblical. That God created time is a consequence of the fact that He created everything. That God suffered fo us in the person of Christ is also amply supported by Scripture. Etc.
In consequence of this, the notion of the two natures in Christ with the communication of the attributes is a very old doctrine that began to be articulated early on in church History (about AD 100) by Ignatius of Antioch (a student of John).
By the 5th century it was pretty well hardened. The Council of Chalcedon in particular condemned the heresy of Eutychianism (the view that there are not two natures, God and Man, in Christ, but one nature God-Man). This was an overreaction to Nestorianism (which is essentially the denial of the communication of the attributes) a heresy that was already condemned by the time Eutyches went too far the other way.
The immutable shape of final reality, of God, brings us to the hypostases, to form, to intelligibility, to the stuff of virtual amid actual, to something triune, and unavoidably into God’s freedom and God’s Simplicity. A peculiar Self/Other arises even as a peculiar Singularity, a Oneness, arises, and whether such is by the act of embrace or by the essence of embrace finds the ends of reason landing in three hypostases. E. Feser offers a goal directed series beginning with PART ONE leading into PART TWO which ends then with PART THREE. From there the question of the rational intelligibility of Trinity carries us then into the contours of Divine Freedom even as Divine Simplicity is then carried further along. C.S. Lewis was correct: there are only three valid candidates for what some may call the matrix but what others may call the final causal shape (as it were) of final reality: those three being Materialism, which is dead, Pantheism, which breaks down not only for a handful of reasons paralleled in previous links but also for these reasons too, and, then, the triune ends of the hypostases, that is to say, Christianity, wherein the triune topography of actuality's form and essence - and let us add of love's necessary Self/Other/Us there in the ceaseless reciprocity of the immutable love of the Necessary Being - as reason carries us into the lap of God.
The afore mentioned immutable shape of final reality houses the explanation as to why it is the case that the Christian tells the world that, should one wish to know, spy, perceive all lines not only within our own actual painful privation but also there in all potential mutable and contingent vectors – and not only in these but also there in the Immutable end of Actuality wherein the Changeless awaits – that it is the case that both the fullest expression of all Possibility and the express Image of all Actuality is, are, perceived by looking upon, at, into, *Christ*.
"Because the human nature was assumed by Christ without a human personality."
I don't know what this means. Humans are, by nature, personal. How could a being have a human nature without a human personality?
I might add that the Athanasian creed is pretty clear here. There is one person, Christ, who is fully God and fully man. The statement above seems to say that there is only a divine person, and non-personal human nature.
"Q. 14. Had our Redeemer always a true body and a reasonable soul, subsisting in his divine person?
A. No; until he came in the fullness of time, and then took to himself a true body and a reasonable soul."
This implies that our Redeemer is time dependent. He was one thing until the fulness of time, but something else after that. What He is depends on what time it is.
Unless, of course, what they mean is that the human nature that the Second Person of the Godhead freely assumed from eternity (and is, therefore, His for all times) was only revealed to us in the fullness of time.
"The Westminster Assembly spent well over 10 years hashing this out."
The Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorianism in 431, the Council of Chalcedon remedied the Eutychian over-correction to Nestorianism in 451.
So I guess they took 20 years to hammer out the standard position. (Of course, this was all really already present in Scripture.)
@Wl, You're not in good company. Here's Herman Bavinck on Nestorius and Eutyches;
Nestorius concluded that if there were two natures in Christ, there also had to be two persons, two selves, which could only be made one by some moral tie such as that which obtains in the marriage of a man and a woman.
And Eutyches, proceeding from a like identification of person and nature, came to the conclusion that if in Christ there was but one person, one self, present, then the [preexisting] two natures had to be so mingled and welded together that only one nature, a Divine-human one, would emerge from the blending. In Nestorius the distinction of the natures was maintained at the cost of the unity of the person; in Eutyches the unity of the person was maintained at the cost of the duality of the natures.
Nestorius concluded that if there were two natures in Christ, there also had to be two persons, two selves, which could only be made one by some moral tie such as that which obtains in the marriage of a man and a woman.
Sort of like two boards glued together....
In Nestorius the distinction of the natures was maintained at the cost of the unity of the person; in Eutyches the unity of the person was maintained at the cost of the duality of the natures.
And in the 'Westminster Divines', the human nature is, essentially, denied.
I like my company fine, since I'm in the company of the vast mass of Christians throughout history who affirm the Apostles', Nicene and Athanasian Creeds.
On the standard view (my view), there is one Person, One Christ that is fully God and fully man.
If human nature is created, how can it be eternal, especially as a part of God who has no parts?
Why shouldn't human nature be eternal? Why should all created things be in time? God could have created a world in which time does not exist. Had He done so, everything would be eternal.
And God can exemplify human nature because He chooses to do so.
@Wl; you say "And in the 'Westminster Divines', the human nature is, essentially, denied."
Not true. You still wind up having two Sons and two persons. This is not in line with any historic creed.
Says Norman L. Geisler. (n.d.). Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics.
"One of the better explanations of what Christians believe, though it doesn’t go far toward explaining it, is found in one of the sixteenth-century Reformation statements of faith, the Belgic Confession, chapter 19:"
"We believe that by this conception [of two natures], the person of the Son is inseparably united and connected with the human nature; so that there are not two Sons of God, nor two persons,
but two natures united in one single person; yet each nature retains its own distinct properties.
As, then, the divine nature has always remained uncreated, without beginning of days or end of life, filling heaven and earth, so also has the human nature not lost its properties but remained a creature, having beginning of days, being a finite nature, and retaining all the properties of a real body . . . . But these two natures are so closely united in one person that they were not separated even by his death. . . . Wherefore we confess that he is very God and very man : very God by His power to conquer death; and very man that He might die for us according to the infirmity of His flesh."
again, this represents them all...
Norman L. Geisler. (n.d.). Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics.
I've been following along the posts here and in the original post challenge but hadn't found time to contribute thoughtfully. Here recently when WL and dave have begun to dissect the incarnation.
FWIW, I have not spent any serious time inquiring into the doctrine of Christ as it relates to immutabiility, but if time permits me, I will participate.
My suspicion is that WL and dave are speaking past each other in some way. Most likely the issue of time as a property is involved. Anyway, I think it best to see the scripture references that the WCF uses regarding Chapter VIII "Of Christ the Mediator".
So as to not go too long, here initially is why the Westminster Divines speak of a time when the Son assumed human nature. Here is paragraph II: [the numbers reference the scripture proofs]
"II. The Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon Him man's nature,[10] with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin;[11] being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance.[12] So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion.[13] Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man.[14]"
Now, here are the scripture proofs that are numbered accordiingly
"[10] JOH 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. 1JO 5:20 And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. PHI 2:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. GAL 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.
[11] HEB 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. 16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. 17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
[12] LUK 1:27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. 31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. 35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. GAL 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.
[13] LUK 1:35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. COL 2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. ROM 9:5 Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. 1PE 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit. 1TI 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
[14] ROM 1:3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. ROM 1:4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. 1TI 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."
Now, this is KJV but I think we can wade through why the WCF seems to argue that there was a time when the Divine Son took on human flesh.
"Q. 9. What is the reason that the assumption of the human nature made no change in the divine person of the Son?
A. Because the human nature was assumed by Christ without a human personality."
WL response:
"I don't know what this means. Humans are, by nature, personal. How could a being have a human nature without a human personality?"
Hi WL, what do you make of the idea that Mary was the theotokos...the God bearer? The reason I respond with this question is to see how to make sense out of your question to hopefully give an answer.
Hi WL, I see from "The Epitome of the Formula of Concord" an answer to my question from Chapter 8 [The Person of Christ] in response to my question [which I think you'll agree with]...this is #12, affirmative theses 7:
" Hence we believe, teach, and confess that Mary conceived and bore not a mere man and no more, but the true Son of God; therefore she also is rightly called and truly is the mother of God."
Bold to emphasize the affirmation.
I also see something of interest in response #8, which is the number 4 affirmative theses
"4. The properties of the human nature are: to be a corporeal creature, to be flesh and blood, to be finite and circumscribed, to suffer, to die, to ascend and descend, to move from one place to another, to suffer hunger, thirst, cold, heat, and the like; which never become properties of the divine nature."
Seems to be saying here that before the incarnation, there was no union of human nature with the divine...what do you make of this?
BTW, I dont understand the Reformed to be guilty of the charges made against Calvins theological formula here. The Reformed do not teach that a mere name only unity...the hypostasis is as important to the divine as it is the human in our understanding. I know you aren't making the charge here but the Lutheran theologians who wrote this seem to be.
BTW, my particular PCA church has used and understood the "sword in the fire" analogy to be an apt analogy of the interaction of the natures. As I'm sure you'll agree this doesn't run afoul of Chalcedonian or Athenasian creeds nor the Council of Ephesus.
