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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 7/29/2005 11:37 AM (GMT -6) |   | MP:
well, this is an issue that's been getting at me for a while, so I thought I'd post and see what you all make of it.
This issue is basically a question as to how Jesus incarnation maintains his identity.
Look at the situation; you have a fully formed, omniscient, divine person who is totally secure in his identity and knows who he is etc.
Somehow, this being becomes an embryo, a being that probably isn't even personal yet, has no memories, no sense of identity, is starting anew in the world and seems in as if as it grows in the world it will become a new person
In what sense can this new embryo be said to be the same person? How can any real sense of identity be maintained over such a radical gap?
Very...VERY...good question. Speculation time.
This depends upon what personhood is ultimately grounded. If personhood is said to be solely grounded upon active, rational, cognitive functioning, then one is kind of stuck. The infant Jesus would obviously not have have ANY "identity" whereas God would be the perfect instantiation of identity. (Self-existent and cognizant of such) If personhood is ultimately grounded on the idea of the immaterial dispositional reality (or spirit), then we could say that Jesus's fundamental source of personality was identical to God's in the fact that his spirit was directly identifiable with God's spirit. Almost like an exact "image" of the Father's spirit with it's own potentiality for consciousness. (This actually goes well with Jonathon Edward's idea about the Son's relationship to the Father, I think)
Very rough analogy. It would be like taking your DNA, cloning yourself, and having a baby with ALL of your physiological characteristics and tendencies. In some real way, that baby would be you...though in some equally real way, it wouldn't be you. Further, imagine if YOU raised that baby. Meaning you trained that baby to recognize and use it's natural talents in the SAME WAY that you do now. Though that baby would grow up to have it's own identity, it would take on YOUR mannerisms using YOUR natural gifts in opportunities that YOU provided. The kid would be a spitting image of you...even though he/she wouldn't be you. You'd have an eerie situation.
This would fit the situation with Jesus. God's "image" is not only incarnated as a baby, but also has the same spiritual possibilities as God does (such as the possibility for internally produced divine love). Though baby Jesus is distinct from the Father, they are still in some sense one being. As Jesus grows up, God interacts with Jesus such that Jesus takes on God's mannerisms and desires using his natural spiritual abilities...as the Father leads and directs Jesus in opportunities that are intended to develop Jesus. This can be how it is said that Jesus LEARNED obedience (Hebrews 5)
End result: You have a human being who's also God, in a meaningful way.
Whatcha think?
To all heresy-hunters and general lames...
"I'm connected nationwide, but from the South...
Respect game, and keep my name outcha mouth!"
--adapted from T.I. From P$C's "I'm a King"
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 7/29/2005 12:22:19 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 7/29/2005 2:13 PM (GMT -6) | | Very...VERY...good question. Speculation time.
[quote=mephi]This depends upon what personhood is ultimately grounded. If personhood is said to be solely grounded upon active, rational, cognitive functioning, then one is kind of stuck. The infant Jesus would obviously not have have ANY "identity" whereas God would be the perfect instantiation of identity. (Self-existent and cognizant of such) If personhood is ultimately grounded on the idea of the immaterial dispositional reality (or spirit), then we could say that Jesus's fundamental source of personality was identical to God's in the fact that his spirit was directly identifiable with God's spirit. Almost like an exact "image" of the Father's spirit with it's own potentiality for consciousness. (This actually goes well with Jonathon Edward's idea about the Son's relationship to the Father, I think)
Right, I'm definitely with you up to here
[quote=Mephi]Very rough analogy. It would be like taking your DNA, cloning yourself, and having a baby with ALL of your physiological characteristics and tendencies. In some real way, that baby would be you...though in some equally real way, it wouldn't be you. Further, imagine if YOU raised that baby. Meaning you trained that baby to recognize and use it's natural talents in the SAME WAY that you do now. Though that baby would grow up to have it's own identity, it would take on YOUR mannerisms using YOUR natural gifts in opportunities that YOU provided. The kid would be a spitting image of you...even though he/she wouldn't be you. You'd have an eerie situation.
