It's like this, Tom.  Weird as it may sound, The Risen Jesus, the Son of God, is ONE divine person who has TWO "hearts", one after the uncreated nature of his Father and one after the created nature of his Mother.  How? Well...in the Son's one person, the Holy Spirit and human spirit inhabit the human hypostatic unity of the Incarnate Word, in perfect union with no confusion or fusion.  Christ has the self-understanding faculties of both God and Creation (humanity). The God-Man who is truly and fully God AND Human. The Mystery of the Incarnation.

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/28/2009 10:26:50 AM (GMT-6)

D: Synopsizing.

1) Jesus is exercising genuine human freedom in his choice to die on the cross. Jesus has a human will that is distinct and free from the Divine Will.

2) Human beings are created in God's image. Being a human being, Jesus will have God's image in the same way.

3) Jesus is homoousias with humanity.  Jesus isn't some apparition pretending to be human.  The Incarnate Word IS human.

4) In the human Jesus, it is not the case that God the Logos via the Holy Spirit just "takes the place of" the normal human intelligible aspect (soul) in the human hypostasis. This is what Apollinarius said...that Jesus had no truly creaturely intelligible aspect (a true "postitive third" ), but just dwelled there as God Himself inside a "flesh suit." In the Incarnate Word, the Person of Christ takes a complete hypostatic unity of intelligible/sensible aspects. This includes Jesus having everything that any complete human hypostatic unity would have, including a creaturely, that is, human soul and a human spirit. That which is not assumed is not healed.

5) For any given human being, the human spirit within that human is not to be identified with the Uncreated Holy Spirit. Same with Jesus.

6) The human Jesus freely gave himself in obedience to God's will through his human exercise of will and human faith (using his human noetic faculties), even unto death. There was real, genuine human existential struggle here. (Drops of blood!) It was not the case that God the Son was just "squatting" in the intelligible aspect of Jesus' human hypostasis PRETENDING to struggle with immanent death. It was God the Son suffering in his human flesh.

Jeff: I think I can get on board with everything except that I would say Jesus was a final cause in the same way the Father is a final cause. I.e., he couldn't have sinned any more than God can lie, though it probably seemed possible to Jesus, at the time, because of his discursive, deliberative limitations.

Spiritual Notion of the Human Person by Vladimir Lossky

I think this can be stated SK's way.  A "self" cannot truly be itself (self-as-spirit) based upon simply on it's own powers of self-transcendence or "lived world" composition.  It will still be trapped in despair (and the created order) if it does not relate, in it's deepest subjectivity, to something that transcends it's self-reflection and self-relatedness, to bring the self into full being...and not a vortex of nothingness.  This can only happen when the relation that relates itself to itself in its relating also rests transparently in the Power that created the whole relation through the bestowal of the God-Man, Christ.

The Eternal Son's human nature was superpersonalized by being the human nature of the Incarnate Word. (The Word became flesh)

Our own human nature is personalized by our faith relationship (which is energized by love) to God the Father through the Incarnate Word in the Holy Spirit. (Liberty/Freedom of the Children of God)

Make sense?

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/28/2009 11:48:04 AM (GMT-6)

D, I can’t figure out what you’d have to change about any of your six theses IF you added the claim that Christ is “two persons, one divine and one human” where the human person is just divinized and at one with God. In other words, what differentiates the structure of divine-human relationality as instantiated by Christ from that instantiated by us (or that which shall be instantiated by us)? If nothing, then we have to say EITHER that Christ is two persons (one divine and one human) inseparably united OR that we do not become persons other than the person of the Son. Which do you choose?

D: What if we used Torrence's language, Tom...and we said that the Personalizing Person (Divine Presence) takes our natural ego-centering human tendencies towards identity formation (as part of our human meaning-making mental activity)...and, through His working, brings forth “personalized persons” who are ONLY SUCH because of the Personalizing Person's personal being and continuous activity in the personalized persons? Wouldn't that work?

Tom: Would you say this was the case with Christ? If so, then you’re positing the same structure of relationality in both Christ and all other human beings, in which case you HAVE TO then say EITHER that Christ is two persons (one divine and one human) inseparably united if you want to continue to say WE become non-divine persons in relationship to God, OR you have to say that we do not become persons other than the person of the Son (if you want to say both that Christ was one person and that we instantiate the same relational structure as the divine and the human in Christ).

I can’t tell the difference between your view and the idea that the divine Son was having an interpersonal relationship with a human person in Christ (the human spirit who, you say, was free of the divine will to determine itself in loving relationship to the Divine; What is a non-divine person if not THAT?). All the things WE do (as non-divine persons) you’re suggesting were done by the human in Christ). You see the problem don’t you?

D: Said another way...we become human ‘persons’ in relationship to God and this ‘person’ is not destroyed by God's Absolute Presence, but spiritually recentered, regrounded, fulfilled by that Presence.

Tom: OK then, again, was this the case with Jesus? If so, you have two persons. If not, then there’s an important difference in the structure of relationality between the divine-human in Christ as the divine-human in us. This difference (whatever it is) would explain why divine-human relationality as instantiated in Christ WOULD NOT constitute an “inter-personal” (between two persons) relationship whereas it WOULD constitute an “inter-personal” relationship in our case. I just say the divine and the human in Christ relate on the level of nature-to-nature while in us they relate on the level of person-to-person.

T

Post Edited (One Love) : 2/28/2009 3:42:07 PM (GMT-6)

Whole thread

D: By the way, Tom, do you AGREE with the 6 points I've made. Are there any that you disagree with? Let's get that clear.