As an aside, the Eastern Church emphasises something they call "divine energies" which is a doctrine illumined of by use of the analogy of the sword in the fire also.
Interesting. I think the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity as presented by Dolezal helps understand (insofar as I can grasp it) the immutability of God. (God Without Parts; James Dolezal)
Q. 9. What is the reason that the assumption of the human nature made no change in the divine person of the Son?
A. Because the human nature was assumed by Christ without a human personality.
My response: This is simply the denial of a human nature in Christ.
Here is my reasoning (this isn't new, I'm just saying what I've already said, but taking a different tack):
Just imagine a human being, but with no personality.
Is it human?
Quite obviously not.
In fact, I don't think I can imagine a better definition of "zombie" than that one.
So this claim is saying that Christ was the God-zombie.
This reasoning is what prompted my claim that:
And in the 'Westminster Divines', the human nature is, essentially, denied.
To this, Dave, you offer the following unassailable counter-argument:
Not true.
Oh!!! If only I had known! Well, I guess I give up now.
No...wait. That's no counter-argument at all.
Do you actually have a counter-argument Dave? Or will it be more quotations from theologians?
You recognize, I hope, that for every theologian who expresses the opinion God's taking on a zombie nature is really the same thing as His taking on a human nature, it would be possible to find a theologian who expresses the opposite opinion.
What I'd like to know, as a Christian who likes to think for himself, is why I should adopt such a strange belief.
Now, I suspect that when you get into the details, the position of the 'Westminster Divines' will not work out to be quite so strange as they seem on the surface. They do not think, really, that Christ is the God-zombie, in spite of what the answer to the question above seems to imply. That's usually how stuff like this goes.
But "Not true" is not very helpful in getting us to see this.
Moving on, Dave, you immediately follow up your "Not true" counter-argument with this:
You still wind up having two Sons and two persons. This is not in line with any historic creed.
Now, this remark isn't something that supports your "Not true" counter-argument. It simply changes the subject from a discussion of what the 'Westminster Divines' thought about the Hypostatic Union to an accusation about what I think about it.
So the follow up remark really has nothing to do with my criticism of the position of the 'Westminster Divines'.
OK, but is the accusation against my view...that I have two Sons and two persons...correct?
Well, I suppose I could take a leaf out of your book, Dave, and simply say "Not true."
But I think I'll do a little more here, and point out that I've never said this but have repeatedly said that there is one Person, Christ who is fully God and fully man. So I'm not sure where you are getting this. Made it up out of desperation as far as I can tell.
I mean, I'm really finding this hard to understand. It's like I've said "X" ten times, and then you say that the problem is that WL believes "not-X".
Now, I make no bones about the fact that I hold a Lutheran position on this. One thing Lutherans have never been accused of is Nestorianism...the view that Christ is really two persons, one Divine and one human, acting in concert. If anything the accusations have gone the other way, that we tend to associate unify the person of Christ so thoroughly that we confuse the natures. This is also not correct, but it shows just how wide of the mark your counter-accusation is.
What is it that I've said that could possibly lead us to a two persons view of the Incarnation?
Is it that I've said that human nature is assumed by the Second Person of the Trinity from all eternity?
If anything, that would tend to confuse the natures in a single person, rather than giving us two persons. (It doesn't make that mistake either, but it seems like if you were going to go wrong here, that's the way you would go wrong...not by saying there are two persons.)
So that can't be it.
Is it that I offered the analogy of the red-hot poker, where the nature of heat and the nature of iron co-exist in the one poker? The divine nature is like the heat and the human nature is like the iron. The heat doesn't become like the iron in the heating (except insofar as, like the red-hot poker, it is hot), but the iron itself does become like the heat.
Is that it?
No, it can't be that, there is, after all, still only one poker.
Is it that I said that the Second Person of the Godhead takes on the human nature freely?
Well, on that, notice for starters that if it isn't free, then the assumed nature is just part of the Divine Nature already...whether assumed at a certain time or from all eternity...it was always there in God's Nature that the Second Person would also assume human nature.
The reasoning here is, at bottom, that if A entails B, and B entails C, then A entails C. If God's Divine Nature entails that he assumes human nature, and God's assuming human nature entails, for example, that God has the ability to be tempted, then God's Divine Nature entails that God has the ability to be tempted.
And so, if God the Second Person of the Godhead did not freely assume the human nature, then we've thoroughly confused the Divine Nature and the assumed human nature.
So it looks like we're bound to say that God's assumption of human nature was freely chosen. But does that lead to the opposite problem, where we have two persons instead of one? It's hard to see how.
Indeed, Dave, it was you who offered the Nestorian analogy of the two-boards glued together. I even registered my misgivings of the analogy right away.
You quoted the Epitome of the Formula of Concord for me regarding Mary:
Hence we believe, teach, and confess that Mary conceived and bore not a mere man and no more, but the true Son of God; therefore she also is rightly called and truly is the mother of God.
What this tells me is that Lutheran's are not adoptionists. Jesus was not a mere man, and then all at once the Second Person of the Godhead possessed Him.
What Mary bore was a child that was always fully God and fully Man. Thus she is the Mother of God.
On this passage
The properties of the human nature are: to be a corporeal creature, to be flesh and blood, to be finite and circumscribed, to suffer, to die, to ascend and descend, to move from one place to another, to suffer hunger, thirst, cold, heat, and the like; which never become properties of the divine nature.
You ask this follow up
Seems to be saying here that before the incarnation, there was no union of human nature with the divine...what do you make of this?
I'm not sure how you get that from this passage.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that plenty of Lutherans (and plenty of Christians too) do not fully embrace the idea of God's timelessness. I don't think they appreciate how it simply follows from the fact that God is the Creator.
So a lot of Christians have that blind-spot. Such Christians may well believe, in consequence, that it's cool to say that God had no human nature before a given time, but had a human nature after.
OK.
But I don't see how you get that from the passage above.
What the passage above seems to be saying is that the Divine Nature was not changed by taking on a human nature. For example, the fact that humans are finite, did not make it so that God is, by His Divine Nature, finite.
To see that God's timelessness is not being addressed here. Suppose that this answer were addressing a problem that is supposed to arise because we say that for all times God has a human nature (in the Second Person).
OK then what?
Is it OK if God was unlimited in power, knowledge, wisdom and understanding up to the Incarnation, but not so at all times after?
Is it OK if God was was unlimited in power, knowledge, wisdom and understanding up to the Incarnation, but not so for the next 35-45 years after, and then returned to being unlimited in power, knowledge, wisdom and understanding (after, say, the Resurrection or the Ascension)?
No. Neither of those scenarios is OK.
If God went from being Omnipotent, for example, to being weak. It's not just that he'd now be a weak God (who would perhaps return to being an omnipotent God). It's that He wouldn't now be, nor would he ever have been God at all.
But, you may well object, God doesn't lose His Omnipotence by taking on human nature, in spite of the fact that human nature includes weakness. So He will not be limited in power after the Incarnation, not for all times, not even for 35-45 years.
And I agree. God doesn't lose His Omnipotence by taking on human nature, in spite of the fact that human nature includes weakness. Not even if He takes on human nature for all eternity.
The problem being addressed in the passage above was never some issue about time. It is a question of how to look at what God does by assuming human nature, what bearing, if any, does the assumed human nature have on the Divine nature.
The disagreement between Lutherans and Calvinists is that Lutherans believe that Christ's humanity does not lock Him to any place and time. In particular His body can, because of the union of human nature and Divine Nature in the Person of Christ, be really present in each and every communion wafer on each and every altar in Christendom. Calvinists believe that His body is at the right hand of God, and thus cannot be elsewhere.
@Wl; It seems we migrated from some of your ideas where you reply; "Well, for one thing, I think sweet reason compels much of what I'm saying", to the old Calvinist Lutheran debate which is an entirely different topic. Hasn't this already been taken apart by far greater minds than ours?
Hi WL, for me so far this is still fact finding so I ask another question. In the same sense that God has always had human nature, did He also know first hand suffering on the cross as felt by human limitations? Did He know resisting temptation even to great drops of blood sweating out of His skin?
BTW, the Reformed I know do not take the answer to Q9 the way you are. The point of the answer is to make the clear point that He didn't just take over or somehow subsume another persons physical nature.
[As I think about it, FWIW in probable support:
At the point of conception, the mother supplied the egg...God supplied the necessary human dna. Again human dna.]
One other question plagues me with what you have said: Who was Joshua speaking to when he asked "are you for us or against us?" and that Person said "take off your sandals from off your feet for the place you are standing is holy". Did Adam pre-exist his mother?