This would fit the situation with Jesus. God's "image" is not only incarnated as a baby, but also has the same spiritual possibilities as God does (such as the possibility for internally produced divine love). Though baby Jesus is distinct from the Father, they are still in some sense one being. As Jesus grows up, God interacts with Jesus such that Jesus takes on God's mannerisms and desires using his natural spiritual abilities...as the Father leads and directs Jesus in opportunities that are intended to develop Jesus. This can be how it is said that Jesus LEARNED obedience (Hebrews 5)
End result: You have a human being who's also God, in a meaningful way.
Whatcha think?
OK, I struggle a little bit more with what you're saying here, I find it interesting that you seem to be working entirely with God the father in relation to this person instead of the pre-existent Son. It seems to capture very well the manner in which Jesus could have grown into his identity I think, and maybe that's how we need to see the whole situation, perhaps the baby Jesus couldn't be identified with the eternal logos in anything more than a token sense, his awareness was something which was incredibly different, but as he grew he began to walk to a greater degree in what had always been his inheritance and only then does his true eternal identity really become apparent. I'm still not sure whether this fully grasps it though.
I think you hit the nail on the head with your first paragraph though on the ground of personhood, that I think is where my thinking is on dodgy ground, because I can't help feeling that the personhood of the baby Jesus was grounded in something very different from that of the eternal logos (maybe there's a way around this? I guess I'd find it easier if I didn't have reservations about dualism, perhaps it is only a problem if we see the incarnate Jesus as 'merely' human). I've been thinking about this and thinking that maybe I've got the wrong concept of what personhood is, perhaps I've made it into too much of a thing in its own right and really it's not quite like that.Post Edited (markporter) : 7/29/2005 2:29:45 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 7/29/2005 3:53 PM (GMT -6) | | MP:
OK, I struggle a little bit more with what you're saying here, I find it interesting that you seem to be working entirely with God the father in relation to this person instead of the pre-existent Son. It seems to capture very well the manner in which Jesus could have grown into his identity I think, and maybe that's how we need to see the whole situation, perhaps the baby Jesus couldn't be identified with the eternal logos in anything more than a token sense, his awareness was something which was incredibly different, but as he grew he began to walk to a greater degree in what had always been his inheritance and only then does his true eternal identity really become apparent. I'm still not sure whether this fully grasps it though.
That "God's 'image'" IS the Son, 2nd Person of the trinity. Jonathon Edwards states that the Son is the exact representation of the Father eternally. (Edwards goes by the more psychological model of the trinity rather than the social model. But I think the idea is still helpful in this case.) That's what I was implying when I said "God's 'image'". The spiritual "DNA" of God's "image" (the Son) now comprises the "fully God" aspect of the human male Jesus of Nazareth such that his consciousness had divine potentiality beyond that of being merely human...who's ultimate source was the Father. This avoids the problem of Apollinarianism because we are not talking about God wearing a flesh suit...and avoids Nestorianism because we are not talking about Jesus having two spirits.
To be sure, this is a form of the kenotic view rather than the classical view.
************************
MP:
think you hit the nail on the head with your first paragraph though on the ground of personhood, that I think is where my thinking is on dodgy ground, because I can't help feeling that the personhood of the baby Jesus was grounded in something very different from that of the eternal logos (maybe there's a way around this? I guess I'd find it easier if I didn't have reservations about dualism, perhaps it is only a problem if we see the incarnate Jesus as 'merely' human). I've been thinking about this and thinking that maybe I've got the wrong concept of what personhood is, perhaps I've made it into too much of a thing in its own right and really it's not quite like that.
What are those reservations about dualism?
To all heresy-hunters and general lames...
"I'm connected nationwide, but from the South...
Respect game, and keep my name outcha mouth!"
--adapted from T.I. From P$C's "I'm a King"
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 7/29/2005 4:16 PM (GMT -6) | | Ah, ok, I see, yes, that makes more sense to me now.
