"On October 22, 451 A.D., the Church Fathers agreed on the orthodox teaching about Christ
having two natures. It is this confession that the Christian Church has embraced throughout
the centuries as that which most cogently expresses the biblical notion of the Incarnation of
God in Jesus of Nazareth. The Chalcedonian Confession is quoted here for convenience:

 

 

Here are my objections. Not looking for a reply. Just want to show why I find this stuff very problematic logically.

 

 

As I've said before on this forum, it is not possible for Jesus to be fully god and fully man. For neither the Father, the Spirit, or the Beloved are fully God by any definition of that word. If we define "God" as a single substance consisting of the 3, then none of the 3 is fully God, by definition, much less a dream of one of them. But if we define God as a person with the necessary attributes of one of the 3, it is still not even clear that the 3 even have the same necessary attributes. Don't you guys, yourselves, posit that the Son is being eternally begotten (via creatio continua from everlasting as per "as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages") by the Father? If so, then the Father seemingly has a necessary attribute (i.e., being the perpetual begettor of the Son) that the Son doesn't have.

 

 

This is unintelligible. What does it mean to be OF one substance? An attribute of it? What else could it mean? But if that's what it means, then how can Jesus be OF (i.e., an attribute of) "us as regards his manhood?" That makes no intelligible sense at all. On the other hand, if "OF" means "from" in the sense of begotten, then this implies humans are SUBSTANCES. But that is not true of the body, for the body consists of gads of substances called fundamental particles. The only sense in which a human can be thought of as a substance is if the soul per se is considered a substance. But souls don't beget souls to our knowledge. Best we can tell, it takes God to do that.

 

 

There is nothing in the OT or NT that even hints at this stuff precisely because words can't communicate contradictions and unintelligibility. Communication by definition is MEANINGFUL.

 

And then to needlessly posit an infinite experience so as to render all the scriptural language about God's suffering unintelligible is another problem I have. I'm not trying to say that how I feel should constrain what is possible. I'm trying to say that LOGIC constrains what we can INTELLIGIBLY communicate. So even if there are supra-intuitive/categorical truths about God, we couldn't communicate them. And therefore, such truths are NON-EXPLANATORY of anything for us, COMMUNALLY, because they can't be communicated with words. And therefore, it is just silly to start calling people heretics over such stuff. Where nothing is given, nothing is required. But it's worse than silly because eventually (when the right people get power) people DO kill people over it. Because silliness leads to UTTER irrationality when it's used to JUDGE people. To judge people with tradition is to intimidate them into assent rather than persuade them. And an intimidating spirit "grows" in the wrong direction. I pray that at least Asher agrees with me on this much.

 

 

 

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Post Edited (Similitude) : 5/11/2012 2:31:19 PM (GMT-5)

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

 

No problem there for my view.

 

 

How can the Father and the Only-begotten have the same essence (i.e., the same essential attributes) if the Father has an essential attribute of being the eternal begettor of the Only-begotten and the Only-begotten does NOT have the essential attribute of being the eternal begettor of the Only-begotten? On the other hand, if an attribute is eternally instantiated, which seemingly conditions the very existence of the Only-begotten, who we say has necessary existence, why would we say that attribute is not a necessary attribute?

 

 

 

No problem there for my view. But I'm betting most of the professed "orthodox" would differ from you on what it means to "judge the living and the dead."

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke by the Prophets;

 

If the procession of the Spirit from the Father entails essential attributes of both (and seemingly it would), then there again we have different essential, necessary attributes of the Father and the Spirit just as the creed implies for the Father and the Only-begotten. So my argument in my previous post is augmented in its force. And I doubt all those that profess "orthodoxy" would agree with you on what it means to believe that the Spirit "spoke by the Prophets."

 

In summary, there is no reason to judge people over agreement on these things. We should only try to persuade one another so that truth can have a better chance of prevailing over ignorance. The fact is, both our views imply that there is asymmetry/diversity in the essential attributes of the persons of the godhead. And because of this, there is no sense in which the persons of the godhead can be said to be fully "god." We can only say that each is, in some sense, dependent on the other for the instantiation of all of their respective essential attributes. And yet the Father IS, in one or more senses, pre-eminent.

 

As such, it is fair to call the Father, as Jesus himself did, the ONE TRUE GOD. For the Father is He OUT OF whom all CREATED things exist. And in that sense, He comes closest to being like the Western monotheistic view of God as we can get. And yet, that KIND of Western monotheism, to the extent that it is rationally intelligible, seems to imply that creation implies a necessary God-world relationship. So Christianity solves all the philosophical issues that need to be solved for benevolent/competent theism while retaining the maximum number of ELEMENTS of the Western monotheism that our inductive impulse unto unification compels us to. In short, it provides the most Western style (i.e., staunchly rational) monotheism one can conceive of without giving up the ESSENTIALLY SOCIAL nature of God. AND THAT'S A BEAUTIFUL THING!!!

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

 

I bet you do...

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Post Edited (One Love) : 5/14/2012 7:36:19 PM (GMT-5)

 

The "two minds" view...analogically placed in terms of wake induced lucid dreaming.

Incarnate Word's uncreated/divine nature: W.I.L.D Creator/Sustaining sphere of consciousness

Incarnate Word's created/human nature: W.I.L.D Participant/Sustained sphere of consciousness

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

One thing that you have always been about in this discussion is explaining everything that NEEDS explanation...and no less than that, right? Parsimony, I believe.

Well, something that NEEDS explanation is HOW Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Mary, could be the Savior of Creation (including all humans)...when judaically speaking, only YHWH is Savior.  The orthodox answer is that Jesus is "fully God" by being the "Only Begotten Son"/"John 1:1 Co-eternal Word" of God the Father by the Spirit taking on human "flesh" within Mary, the Theotokos, by the power of the Spirit.  In short, Jesus of Nazareth dying by crucifixion can be a genuinely SALVIFIC act because He is HYPOSTATICALLY/PERSONALLY God. 

One CANNOT be a consistent "Christian" in the true sense without believing that Jesus is "Lord" and "Savior", right?

I'm hoping this is quite clearly articulated...and intelligible...for you.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

For to which of the angels did God ever say,


“You are my Son,
today I have begotten you”?


Or again,


“I will be to him a father,
and he shall be to me a son”?


And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,

“Let all God's angels worship him.”

Of the angels he says,


“He makes his angels winds
and his ministers a flame of fire.”


But of the Son he says,

“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”

And,


“You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,
and the heavens are the work of your hands;
they will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment,
like a robe you will roll them up,
like a garment they will be changed.
But you are the same,
and your years will have no end.”

And to which of the angels has he ever said,

“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?


Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Is this seen QUITE clearly?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

 

Jesus HAS to be "fully God" in order to be Savior.

 

Right there in Scripture.

Ha. How about that? 

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

 

What makes the human being Jesus "Savior" in your view?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

 

The fact is, if persons aren't beings, then the only plausible substance that even human "persons" could be thought to inhere in is God. And that would make all persons fully god by the criteria of mere co-substantiality. Your view proves too little or too much no matter which route you've taken. I assure you, if God damns people to hell over such, no one need take God seriously. But in that case, there is no such thing as warranted belief at all. So God MUST be more benevolent than you suppose if there's such a thing as warranted belief. Perhaps that intuitive fact is what also frees Greg from fear of the intimidation approach.

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Post Edited (Similitude) : 5/16/2012 6:54:32 PM (GMT-5)