Hi WL, I went back to finish reading your previous post. I now see purpose in the reasoning and that helps me digest this more systematically...I probably wont have to ask a lot of questions further on.
"The disagreement between Lutherans and Calvinists is that Lutherans believe that Christ's humanity does not lock Him to any place and time. In particular His body can, because of the union of human nature and Divine Nature in the Person of Christ, be really present in each and every communion wafer on each and every altar in Christendom. Calvinists believe that His body is at the right hand of God, and thus cannot be elsewhere."
Thanks for that.
To dave, WL hasn't migrated at all, he cut to the core of the reasoning that supports or allows foundations for the Lutheran doctrine of the Supper.
WL originally said "The answer is to say that His assumption of human nature is from all eternity. There was never a time when He didn't have it. There was a time (before the incarnation) when it wasn't fully revealed to us."
Hi WL, it seems that your point 3 will be the debate focus point. My first question will be are you using the word time in the same sense in 1,2, and 3...and in the same relationship to God. If so, this Son of Mary got His flesh and blood prior to His own mother in time. Maybe you dont have a problem with that, but that doesnt matter at this time I just want to gain understanding here.
BTW, I am assuming we all agree with the Chalcedonian Creed? I do.
"We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.
It should also be noted that a sinless man demonstrated mastery over the physical creation...so I dont a priori limit human nature to what we all experience now in the fallen state...I dont think we should assume any particular supernatural event that Jesus presided over on earth was alien to human nature.
IOW when discussing whether human nature and Divine natue in hypostatic union can or cant do this or that, we should consider our own limitations may not apply to our Redeemer and His humanity.
Thanks for your interest in this. The Chalcedonian Creed is a good starting point. It's possible that a deeper understanding of the same issues might be found in some newer creeds.
" Like all facts about God, they prevail independent of time."
What do you make of Greg's notions about how God participates in time? You know, the "Can God count?" question. Do you see God as temporal as Greg admits he does?
In the same sense that God has always had human nature, did He also know first hand suffering on the cross as felt by human limitations? Did He know resisting temptation even to great drops of blood sweating out of His skin?
I would think that that was the entire point of His assuming human nature. Was to know all of our sufferings first-hand. The cross didn't diminish his Godhood. It was an expression of it. Most obviously in this case, His Compassion and Omniscience.
The point of the answer is to make the clear point that He didn't just take over or somehow subsume another persons physical nature.
As I said before stuff like this usually works out that way. When you look down into the details the strange belief they seem to be expressing isn't quite so strange as it might seem. In an effort to say that Jesus was not a ghost possessing another person's body, they perhaps overstated the case a bit so that it sounds like he is possessing a zombie's body. As long as we recognize this, and do not try to apply the answer to cases it was not meant to apply to, then we're fine.
So, for example, when I say Christ took on the fullness of humanity, if you say "No, because he didn't take on a human personality." You are mis-applying that response. But, for example, if you are critiquing adoptionism, well...the case may be different.
Though in truth, I still don't think I would say that Jesus didn't have human personality. I would say instead that there is one person, Christ, who was (always) both a human person and the Divine Second Person of the Godhead.
Who was Joshua speaking to when he asked "are you for us or against us?" and that Person said "take off your sandals from off your feet for the place you are standing is holy".
I think the text itself identifies the speaker by the time you get to Joshua 6:2. The speaker is YHWH Himself. As is so often the case (always the case?), when we see the Angel of the LORD in the OT, the 'theophanic angel' we're seeing Jesus.
I'm not sure why this question
Did the Second Adam pre-exist his mother in time?
I don't know about "pre-" and "in time". But certainly the second person of the Godhead exists in eternity. Let us suppose that Heli (Mary's father) and his wife were discussing Messianic issues before Mary had even been conceived, and Heli had had a vision at that moment and prophesied: "The Angel of the LORD spoken of in days of old has even now taken on human nature for our sake." In that case, Heli would be speaking the truth.
it seems that your point 3 will be the debate focus point. My first question will be are you using the word time in the same sense in 1,2, and 3...and in the same relationship to God. If so, this Son of Mary got His flesh and blood prior to His own mother in time.
Since that point is derived from earlier points, we'd do better to focus on the earlier points. Is the inference that got me from 1 and 2 to 3 valid. Is the basic premise involved in that inference (1) true?
I gather from your question about time that you suspect a misstep in the inference.
I use time in the same sense throughout. I don't believe there is any such thing as a real A-series of time. Of course, each of us, at each moment, has a psychological state that suggests an A-series at that moment. And, I suppose, we all speak a common language, so that may well lead to a rational construct that we re-create at each moment that we may call an A-series.
But I don't think there is any such thing as a real "now" that really moves and establishes the objective present.
What time is is the B-series: an ordering of events (some of which are the mental events that lead to the construction of an A-series of time).
As for Jesus having a body before He was born...If the Lord of Years has no problem with it, neither do I. I might note that I resolve the ambiguity in Revelation 13:8 contrary to the NASB, but in keeping with the KJV. The Book mentioned there, in which names are written (or not), is the Book of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. It's not that the names were written before the foundation of the world in the Book of the Lamb slain. I think this is a rare case where the NASB translators decided to 'help God out' in what He was saying.
If the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, He must have had a body.
2. I agree with this remark wholeheartedly, and I think it helps to allay some of the difficulties many may have with the unity of the Person of Christ
IOW when discussing whether human nature and Divine natue in hypostatic union can or cant do this or that, we should consider our own limitations may not apply to our Redeemer and His humanity.
Thanks for the link, WL. I will look into the two views further when I have opportunity.
I did a quick search of the phrase foundation of the world ...the Rev 13:8 reference is going to carry with it significant force to bear in reasoning through this. The other references where the phrase is used are helpful reads worth more investigation.
What do you make of Greg's notions about how God participates in time? You know, the "Can God count?" question. Do you see God as temporal as Greg admits he does?
I think it should be apparent that, if Greg thinks God can be temporal in the sense of God having real temporal properties that apply to Him, then I do not agree with Greg. It is not possible for the Creator of Time to be temporal in that sense.
God can, of course, have relationships with temporal beings.
As for God's ability to count. Let's consider what that means. What exactly is counting? Do you mean the temporal process I go through by saying a number and then adding one to it to get its successor?
God can add one to any number. He, in fact, does so. It takes no time at all for Him though.
You are asking whether God counts like you would, in an imperfect way where you do not know what the next number is, for a split second, and then you add one and you know.
When we speak of Possibility, of Potentiality, and of Actuality, we find in God the language of sheer Actuality such that it is possible to (falsely) equate motion in God – in sheer Actuality – with temporal-becoming, that is to say, with change. But motion, void of first, void of last, within Being, within Self/Other, within Unity, amid ceaseless reciprocity ~ Trinity ~ finds otherwise. Motion here is not stasis and fails to grant temporal-becoming’s definition of unchanged which is, as all such tensed definitions are, defined from the perspective of the reality of contingent contours inside of motion. Such contours we cannot find in God even as we find Motion amid all that can be called Possibility, Conceivability, Actuality. Possibility lies proximal in Him, an ontic-hard-stop even as the Actualized lies distal beneath Him equally an ontic-hard-stop as all by Him - in Him - of Him - from Him - derive what form they ever can have. Indeed, abstractions known fully to Him and yet unimaginable / unimagined by us are found in Him and this not in Platonism’s sense but rather in the Trinitarian sense wherein the casual contours amid Knower/Known find simplicity’s seamlessness. Can a tensed-being such as Man declare himself wider than that timeless Being, than Being’s font? Not at all. In fact, the landscape of temporal-becoming runs into the following nuances as we pursue all lines back to timelessness: “Furthermore, what “allows us to speak the language of causes and effects” has nothing essentially to do with tracing series of events backwards in time. Here again Carroll is just begging the question. On the Aristotelian-Scholastic analysis, questions about causation are raised wherever we have potentialities that need actualization, or a thing’s being metaphysically composite and thus in need of a principle that accounts for the composition of its parts, or there being a distinction in a thing between its essence or nature on the one and its existence on the other, or a thing’s being contingent. The universe, however physics and scientific cosmology end up describing it -- even if it turned out to be a universe without a temporal beginning, even if it is a four-dimensional block universe, even if Hawking’s closed universe model turned out to be correct, even if we should really think in terms of a multiverse rather than a single universe -- will, the Aristotelian argues, necessarily exhibit just these features (potentialities needing actualization, composition, contingency, etc.). And thus it will, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, require a cause outside it. And only that which is pure actuality devoid of potentiality, only what is utterly simple or non-composite, only something whose essence or nature just is existence itself, only what is therefore in no way contingent but utterly necessary -- only that, the classical theist maintains, could in principle be the ultimate terminus of explanation, whatever the specific scientific details turn out to be.”
