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1. It's true that Jesus is fully God
2. It's true that Jesus is fully human
3. It's true that to be God is to be infinite
4. It's true that to be human is to be finite.
5. To claim something is both infinite and finite is to posit a paradox.
6. The incarnation is a paradox.
Since we affirm paradox in the incarnation why object to affirming both that God possesses EDF and that we are libertarianly free?

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To claim that something is both infinite and finite is to posit a paradox (or contradiction) ONLY IF we mean that it is both infinite and finite IN THE SAME RESPECT. The way around the paradox is simply to distinguish between the two natures of Christ so that, when it comes to the attributes that divide God and man, we can attribute them to Jesus IN DIFFERENT RESPECTS. Thus, Jesus is infinite QUA divine but finite QUA human. No contradiction. No paradox.

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Prior to the Incarnation, Jesus (the second person of the Trinity) was one person with one nature (a divine nature). Prior to the Incarnation Jesus had no physical body; He was spirit, since the very nature of God is spirit. At the Incarnation, however, Jesus was still one person, but he took on an additional nature – a human nature, which included both human body and human spirit. One of the most complex aspects of the relationship of Christ’s two natures is that, while the attributes of one nature are never attributed to the other, the attributes of one nature are never attributed to the other, the attributes of both natures are properly attributed to His one person (Ron Rhodes, What Did Jesus Mean? Making Sense of the Difficult Sayings of Jesus, 79-80)

"Evolution is the substance of fossils hoped for, the evidence of links not seen." ~ An adaptation of Hebrews 11:1

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Electra: I disagree with the statement that, "There is no contradiction in affirming that a human can take on God’s character." The contradiction is called sin, and that is why our savior had to be God incarnate rather than a human who somehow took on God’s character.

Doc: Sin is certainly a contradiction to God’s nature, and so there IS a contradiction in affirming that SIN can take on God’s character. But unless you want to posit that humans are by logical necessity sinners, there is no contradiction in affirming that HUMANS can take on God’s character.

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Bishop Kallistos correctly points out the Christ was not Himself sinful ... goes on to maintain that "in his solidarity with fallen man he accepts to the full the consequences of Adam’s sin"

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Others that he assumed our original nature. (IMHO, the difference might be semantic. But then I'm an amature.)

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Father Florovsky, for example, asserts that "in the Incarnation the Word assumes the original human nature, innocent and free from original sin, without any stain." "This," he continues, "does not violate the fullness of nature, nor does it affect the Saviour’s likeness to us sinful people. For sin does not belong to human nature, but is a parasitic and abnormal growth" (Creation and Redemption [Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1976], pp. 97-98). Further on in the same paragraph, he reiterates this point: "In the Incarnation the Word assumes the first-formed human nature, created ‘in the image of God,’ and thereby the image of God is again reestablished in man" (ibid.). Vladimir Lossky, for his part, following St. Maximos the Confessor (Questions to Thalassios, 21), states that our Lord’s humanity "had the immortal and incorruptible character of the nature of Adam before he sinned, but Christ submitted it voluntarily to the condition of our fallen nature" (The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church [Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976], p. 142). Like St. John of Damascus, Lossky emphasizes that Christ voluntarily experienced the infirmities of our post-lapsarian nature; He did not assume an infirm nature. By His human will, Christ "accepted what was contrary to incorruptible and deified humanity"—that is, the unblameworthy passions (ibid., p. 148). There is, therefore, no contradiction between the assumption by Christ of unfallen human nature and His acceptance of the physical consequences of our fallenness.

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Either way I say "glory to God!"

I read the Philipians passage, then pretty different from Doc. Right. MY TONIGHT'S PARAPHRASE: "While being in very nature God..." (And not changing that a bit!) He did not consider it to be robbing what was not his to be on equal level with God, but emptying himself of the equal level, took on the condition of a servant, in the very likeness of men, and found in that fashion he humbled him self...to death.

I don't see His kenosis to be in any way changing his role or abilities in holding the universe together. While Christ had ignorance, The Son in no way failed or faultered to the bhe Wisdom of God.