Tom: They’re your own systematic statement, and I’m trying to figure out just what you mean by them. If you mean what it seems you mean (and your expalantions are bearing that out), then I don’t agree with them all.

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Tom: In other words, what differentiates the structure of divine-human relationality as instantiated by Christ from that instantiated by us (or that which shall be instantiated by us)?

D: The divine-human relationality in Jesus is completely hypostatic in the one ETERNAL person of the Son as an outflow of the Son's Incarnation itself. Neither the Incarnate Word's unification of divine and human natures...OR the unification of body and soul are natural in the sense of being some kind of necessary emanation from God's being. Christ's Incarnation was an act of God's free will and choice.  Again, the Holy Spirit BELONGS to Jesus, as he relates personally to the Father, with whom he is homoousias, such that he needs no mediator to relate to the Father.

With us, the divine-human relationality is by GRACE. You and I have come to be from natural human procreation of our parents and are NOT products of Incarnation. Our being here is the natural product of our parents doing what they did. We didn't "ask" to be here...and didn't "choose" to be here. The Holy Spirit does NOT belong to us personally. And ordinary humans are NOT homoousias with the Father...and we DO need a mediator to relate to the Father.

Do you really not see the differences you are looking for right here?

Tom: Nothing here so far is a difference in the relational structure of divine-human relationality per se (as instantiated by Christ on the one hand and us on the other), not at all able to justify saying that relational structure in Christ’s case is “one person two natures” while in our case it’s “two persons and two natures.”

about grace, are you telling me that the human spirit of Jesus, in determining itself freely in love in relating to God, didn’t do so by depending on the grace of God the same way we have to? See? Everything you say about the structure and the how of Christ’s ‘human spirit’ vis-à-vis the divine you also say about our relating to the divine, yet you want to say this SAME structure and relating doesn’t produce a ‘person’ in Christ’s case but does in us.

Like here, notice just what it is you describe in Christ’s case and ask yourself if it’s not exactly what you say about how WE relate to God:

I think this can be stated SK's way. A "self" cannot truly be itself (self-as-spirit) based upon simply on its own powers of self-transcendence or "lived world" composition. It will still be trapped in despair (and the created order) if it does not relate, in its deepest subjectivity, to something that transcends its self-reflection and self-relatedness, to bring the self into full being...and not a vortex of nothingness. This can only happen when the relation that relates itself to itself in its relating also rests transparently in the Power that created the whole relation through the bestowal of the God-Man, Christ. The Eternal Son's human nature was superpersonalized by being the human nature of the Incarnate Word. Our own human nature is personalized by our faith relationship (which is energized by love) to God the Father through the Incarnate Word in the Holy Spirit.

Tom: Dude, I don’t know how to get you to see what I see here. In my view, you’re saying EXACTLY the same things about divine-human relationality in Christ and in us. Everything you say in this paragraph about how the human and the divine relate, you say of BOTH Christ and us. It’s not JUST true OF US that “our human nature is personalized by our faith relationship to God the Father.” You are also saying this is true of Jesus. By whose grace does the ‘human spirit’ of Jesus freely determine its love in relation to the Father? Of course, by the grace of God. You keep emphasizing ‘grace’ as a necessary component to the personalization of our human spirits but saying nothing of ‘grace’ in the case of the personalization of Jesus’ ‘human spirit’. And you make NO difference between the actions and relations of the human spirit of Jesus vis-à-vis God and our own actions and relations vis-à-vis God. After everything you say about the ‘human non-divine spirit’ of Jesus I cannot but call that non-divine entity a non-divine person. There’s nothing further I’d need to add to posit non-divine personhood. What would YOU add to get a non-divine person in Christ?

I can’t make it any clearer. I don’t have the tools or something. It’s obvious to me, but whatever man. Live in love.

Tom

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/1/2009 1:29:36 AM (GMT-6)

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From here...

Saint Maximus the Confessor and Saint Martin

Both these men, together with their staunch supporters, insisted that Jesus Christ must have two distinct and separate wills and actions, just as He has two distinct and separate natures in one person. The Holy Fathers insisted there is one Son of God Who is one Son of Mary, but this one Son wills and acts distinctly as God and as man.

Christ has the fullness of the divine will, energy, action, operation, and power which is the same as that of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Christ also has the fullness of the human will, energy, action, operation, and power which is the same as that of every other human being. Salvation consists in the fact that Jesus Christ, being a true human, freely and voluntarily submitted his human will (which is exactly the same human will that all men have) to His divine will (which is the will of God). Thus the divine Son of God became a real man with a real human will so that as a real man He could "fulfill all righteousness" in perfect, voluntary obedience to His Father. It is through His genuinely human action that Jesus Christ frees all men from sin and death as the New and Final Adam. (See Book 1 on Doctrine)

Saint Maximus and Saint Martin suffered greatly for opposing the monothelyte position. They were imprisoned, tortured, and mutilated by the imperial powers who wanted badly to use monothelytism as a way to reunion with the monophysites.

The Sixth Ecumenical Council

Ultimately, however, the doctrine of these saints prevailed. The Third Council of Constantinople, known as the Sixth Ecumenical Council, held in 680-681, officially verified their teaching and formally condemned both Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople and Pope Honorius of Rome, together with all who defended the false doctrine about Jesus that deprived Him of His genuine humanity.

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/1/2009 8:27:46 AM (GMT-6)