This discussion is both great and hard; yet hard in a way that brings good thinking and a smile. Thank-you all !
from WL - "If the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, He must have had a body."
1. I have always taken the “slain before the foundation” part to mean God has always known the plan of redemption. Though the physical act had not yet taken place, nothing was / could stop its fulfillment; hence before the world was even created He was slain.
2. If Christ always had a body, this would imply He either got a “new” one as a baby growing in Mary’s womb (she did have a normal pregnancy), or His ‘always existing’ body had to be “deconstructed” to be regrown on the inside. This strikes me as too odd.
If Christ always had a body, this would imply He either got a “new” one as a baby growing in Mary’s womb (she did have a normal pregnancy), or His ‘always existing’ body had to be “deconstructed” to be regrown on the inside. This strikes me as too odd.
Once again, what we see in time is the revelation of eternal truth.
The eternal truth of God is a body for Christ that is at once baby, crucified and glorified. The various aspects of this eternal truth are revealed at different points in time.
Hi RobertNotBob, to understand WL's point we need have to try to see the scriptures through his philosophy of Idealism. The link in his post that you quoted from has information on a philosopher named Taggert who like WL leans on Berkeleyan Idealism. I'm not very familiar with it myself so I cant say much but I have suspected that the time frame difficulties you bring up are not so odd within Idealism. If you read the A-series/B-series of time link you will get a sense of what I am trying to convey. WL will speak for himself, I'm sure.
Thanks for the link and quote scbrownlhrm, although we are particularly talking about the God-man. For us creatures to understand the realm or habitation of "outside of time", your input is helpful. btw, what do you make of Idealism, if anything?
I think it's important that we know exactly what it was that Jesus did on earth as a man...the Bible makes pains to inform us and the historic creeds do also. We know that there is emphatic statements that the natures are not mixed/mingled...but distinct, unified only through the Person. One example:
Heb 4:15 "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin."
This scripture from Hebrews is obviously speaking of the Man nature, experienced by the Person, our Redeemer, Jesus.
To make the point that there is no blending of the natures, we see from James:
Jas. 1:13 "Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone."
I think we have to be careful with the James passage.
Both Job and Abraham look an awful lot like they were tempted by God. The KJV even translates the testing of Abraham as the tempting of Abraham. God looks an awful lot like He is tempted to wipe out the Israelites. But Moses convinces Him not to do so, using the argument that it would tarnish God's reputation.
I suspect that James is using the term "tempt" in chapter 1 as a 'success' term. If I were to offer you a drink, I might say "Can I tempt you with a drink?" And you might reply "Yes." and take the drink. To be tempted can mean to succumb to temptation. And I think that may be what James is saying here.
Consider James' follow-up
But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.
James actually says that to be tempted is to be carried away by your own lust, almost as if being tempted is equivalent to being sexually seduced and impregnated, so that sin and death are conceived in you and born from it.
Suffice it to say that Jesus, neither in His human nature, nor in His Divine Nature, was tempted in that way.
The reason Eutychianism is such an attractive error is that in the person of Christ both human nature and Divine Nature work together in all things. The heat in the red-hot sword doesn't go a different direction than the iron.
I think your best Scriptural argument against Eutychianism rests on those passages where God's assumption of human nature is seen as a free choice of God. He didn't have to take on human nature. He did it freely for our sake. Thus human and Divine Natures are not bound together in a single God-Man nature, but in the person of Christ.
“…….. to understand WL's point we need have to try to see the scriptures through his philosophy of Idealism…….”
On matters of mind-dependence, and of mind-independence, and so on, the depths of which are both interesting and ultimately relevant, there may (perhaps) be points of interest in the essay entitled Philosophical Idealism and Christian Theology written by James Snowden. Both links are (should be) to the same essay and are included on the off chance one of JSTOR’s links does not open. The search box of E. Feser’s blog turns up interesting reading as well.
“B-theorists argue that the flow of time is an illusion, that the past, present and future are equally real, and that time is tenseless. This would mean that temporal becoming is not an objective feature of reality” (wiki). I never really liked the A-theory / B-theory of time. I find the explanation too “convenient” or just semantics. Now that is likely related to me not really fully grasping it.
I tend to think that due to God’s omnipresence time is in a way “simultaneous” to Him. He doesn’t wait for things to happen since there is no distance between Him and everything (not in a Pantheistic sense). Time moves forward for us not as an illusion but because we do observe (from the closeness of my fingers to a star light years away) across a distance. I agree that what we see or know of God (or Christ) is that which He chooses to reveal so I guess in a sense the oddness of the order (Man before Baby) can be put to that point of revelation i.e. we only “see” the revealed portion of Christ from Mary to Crucifixion. But a baby did grow in Mary’s womb and I don’t want to think of that as illusion.
I agree Christ always had/has both a Divine Nature and human nature, but I don’t think human nature requires a human body. John 1 says “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”. To me that says Christ chose to reveal Himself to us through a fleshly existence - hence Mary to Crucifixion……
"I tend to think that due to God’s omnipresence time is in a way “simultaneous” to Him."
Hi RobertNotBob, if it is simultaneous to Him, it is in reality simultaneous. So to think about time from His perspective should not yeild any kind of incoherency so it wouldn't necessitate that the baby in Mary's womb an illusion. I admit I am not in any way settled on this but when I read your post it made me think differently about Jesus' words to the religious leaders when He said "before Abraham was, I Am." I plan to read some more on Christian Idealism. I doubt it will show itself to be an incoherent system [knowing WL's acuity in theoretical thought]
Hi WL, the James verse seems pretty clear that God Himself does not tempt anyone so I dont think I'm inclined to call what Job or Abraham went through temptation...in the sense that God prepared and upheld them both for their own day. Well, this is just 2cents...I plan to refamiliarize myself with the doctrine of divine impassibility to maybe throw in a nickle next time.
I want to go back to the quote I inserted earlier and will again here:
"4. The properties of the human nature are: to be a corporeal creature, to be flesh and blood, to be finite and circumscribed, to suffer, to die, to ascend and descend, to move from one place to another, to suffer hunger, thirst, cold, heat, and the like; which never become properties of the divine nature."
Please elaborate on how Jesus eternally has human nature...I'm thinking that finite may mean something along the lines of "contingent" but this doesn't seem to fit the formulation. Maybe "eternal" entails from creation forward?
scbrownlhrm, thank for the link I will read the article, it showed up fine form me with just a click on your link.
Why not say that Jesus timelessly, but contingently (because freely assumed), has the properties mentioned in item 4? Whereas He timelessly, but necessarily, has the properties associated with the Divine Nature?
timeless ≠ necessary
There are all sorts of properties that can be held both contingently and timelessly. A really simple example is that the truth-value of every proposition is a timelessly held property of that proposition. But if the proposition itself is contingent, then it only holds that property contingently.
Once again. Nothing at all ever changes in its essential nature. That's what it means for it to be an essential nature.
Alan actually stumbled onto this fact about 2:30 in. He points out that God's changing His mind isn't a change just like it isn't for any person.
The problem is that the Immutability of God is supposed to be something that is special about God. We're not saying something that is just like any person.
Oddly enough, Alan moved to a subject that was a baby step toward the truth in the comments that immediately followed. He spoke of the fixed disposition of God that does not change. But if people change, that fixed disposition may appear different to them.
This is the correct way to go as far as I can tell. To say something special about God we have to say that all change, essential and accidental, that God appears to undergo is only appearance. What is really happening is that the world is changing and different fixed features of God are revealed to its inhabitants because they have changed so that they can see them.
The analogy I would use is to say that if you are traveling on a train and looking out the window, you might comment on how the landscape is changing. But the landscape isn't changing at all. You are changing.
God doesn't change at all. Neither in His essence (of course) nor in His accidents. How could He? He is not a being in time as we are. He freely created time from nothing.
"God's accidents" is another way of referring to His free choices, including the creation of time. His accidents, His free choices, do not change. We will not see all of His free choices, and even the few we do see will not be seen in a single glance. We must move and change in time to see them, though they were made once for all eternity.
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As for the incarnation, the teeth of this challenge isn't even that it's an attack on Immutability. It's that it's an attack on the very coherency of Christian dogma. The challenge is best seen as pointing out that God changed His nature when He took on human nature. If such really is the case, if there is a time when God does not have human nature and a time when he does, if God simply put on human nature like SCUBA gear, then He has undergone essential change and yet survived it. But that's a contradiction.
The answer is to say that His assumption of human nature is from all eternity. There was never a time when He didn't have it. There was a time (before the incarnation) when it wasn't fully revealed to us.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 12, 2015 at 06:28 AM
Yes yes.