I think that that article needs some careful looking at. The emphasis on what Athanasias was after in his "On the Incarnation" is very important.

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Tom: Just to clarify... I'm only interested in whether or not we are affirming what is self-contradictory when we affirm that Jesus is fully God and fully human.

Al-the-neophite: Jesus is truly God and truly human.


Doc: God (unlike Jesus alone) is not ONE person, he is THREE persons.

Al-the-neophite: The article points out, I think, that we are way too enthusistic about slapping OUR idea of "person" on what was originally just "hypostasis." I think we all need to take a long, long look, and be prepared to revise what we think, and especially the way we go about thinking about the Incarnation. (Read the whole article.)


Electra: Calvinists deny finitum capax infinitum, but Eastern Orthodox, Catholics, Lutherans, and many other Christian traditions affirm it. Luther developed Irenaeus’ thesis of communicatio idiomata—in the incarnation there is a full communication of attributes between divine and human. Christ’s kenosis makes our theosis possible.

Al-the-neophite: I wish I knew what deny finitum capax infinitum was--but I'm making a guess. But as to communicatio idiomata I wish to contibute this, from Meyendorff's "Byzantine Theology" on 'The Christological Issue' (pp. 38-39):

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The doctrine of "deification" in Maximus is based upon the fundamental patristic presupposition that communion with God does not diminish or destroy humanity, but makes it fully human. In Christ the hypostatic union implies the communication of idioms (perichoresis ton idiomaton). The characteristics of divinity and humanity express themselves "in communion with each other" (Chalcedonian definition), and human actions, or "energies," have God Himself as their personal agent. It can be said, therefore, that "God was born," that Mary is the Theotol(ps, and that the "Logos was crucified"—while birth and death remain purely human realities. But it can and must also be said that a man rose from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father, having acquired characteristics which "naturally" belong to God alone: immortality and glory. Through Christ's humanity, deified according to its hypostatic union with the Logos, all members of the Body of Christ have access to "deification" by grace through the operation of the Spirit in Christ's Church.

The essential elements of Maximian Christology provided the permanent terminological and philosophical framework for Byzantine thought and spirituality. They were adopted, together with the Trinitarian doctrine of the great Cappadocian Fathers, in the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith of John of Damascus (first half of the eighth century), which served as a standard doctrinal textbook in Byzantium. They also provided the most authoritative frame of reference in most of the doctrinal controversies which arose in the East during the Middle Ages.

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Alfred-the-neophite: I see great parallel between Doc saying, "there is no contradiction in affirming that HUMANS can take on God’s character" and Meyendorff saying, "communion with God does not diminish or destroy humanity, but makes it fully human." Am I right?

The portion just preceeding the above is worth including:

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In Maximian thought, man occupies quite an exceptional position among the other creatures. He not only carries in himself a logos; he is the image of the divine Logos, and the purpose of his nature is to acquire similitude with God. In creation as a whole, man's role is to unify all things in God, and thus to overcome the evil powers of separation, division, disintegration, and death. The "natural," God-established "movement," "energy" or will, of man is therefore directed toward communion with God, or "deification," not in isolation from the entire creation, but leading it back to its original state.

One understands at this point why Maximus felt so strongly that both Monoenergism and Monothelitism betray the Chalcedonian affirmation that Christ was fully man. There cannot be a true humanity where there is no natural, authentic human will or "movement."

But if the human will is nothing but a movement of nature, is there a place for human freedom? And how can the Fall and man's revolt against God be explained? These questions, to which Origen gave such great importance, find in Maximus a new answer. Already in Gregory of Nyssa, true human freedom does not consist in autonomous human life, but in the situation which is truly natural to man's communion with God. When man is isolated from God, he finds himself enslaved—to his passions, to himself, and, ultimately, to Satan. Therefore, for Maximus, when man follows his natural will, which presupposes life in God, God's cooperation and communion, he is truly free. But man also possesses another potential, determined not by his nature, but by each human person, or hypostasis, the freedom of choice, of revolt, of movement against nature, and, therefore, of self-destruction. This personal freedom was used by Adam and Eve and, after the Fall, in separation from God, from true knowledge, from all the assurance secured by "natural" existence. It implies hesitation, wandering, and suffering; this is the gnomic will (gnome, opinion), a function of the hypostatic, or personal, life, not of nature.