Posted by: KWM | February 13, 2015 at 09:37 AM
Human nature is not Divine nature and is created by God and thus not eternal or a part of God. God cannot change from Divine into a human or meld with humanity and remain unchanged. But He can indwell or take on human nature as in the case of the Messiah, where the Word (God) became (Greek=took) flesh and dwelt among us. This by eternal decree apart from change.
Posted by: dave | February 13, 2015 at 06:01 PM
Human nature, like Unicorn nature, Square nature, and every abstract entity, certainly is eternal and part of God.
That the second person of the Trinity exemplifies Human nature is also an eternal fact based on God's freely taking on Human nature. Like all facts about God, they prevail independent of time.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 14, 2015 at 12:34 AM
@WL,
If the "Human Nature" is Eternal with God it becomes the Divine Nature, only God is eternal. This would leave Christ with only one nature, the Divine.
The Older Theologians spoke of "Hypostatic Union" where the Divine Nature attached to Human nature. Like gluing two boards together, neither convey its intrinsic properties to the other.
Posted by: dave | February 14, 2015 at 02:06 AM
Human nature is not the Divine nature because everything is what it is and not something else.
Human nature is freely assumed by the second Person of the Godhead from all eternity.
That does not make human nature identical to the Divine Nature. Indeed the fact that it is freely assumed means that is cannot possibly be identical to the Divine Nature.
The communication of attributes is part of the standard doctrine of the incarnation. The two boards analogy could easily devolve into Nestorianism. The two natures, it would seem, could come apart.
A better analogy is the red-hot iron poker. The heat is one thing, and remains what it is...the heat doesn't replace the iron. The iron is another thing, and remains what it is..the iron doesn't replace the heat. The result is a red-hot iron poker that does everything it does as both iron and red-hot. At the same time, this whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. There is no third thing hot-iron separate from the heat and the iron.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 14, 2015 at 09:36 AM
@WL,
Do you have any references for your position, church councils, creeds, etc?
Posted by: dave | February 14, 2015 at 09:56 AM
Well, for one thing, I think sweet reason compels much of what I'm saying.
- God created time. (Basic Premise)
- So, God is not a being to which time predicates can apply. (1)
- So, there cannot be any time when the Second Person of the Godhead really lacked a human nature (or any property) and another time when He had it. (2)
- So, either the Second Person of the Godhead has a human nature for all time, or He never has one at all. (3)
- The Second Person of the Godhead does have a human nature. (Basic Premise)
- So, the Second Person of the Godhead has a human nature for all time. (4, 5)
- Also, The Second Person of the Godhead might not have had a human nature. (4)
- So, if the Second Person of the Godhead has a human nature, He freely chose to have this nature. (7)
- So, the Second Person of the Godhead has a human nature for all time, and He freely chose to have this nature. (6, 8)
As for the communication of the attributes, how are you going to say that God suffered and took my sins upon Himself, if you don't have the Divine Nature in Christ working with the human nature? The human nature clearly suffered, but how is that God suffering in my place, if God also does not suffer (in His Second Person)?Now, I think these ideas are also Biblical. That God created time is a consequence of the fact that He created everything. That God suffered fo us in the person of Christ is also amply supported by Scripture. Etc.
In consequence of this, the notion of the two natures in Christ with the communication of the attributes is a very old doctrine that began to be articulated early on in church History (about AD 100) by Ignatius of Antioch (a student of John).
By the 5th century it was pretty well hardened. The Council of Chalcedon in particular condemned the heresy of Eutychianism (the view that there are not two natures, God and Man, in Christ, but one nature God-Man). This was an overreaction to Nestorianism (which is essentially the denial of the communication of the attributes) a heresy that was already condemned by the time Eutyches went too far the other way.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 14, 2015 at 04:14 PM
@WL,
Interesting..
The Westminster Divines arrived at this position;(The
Shorter Catechism Explained)
Q. 14. Had our Redeemer always a true body and a reasonable soul, subsisting in his divine person?
A. No; until he came in the fullness of time, and then took to himself a true body and a reasonable soul.
Earlier they say;
Q. 9. What is the reason that the assumption of the human nature made no change in the divine person of the Son?
A. Because the human nature was assumed by Christ without a human personality.
The Westminster Assembly spent well over 10 years hashing this out.
Posted by: dave | February 14, 2015 at 05:01 PM
The immutable shape of final reality, of God, brings us to the hypostases, to form, to intelligibility, to the stuff of virtual amid actual, to something triune, and unavoidably into God’s freedom and God’s Simplicity. A peculiar Self/Other arises even as a peculiar Singularity, a Oneness, arises, and whether such is by the act of embrace or by the essence of embrace finds the ends of reason landing in three hypostases. E. Feser offers a goal directed series beginning with PART ONE leading into PART TWO which ends then with PART THREE. From there the question of the rational intelligibility of Trinity carries us then into the contours of Divine Freedom even as Divine Simplicity is then carried further along. C.S. Lewis was correct: there are only three valid candidates for what some may call the matrix but what others may call the final causal shape (as it were) of final reality: those three being Materialism, which is dead, Pantheism, which breaks down not only for a handful of reasons paralleled in previous links but also for these reasons too, and, then, the triune ends of the hypostases, that is to say, Christianity, wherein the triune topography of actuality's form and essence - and let us add of love's necessary Self/Other/Us there in the ceaseless reciprocity of the immutable love of the Necessary Being - as reason carries us into the lap of God.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | February 15, 2015 at 03:06 AM
The afore mentioned immutable shape of final reality houses the explanation as to why it is the case that the Christian tells the world that, should one wish to know, spy, perceive all lines not only within our own actual painful privation but also there in all potential mutable and contingent vectors – and not only in these but also there in the Immutable end of Actuality wherein the Changeless awaits – that it is the case that both the fullest expression of all Possibility and the express Image of all Actuality is, are, perceived by looking upon, at, into, *Christ*.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | February 15, 2015 at 04:17 AM
"Because the human nature was assumed by Christ without a human personality."
I don't know what this means. Humans are, by nature, personal. How could a being have a human nature without a human personality?
I might add that the Athanasian creed is pretty clear here. There is one person, Christ, who is fully God and fully man. The statement above seems to say that there is only a divine person, and non-personal human nature.
"Q. 14. Had our Redeemer always a true body and a reasonable soul, subsisting in his divine person?
A. No; until he came in the fullness of time, and then took to himself a true body and a reasonable soul."
This implies that our Redeemer is time dependent. He was one thing until the fulness of time, but something else after that. What He is depends on what time it is.
Unless, of course, what they mean is that the human nature that the Second Person of the Godhead freely assumed from eternity (and is, therefore, His for all times) was only revealed to us in the fullness of time.
"The Westminster Assembly spent well over 10 years hashing this out."
The Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorianism in 431, the Council of Chalcedon remedied the Eutychian over-correction to Nestorianism in 451.
So I guess they took 20 years to hammer out the standard position. (Of course, this was all really already present in Scripture.)
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 15, 2015 at 07:27 AM
If human nature is created, how can it be eternal, especially as a part of God who has no parts?
Why would Jesus be born of the virgin if He already had human nature?
Posted by: dave | February 15, 2015 at 11:39 AM
@Wl, You're not in good company. Here's Herman Bavinck on Nestorius and Eutyches;
Nestorius concluded that if there were two natures in Christ, there also had to be two persons, two selves, which could only be made one by some moral tie such as that which obtains in the marriage of a man and a woman.
And Eutyches, proceeding from a like identification of person and nature, came to the conclusion that if in Christ there was but one person, one self, present, then the [preexisting] two natures had to be so mingled and welded together that only one nature, a Divine-human one, would emerge from the blending. In Nestorius the distinction of the natures was maintained at the cost of the unity of the person; in Eutyches the unity of the person was maintained at the cost of the duality of the natures.
Posted by: dave | February 15, 2015 at 12:07 PM
I like my company fine, since I'm in the company of the vast mass of Christians throughout history who affirm the Apostles', Nicene and Athanasian Creeds.
On the standard view (my view), there is one Person, One Christ that is fully God and fully man.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 15, 2015 at 02:03 PM
And God can exemplify human nature because He chooses to do so.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 15, 2015 at 02:07 PM
@Wl; you say "And in the 'Westminster Divines', the human nature is, essentially, denied."
Not true. You still wind up having two Sons and two persons. This is not in line with any historic creed.
Says Norman L. Geisler. (n.d.). Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics.
"One of the better explanations of what Christians believe, though it doesn’t go far toward explaining it, is found in one of the sixteenth-century Reformation statements of faith, the Belgic Confession, chapter 19:"
"We believe that by this conception [of two natures], the person of the Son is inseparably united and connected with the human nature; so that there are not two Sons of God, nor two persons,
but two natures united in one single person; yet each nature retains its own distinct properties.
As, then, the divine nature has always remained uncreated, without beginning of days or end of life, filling heaven and earth, so also has the human nature not lost its properties but remained a creature, having beginning of days, being a finite nature, and retaining all the properties of a real body . . . . But these two natures are so closely united in one person that they were not separated even by his death. . . . Wherefore we confess that he is very God and very man : very God by His power to conquer death; and very man that He might die for us according to the infirmity of His flesh."
again, this represents them all...
Norman L. Geisler. (n.d.). Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics.
Posted by: dave | February 15, 2015 at 04:02 PM
I've been following along the posts here and in the original post challenge but hadn't found time to contribute thoughtfully. Here recently when WL and dave have begun to dissect the incarnation.
FWIW, I have not spent any serious time inquiring into the doctrine of Christ as it relates to immutabiility, but if time permits me, I will participate.
My suspicion is that WL and dave are speaking past each other in some way. Most likely the issue of time as a property is involved. Anyway, I think it best to see the scripture references that the WCF uses regarding Chapter VIII "Of Christ the Mediator".
So as to not go too long, here initially is why the Westminster Divines speak of a time when the Son assumed human nature. Here is paragraph II: [the numbers reference the scripture proofs]
Now, here are the scripture proofs that are numbered accordiingly
Now, this is KJV but I think we can wade through why the WCF seems to argue that there was a time when the Divine Son took on human flesh.
Posted by: Brad B | February 15, 2015 at 07:49 PM
From dave:
Hi WL, what do you make of the idea that Mary was the theotokos...the God bearer? The reason I respond with this question is to see how to make sense out of your question to hopefully give an answer.
Posted by: Brad B | February 15, 2015 at 10:58 PM
Hi WL, I see from "The Epitome of the Formula of Concord" an answer to my question from Chapter 8 [The Person of Christ] in response to my question [which I think you'll agree with]...this is #12, affirmative theses 7:
Bold to emphasize the affirmation.
I also see something of interest in response #8, which is the number 4 affirmative theses
Seems to be saying here that before the incarnation, there was no union of human nature with the divine...what do you make of this?
BTW, I dont understand the Reformed to be guilty of the charges made against Calvins theological formula here. The Reformed do not teach that a mere name only unity...the hypostasis is as important to the divine as it is the human in our understanding. I know you aren't making the charge here but the Lutheran theologians who wrote this seem to be.
BTW, my particular PCA church has used and understood the "sword in the fire" analogy to be an apt analogy of the interaction of the natures. As I'm sure you'll agree this doesn't run afoul of Chalcedonian or Athenasian creeds nor the Council of Ephesus.
As an aside, the Eastern Church emphasises something they call "divine energies" which is a doctrine illumined of by use of the analogy of the sword in the fire also.
Posted by: Brad B | February 15, 2015 at 11:42 PM
If anyone is interested, the citations/quoted portions above are from here.
Posted by: Brad B | February 15, 2015 at 11:50 PM
@Brad;
Interesting. I think the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity as presented by Dolezal helps understand (insofar as I can grasp it) the immutability of God. (God Without Parts; James Dolezal)
Posted by: dave | February 16, 2015 at 02:37 AM
Dave at February 14, 2015 at 05:01 PM:
My response: This is simply the denial of a human nature in Christ.Here is my reasoning (this isn't new, I'm just saying what I've already said, but taking a different tack):
This reasoning is what prompted my claim that:To this, Dave, you offer the following unassailable counter-argument:Oh!!! If only I had known! Well, I guess I give up now.No...wait. That's no counter-argument at all.
Do you actually have a counter-argument Dave? Or will it be more quotations from theologians?
You recognize, I hope, that for every theologian who expresses the opinion God's taking on a zombie nature is really the same thing as His taking on a human nature, it would be possible to find a theologian who expresses the opposite opinion.
What I'd like to know, as a Christian who likes to think for himself, is why I should adopt such a strange belief.
Now, I suspect that when you get into the details, the position of the 'Westminster Divines' will not work out to be quite so strange as they seem on the surface. They do not think, really, that Christ is the God-zombie, in spite of what the answer to the question above seems to imply. That's usually how stuff like this goes.
But "Not true" is not very helpful in getting us to see this.
Moving on, Dave, you immediately follow up your "Not true" counter-argument with this:
Now, this remark isn't something that supports your "Not true" counter-argument. It simply changes the subject from a discussion of what the 'Westminster Divines' thought about the Hypostatic Union to an accusation about what I think about it.So the follow up remark really has nothing to do with my criticism of the position of the 'Westminster Divines'.
OK, but is the accusation against my view...that I have two Sons and two persons...correct?
Well, I suppose I could take a leaf out of your book, Dave, and simply say "Not true."
But I think I'll do a little more here, and point out that I've never said this but have repeatedly said that there is one Person, Christ who is fully God and fully man. So I'm not sure where you are getting this. Made it up out of desperation as far as I can tell.
I mean, I'm really finding this hard to understand. It's like I've said "X" ten times, and then you say that the problem is that WL believes "not-X".
Now, I make no bones about the fact that I hold a Lutheran position on this. One thing Lutherans have never been accused of is Nestorianism...the view that Christ is really two persons, one Divine and one human, acting in concert. If anything the accusations have gone the other way, that we tend to associate unify the person of Christ so thoroughly that we confuse the natures. This is also not correct, but it shows just how wide of the mark your counter-accusation is.
What is it that I've said that could possibly lead us to a two persons view of the Incarnation?
Is it that I've said that human nature is assumed by the Second Person of the Trinity from all eternity?
If anything, that would tend to confuse the natures in a single person, rather than giving us two persons. (It doesn't make that mistake either, but it seems like if you were going to go wrong here, that's the way you would go wrong...not by saying there are two persons.)
So that can't be it.
Is it that I offered the analogy of the red-hot poker, where the nature of heat and the nature of iron co-exist in the one poker? The divine nature is like the heat and the human nature is like the iron. The heat doesn't become like the iron in the heating (except insofar as, like the red-hot poker, it is hot), but the iron itself does become like the heat.
Is that it?
No, it can't be that, there is, after all, still only one poker.
Is it that I said that the Second Person of the Godhead takes on the human nature freely?
Well, on that, notice for starters that if it isn't free, then the assumed nature is just part of the Divine Nature already...whether assumed at a certain time or from all eternity...it was always there in God's Nature that the Second Person would also assume human nature.
The reasoning here is, at bottom, that if A entails B, and B entails C, then A entails C. If God's Divine Nature entails that he assumes human nature, and God's assuming human nature entails, for example, that God has the ability to be tempted, then God's Divine Nature entails that God has the ability to be tempted.
And so, if God the Second Person of the Godhead did not freely assume the human nature, then we've thoroughly confused the Divine Nature and the assumed human nature.
So it looks like we're bound to say that God's assumption of human nature was freely chosen. But does that lead to the opposite problem, where we have two persons instead of one? It's hard to see how.
Indeed, Dave, it was you who offered the Nestorian analogy of the two-boards glued together. I even registered my misgivings of the analogy right away.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 16, 2015 at 05:23 AM
Brad-
You quoted the Epitome of the Formula of Concord for me regarding Mary:
What this tells me is that Lutheran's are not adoptionists. Jesus was not a mere man, and then all at once the Second Person of the Godhead possessed Him.What Mary bore was a child that was always fully God and fully Man. Thus she is the Mother of God.
On this passage
You ask this follow upI'm not sure how you get that from this passage.Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that plenty of Lutherans (and plenty of Christians too) do not fully embrace the idea of God's timelessness. I don't think they appreciate how it simply follows from the fact that God is the Creator.
So a lot of Christians have that blind-spot. Such Christians may well believe, in consequence, that it's cool to say that God had no human nature before a given time, but had a human nature after.
OK.
But I don't see how you get that from the passage above.
What the passage above seems to be saying is that the Divine Nature was not changed by taking on a human nature. For example, the fact that humans are finite, did not make it so that God is, by His Divine Nature, finite.
To see that God's timelessness is not being addressed here. Suppose that this answer were addressing a problem that is supposed to arise because we say that for all times God has a human nature (in the Second Person).
OK then what?
Is it OK if God was unlimited in power, knowledge, wisdom and understanding up to the Incarnation, but not so at all times after?
Is it OK if God was was unlimited in power, knowledge, wisdom and understanding up to the Incarnation, but not so for the next 35-45 years after, and then returned to being unlimited in power, knowledge, wisdom and understanding (after, say, the Resurrection or the Ascension)?
No. Neither of those scenarios is OK.
If God went from being Omnipotent, for example, to being weak. It's not just that he'd now be a weak God (who would perhaps return to being an omnipotent God). It's that He wouldn't now be, nor would he ever have been God at all.