In Christ, human nature is united with the hypostasis of the Logos and, while remaining fully itself, is liberated from sin, the source of which is the gnomic will. Because it is "en-hypostasized" in the Logos Himself, Christ's humanity is perfect humanity. In the mysterious process which started with His conception in the Virgin's womb, Jesus passed through natural growth, ignorance, suffering, and even death—all of them experiences of the fallen humanity which He had come to save—and He fulfilled through the resurrection the ultimate human destiny. Christ could thus be truly the savior of humanity because in Him there could never be any contradiction between natural will and gnomic will. Through the hypostatic union, His human will, precisely because it always conforms itself to the divine, also performs the "natural movement" of human nature.

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Alfred-the-neophite: I kept the type small here so you can skip past my post more easily. But I want to just say that the emphasis seems to parallel Athanasias in pointing to the salvation role (and for us, what the nature of salvation is) is the driving thing.

In Christ, human nature is united with the hypostasis of the Logos and, while remaining fully itself, is liberated from sin...

and

In the mysterious process which started with His conception in the Virgin's womb, Jesus passed through natural growth, ignorance, suffering, and even death—all of them experiences of the fallen humanity which He had come to save—and He fulfilled through the resurrection the ultimate human destiny.

and

Christ could thus be truly the savior of humanity because in Him there could never be any contradiction between natural will and gnomic will. Through the hypostatic union, His human will, precisely because it always conforms itself to the divine, also performs the "natural movement" of human nature.

Alfred-the-neophite: A KEY difference in how this is presented, and how I might find my self think is this, that "the 'natural movement' of human nature" is towards God. And that explains WHY "In Christ, human nature is united with the hypostasis of the Logos and, while remaining fully itself"

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Electra: So because of Christ, we are stuck with making sense out of an eternal God who enters history. Although the Greeks considered this claim to be foolishness, the Jews have always confessed belief in the living God. Electra

Alfred-the-neophite: Pre-eternal. Not part of. But choosing to be involved with the whole risk of the creation, and the risk of freedom and love. I read a lot about impassibility. Some differences in what I read might be semantic. Evdokimov saying that God's impassibility could be thought of as being "apparent." (Person is not derived from essence.) Both ways of expressing it come down to it being God's free choice to risk and love, and ultimately to take the step necessary in suffering on the cross. Near as I can follow...the suffering is NOT thrust upon God, as if he is susseptable. It is chosen. But it is all so BIG. I can only imagine God's suffering as residing within his Love. By his choice as one both totally "other" and totally "free." That is the only way that I can imagine it.


Athanasias via Electra: No, He took our body....He, the Mighty One, the Artificer of all, Himself prepared this body in the virgin as a temple for Himself, and took it for His very own, as the instrument through which He was known and in which He dwelt. Thus, taking a body like our own, because all our bodies were liable to the corruption of death, he surrendered His body to death in place of all...This He did out of sheer love for us.”

Alfred-the-neophite: And as all those posts I used to put here from Lars Thunberg with St. Maximus text would say, there are properly THREE incarnations: Creation through the Word, Revelation of the Word, and Incarnation of the Word.

Athanasias via Electra: He was not far from it before, for no part of creation had ever been without Him Who, while ever abiding in union with the Father, yet fills all things that are.

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Thanks for the thread.

Al-fred


Edited by - fred on 12/12/2002 9:23:08 PM

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Tom: Should we as a matter of principle refuse to admit paradox (i.e., what is logically self-contradictory) when interpreting the Bible? If so, then I'm committed BEFORE even attempting to understand the incarnation to interpreting the relevant passages and to articulating my beliefs on this matter in a logically coherent way (i.e., one that does not permit contradictions). Is THIS a presupposition we ought not abandon?

If not, that is, if we do agree that there are "true contradictions," then how do we avoid this exploding into trivialism?

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