But, you may well object, God doesn't lose His Omnipotence by taking on human nature, in spite of the fact that human nature includes weakness. So He will not be limited in power after the Incarnation, not for all times, not even for 35-45 years.
And I agree. God doesn't lose His Omnipotence by taking on human nature, in spite of the fact that human nature includes weakness. Not even if He takes on human nature for all eternity.
The problem being addressed in the passage above was never some issue about time. It is a question of how to look at what God does by assuming human nature, what bearing, if any, does the assumed human nature have on the Divine nature.
The disagreement between Lutherans and Calvinists is that Lutherans believe that Christ's humanity does not lock Him to any place and time. In particular His body can, because of the union of human nature and Divine Nature in the Person of Christ, be really present in each and every communion wafer on each and every altar in Christendom. Calvinists believe that His body is at the right hand of God, and thus cannot be elsewhere.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 16, 2015 at 06:23 AM
@Wl; It seems we migrated from some of your ideas where you reply; "Well, for one thing, I think sweet reason compels much of what I'm saying", to the old Calvinist Lutheran debate which is an entirely different topic. Hasn't this already been taken apart by far greater minds than ours?
Posted by: dave | February 16, 2015 at 07:06 AM
Hi WL, for me so far this is still fact finding so I ask another question. In the same sense that God has always had human nature, did He also know first hand suffering on the cross as felt by human limitations? Did He know resisting temptation even to great drops of blood sweating out of His skin?
BTW, the Reformed I know do not take the answer to Q9 the way you are. The point of the answer is to make the clear point that He didn't just take over or somehow subsume another persons physical nature.
[As I think about it, FWIW in probable support:
At the point of conception, the mother supplied the egg...God supplied the necessary human dna. Again human dna.]
One other question plagues me with what you have said: Who was Joshua speaking to when he asked "are you for us or against us?" and that Person said "take off your sandals from off your feet for the place you are standing is holy". Did Adam pre-exist his mother?
Posted by: Brad B | February 16, 2015 at 07:31 AM
Hi WL, I went back to finish reading your previous post. I now see purpose in the reasoning and that helps me digest this more systematically...I probably wont have to ask a lot of questions further on.
Thanks for that.
To dave, WL hasn't migrated at all, he cut to the core of the reasoning that supports or allows foundations for the Lutheran doctrine of the Supper.
Posted by: Brad B | February 16, 2015 at 07:48 AM
Correction...I asked Did Adam pre-exist his mother?...I surely meant to ask did the second Adam pre-exist His mother in time?
Posted by: Brad B | February 16, 2015 at 07:56 AM
@ BradB; WL;
WL originally said "The answer is to say that His assumption of human nature is from all eternity. There was never a time when He didn't have it. There was a time (before the incarnation) when it wasn't fully revealed to us."
Any comments?
Posted by: dave | February 16, 2015 at 08:02 AM
Hi WL, it seems that your point 3 will be the debate focus point. My first question will be are you using the word time in the same sense in 1,2, and 3...and in the same relationship to God. If so, this Son of Mary got His flesh and blood prior to His own mother in time. Maybe you dont have a problem with that, but that doesnt matter at this time I just want to gain understanding here.
Posted by: Brad B | February 16, 2015 at 12:23 PM
BTW, I am assuming we all agree with the Chalcedonian Creed? I do.
Posted by: Brad B | February 16, 2015 at 12:58 PM
It should also be noted that a sinless man demonstrated mastery over the physical creation...so I dont a priori limit human nature to what we all experience now in the fallen state...I dont think we should assume any particular supernatural event that Jesus presided over on earth was alien to human nature.
IOW when discussing whether human nature and Divine natue in hypostatic union can or cant do this or that, we should consider our own limitations may not apply to our Redeemer and His humanity.
Posted by: Brad B | February 16, 2015 at 01:14 PM
@BradB;
Thanks for your interest in this. The Chalcedonian Creed is a good starting point. It's possible that a deeper understanding of the same issues might be found in some newer creeds.
Posted by: dave | February 16, 2015 at 01:55 PM
wisdomlover,
" Like all facts about God, they prevail independent of time."
What do you make of Greg's notions about how God participates in time? You know, the "Can God count?" question. Do you see God as temporal as Greg admits he does?
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | February 16, 2015 at 03:42 PM
Brad:
I would think that that was the entire point of His assuming human nature. Was to know all of our sufferings first-hand. The cross didn't diminish his Godhood. It was an expression of it. Most obviously in this case, His Compassion and Omniscience.As I said before stuff like this usually works out that way. When you look down into the details the strange belief they seem to be expressing isn't quite so strange as it might seem. In an effort to say that Jesus was not a ghost possessing another person's body, they perhaps overstated the case a bit so that it sounds like he is possessing a zombie's body. As long as we recognize this, and do not try to apply the answer to cases it was not meant to apply to, then we're fine.So, for example, when I say Christ took on the fullness of humanity, if you say "No, because he didn't take on a human personality." You are mis-applying that response. But, for example, if you are critiquing adoptionism, well...the case may be different.
Though in truth, I still don't think I would say that Jesus didn't have human personality. I would say instead that there is one person, Christ, who was (always) both a human person and the Divine Second Person of the Godhead.
I think the text itself identifies the speaker by the time you get to Joshua 6:2. The speaker is YHWH Himself. As is so often the case (always the case?), when we see the Angel of the LORD in the OT, the 'theophanic angel' we're seeing Jesus.I'm not sure why this question
I don't know about "pre-" and "in time". But certainly the second person of the Godhead exists in eternity. Let us suppose that Heli (Mary's father) and his wife were discussing Messianic issues before Mary had even been conceived, and Heli had had a vision at that moment and prophesied: "The Angel of the LORD spoken of in days of old has even now taken on human nature for our sake." In that case, Heli would be speaking the truth.Posted by: WisdomLover | February 17, 2015 at 05:56 AM
I gather from your question about time that you suspect a misstep in the inference.
I use time in the same sense throughout. I don't believe there is any such thing as a real A-series of time. Of course, each of us, at each moment, has a psychological state that suggests an A-series at that moment. And, I suppose, we all speak a common language, so that may well lead to a rational construct that we re-create at each moment that we may call an A-series.
But I don't think there is any such thing as a real "now" that really moves and establishes the objective present.
What time is is the B-series: an ordering of events (some of which are the mental events that lead to the construction of an A-series of time).
As for Jesus having a body before He was born...If the Lord of Years has no problem with it, neither do I. I might note that I resolve the ambiguity in Revelation 13:8 contrary to the NASB, but in keeping with the KJV. The Book mentioned there, in which names are written (or not), is the Book of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. It's not that the names were written before the foundation of the world in the Book of the Lamb slain. I think this is a rare case where the NASB translators decided to 'help God out' in what He was saying.
If the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, He must have had a body.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 17, 2015 at 07:23 AM
Points of agreement.
1. Yes, I endorse the Creed of Chalcedon.
2. I agree with this remark wholeheartedly, and I think it helps to allay some of the difficulties many may have with the unity of the Person of Christ
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 17, 2015 at 07:27 AM
Thanks for the link, WL. I will look into the two views further when I have opportunity.
I did a quick search of the phrase foundation of the world ...the Rev 13:8 reference is going to carry with it significant force to bear in reasoning through this. The other references where the phrase is used are helpful reads worth more investigation.
Posted by: Brad B | February 17, 2015 at 10:54 AM
Louis-
I think it should be apparent that, if Greg thinks God can be temporal in the sense of God having real temporal properties that apply to Him, then I do not agree with Greg. It is not possible for the Creator of Time to be temporal in that sense.God can, of course, have relationships with temporal beings.
As for God's ability to count. Let's consider what that means. What exactly is counting? Do you mean the temporal process I go through by saying a number and then adding one to it to get its successor?
God can add one to any number. He, in fact, does so. It takes no time at all for Him though.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 17, 2015 at 10:57 AM
wisdomlover
"God can add one to any number. He, in fact, does so. It takes no time at all for Him though."
So, if he counts 1,2,3..at 4...1 is not in his past? What do you make of that?
Posted by: Louis Kuhelj | February 17, 2015 at 04:38 PM
God has no past for 1 to be in.
You are asking whether God counts like you would, in an imperfect way where you do not know what the next number is, for a split second, and then you add one and you know.
No. God does not count like that.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 17, 2015 at 07:54 PM
When we speak of Possibility, of Potentiality, and of Actuality, we find in God the language of sheer Actuality such that it is possible to (falsely) equate motion in God – in sheer Actuality – with temporal-becoming, that is to say, with change. But motion, void of first, void of last, within Being, within Self/Other, within Unity, amid ceaseless reciprocity ~ Trinity ~ finds otherwise. Motion here is not stasis and fails to grant temporal-becoming’s definition of unchanged which is, as all such tensed definitions are, defined from the perspective of the reality of contingent contours inside of motion. Such contours we cannot find in God even as we find Motion amid all that can be called Possibility, Conceivability, Actuality. Possibility lies proximal in Him, an ontic-hard-stop even as the Actualized lies distal beneath Him equally an ontic-hard-stop as all by Him - in Him - of Him - from Him - derive what form they ever can have. Indeed, abstractions known fully to Him and yet unimaginable / unimagined by us are found in Him and this not in Platonism’s sense but rather in the Trinitarian sense wherein the casual contours amid Knower/Known find simplicity’s seamlessness. Can a tensed-being such as Man declare himself wider than that timeless Being, than Being’s font? Not at all. In fact, the landscape of temporal-becoming runs into the following nuances as we pursue all lines back to timelessness: “Furthermore, what “allows us to speak the language of causes and effects” has nothing essentially to do with tracing series of events backwards in time. Here again Carroll is just begging the question. On the Aristotelian-Scholastic analysis, questions about causation are raised wherever we have potentialities that need actualization, or a thing’s being metaphysically composite and thus in need of a principle that accounts for the composition of its parts, or there being a distinction in a thing between its essence or nature on the one and its existence on the other, or a thing’s being contingent. The universe, however physics and scientific cosmology end up describing it -- even if it turned out to be a universe without a temporal beginning, even if it is a four-dimensional block universe, even if Hawking’s closed universe model turned out to be correct, even if we should really think in terms of a multiverse rather than a single universe -- will, the Aristotelian argues, necessarily exhibit just these features (potentialities needing actualization, composition, contingency, etc.). And thus it will, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, require a cause outside it. And only that which is pure actuality devoid of potentiality, only what is utterly simple or non-composite, only something whose essence or nature just is existence itself, only what is therefore in no way contingent but utterly necessary -- only that, the classical theist maintains, could in principle be the ultimate terminus of explanation, whatever the specific scientific details turn out to be.”
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | February 18, 2015 at 01:48 AM
This discussion is both great and hard; yet hard in a way that brings good thinking and a smile. Thank-you all !
from WL - "If the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, He must have had a body."
1. I have always taken the “slain before the foundation” part to mean God has always known the plan of redemption. Though the physical act had not yet taken place, nothing was / could stop its fulfillment; hence before the world was even created He was slain.
2. If Christ always had a body, this would imply He either got a “new” one as a baby growing in Mary’s womb (she did have a normal pregnancy), or His ‘always existing’ body had to be “deconstructed” to be regrown on the inside. This strikes me as too odd.
Posted by: RobertNotBob | February 18, 2015 at 12:00 PM
The eternal truth of God is a body for Christ that is at once baby, crucified and glorified. The various aspects of this eternal truth are revealed at different points in time.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 18, 2015 at 06:40 PM
Hi RobertNotBob, to understand WL's point we need have to try to see the scriptures through his philosophy of Idealism. The link in his post that you quoted from has information on a philosopher named Taggert who like WL leans on Berkeleyan Idealism. I'm not very familiar with it myself so I cant say much but I have suspected that the time frame difficulties you bring up are not so odd within Idealism. If you read the A-series/B-series of time link you will get a sense of what I am trying to convey. WL will speak for himself, I'm sure.
Thanks for the link and quote scbrownlhrm, although we are particularly talking about the God-man. For us creatures to understand the realm or habitation of "outside of time", your input is helpful. btw, what do you make of Idealism, if anything?
I think it's important that we know exactly what it was that Jesus did on earth as a man...the Bible makes pains to inform us and the historic creeds do also. We know that there is emphatic statements that the natures are not mixed/mingled...but distinct, unified only through the Person. One example:
This scripture from Hebrews is obviously speaking of the Man nature, experienced by the Person, our Redeemer, Jesus.
To make the point that there is no blending of the natures, we see from James:
Posted by: Brad B | February 18, 2015 at 07:05 PM
Brad-
I think we have to be careful with the James passage.
Both Job and Abraham look an awful lot like they were tempted by God. The KJV even translates the testing of Abraham as the tempting of Abraham. God looks an awful lot like He is tempted to wipe out the Israelites. But Moses convinces Him not to do so, using the argument that it would tarnish God's reputation.
I suspect that James is using the term "tempt" in chapter 1 as a 'success' term. If I were to offer you a drink, I might say "Can I tempt you with a drink?" And you might reply "Yes." and take the drink. To be tempted can mean to succumb to temptation. And I think that may be what James is saying here.
Consider James' follow-up
James actually says that to be tempted is to be carried away by your own lust, almost as if being tempted is equivalent to being sexually seduced and impregnated, so that sin and death are conceived in you and born from it.Suffice it to say that Jesus, neither in His human nature, nor in His Divine Nature, was tempted in that way.
The reason Eutychianism is such an attractive error is that in the person of Christ both human nature and Divine Nature work together in all things. The heat in the red-hot sword doesn't go a different direction than the iron.
I think your best Scriptural argument against Eutychianism rests on those passages where God's assumption of human nature is seen as a free choice of God. He didn't have to take on human nature. He did it freely for our sake. Thus human and Divine Natures are not bound together in a single God-Man nature, but in the person of Christ.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 19, 2015 at 03:43 AM
“…….. to understand WL's point we need have to try to see the scriptures through his philosophy of Idealism…….”
On matters of mind-dependence, and of mind-independence, and so on, the depths of which are both interesting and ultimately relevant, there may (perhaps) be points of interest in the essay entitled Philosophical Idealism and Christian Theology written by James Snowden. Both links are (should be) to the same essay and are included on the off chance one of JSTOR’s links does not open. The search box of E. Feser’s blog turns up interesting reading as well.
Posted by: scbrownlhrm | February 19, 2015 at 05:19 AM
“B-theorists argue that the flow of time is an illusion, that the past, present and future are equally real, and that time is tenseless. This would mean that temporal becoming is not an objective feature of reality” (wiki). I never really liked the A-theory / B-theory of time. I find the explanation too “convenient” or just semantics. Now that is likely related to me not really fully grasping it.
I tend to think that due to God’s omnipresence time is in a way “simultaneous” to Him. He doesn’t wait for things to happen since there is no distance between Him and everything (not in a Pantheistic sense). Time moves forward for us not as an illusion but because we do observe (from the closeness of my fingers to a star light years away) across a distance. I agree that what we see or know of God (or Christ) is that which He chooses to reveal so I guess in a sense the oddness of the order (Man before Baby) can be put to that point of revelation i.e. we only “see” the revealed portion of Christ from Mary to Crucifixion. But a baby did grow in Mary’s womb and I don’t want to think of that as illusion.
I agree Christ always had/has both a Divine Nature and human nature, but I don’t think human nature requires a human body. John 1 says “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”. To me that says Christ chose to reveal Himself to us through a fleshly existence - hence Mary to Crucifixion……
Posted by: RobertNotBob | February 19, 2015 at 11:07 AM
Hi RobertNotBob, if it is simultaneous to Him, it is in reality simultaneous. So to think about time from His perspective should not yeild any kind of incoherency so it wouldn't necessitate that the baby in Mary's womb an illusion. I admit I am not in any way settled on this but when I read your post it made me think differently about Jesus' words to the religious leaders when He said "before Abraham was, I Am." I plan to read some more on Christian Idealism. I doubt it will show itself to be an incoherent system [knowing WL's acuity in theoretical thought]
Hi WL, the James verse seems pretty clear that God Himself does not tempt anyone so I dont think I'm inclined to call what Job or Abraham went through temptation...in the sense that God prepared and upheld them both for their own day. Well, this is just 2cents...I plan to refamiliarize myself with the doctrine of divine impassibility to maybe throw in a nickle next time.
I want to go back to the quote I inserted earlier and will again here:
Please elaborate on how Jesus eternally has human nature...I'm thinking that finite may mean something along the lines of "contingent" but this doesn't seem to fit the formulation. Maybe "eternal" entails from creation forward?
scbrownlhrm, thank for the link I will read the article, it showed up fine form me with just a click on your link.
Posted by: Brad B | February 19, 2015 at 07:14 PM
Brad-
Why not say that Jesus timelessly, but contingently (because freely assumed), has the properties mentioned in item 4? Whereas He timelessly, but necessarily, has the properties associated with the Divine Nature?
timeless ≠ necessary
There are all sorts of properties that can be held both contingently and timelessly. A really simple example is that the truth-value of every proposition is a timelessly held property of that proposition. But if the proposition itself is contingent, then it only holds that property contingently.
Posted by: WisdomLover | February 19, 2015 at 11:51 PM