My reservations about dualism, I guess it's mainly that it's something new in the natural order and that whilst some of the arguments for it do seem to have some kind of force there is something within me which makes me think it's probably all reducible to the stuff that's already here in the end even if we have to refine our understanding of what's already here. It seems strange that amidst all this order something radically discontinous with the rest of it should somehow appear associated within the brains of humans and then turn out to be not actually directly part of those brains - it just doesn't seem to fit as well as the idea that the consciousness is situated more directly within the brain. Does that make sense? | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 7/29/2005 4:32 PM (GMT -6) | | MP:
My reservations about dualism, I guess it's mainly that it's something new in the natural order and that whilst some of the arguments for it do seem to have some kind of force there is something within me which makes me think it's probably all reducible to the stuff that's already here in the end even if we have to refine our understanding of what's already here. It seems strange that amidst all this order something radically discontinous with the rest of it should somehow appear associated within the brains of humans and then turn out to be not actually directly part of those brains - it just doesn't seem to fit as well as the idea that the consciousness is situated more directly within the brain. Does that make sense?
Totally. This is why I rely on some process (or perhaps I should say quasi-process ideas) with this. David Ray Griffin (following A.N. Whitehead) attempts the idea of pan-experientialism to bridge the gap. And it goes a long way...but not long enough in my opinion. Long story short, if we say that ALL things that exist has dispositional realities that are "set" by God, including inanimate things...and we further say that personhood emerges centrally from the potentiality inherent in God's design for things that CAN "experience" subjectivity...then there IS no real problem of radical discontinuity.
This idea uses the process insight that combats the idea of radical discontinuity...while denying that "experience" is the core criterion by which all reality is based. (Perspectivity (using dispositional reality) rather than experience is the core reality. All this is in Doc's "Trinity and Process" dissertation.)
All of this is to say that, in my mind, at least, saying that God is the designer of all dispositional realities and the one that works in actualizing their capabilities removes the radical discontinuity.
I may be off...but it helps me.
www.anthonyflood.com/griffinprocessphilosophy.htm
www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2984
www.metanexus.net/metanexus_online/show_article.asp?6602
To all heresy-hunters and general lames...
"I'm connected nationwide, but from the South...
Respect game, and keep my name outcha mouth!"
--adapted from T.I. From P$C's "I'm a King"
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Violin for God
Luke, I am your father. --Nooooooooo!!!!!
Date Joined Dec 2004
Total Posts : 690
| Posted 7/29/2005 4:39 PM (GMT -6) | | This is all very interesting stuff and I've been wondering about it off and on for a while too.
Here's the question I have regarding the self-aware/consciousness part, and I hope it doesn't seem silly, but here goes: I've been wondering when would Jesus have realized that he was God? I mean, sure Mary and Joseph could have told him. But I mean knowing experientially. And what about the memories he had of things before birth, such as Satan's fall, or even saying before Abraham was I am and saying I saw Abraham, etc. I mean if he was born with that knowledge already, then would he have already known his potential/power while being a child? As an embryo, would he have already had these memories? If not, when would he have gotten those memories? Would they have been revealed when the Holy Spirit descended upon him? If so, then would he have been "fully God" in the fullest sense of the word, memories, knowledge and all, before the baptism?
So maybe this somewhat ties into MP's post about consciousness and the brain... ?
If you're going to be skeptical, be fair and be skeptical of skepticism. | | Back to Top | | |
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 7/29/2005 5:14 PM (GMT -6) | | | ok, I'll have a look Mephi, I'm wary of process thought, but I'll see what your links have to offer | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 8/2/2005 7:32 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Mark,
I don't know if this will help, but here's an article by philosopher William Vallicella entitled "Incarnation and Identity".
http://www.independentphilosopher.org/incarnation_and_identity_vallicella.htm
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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markporter
Fire over Oxford
Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263
| Posted 8/3/2005 11:32 AM (GMT -6) | | | Hey Alan! Good to see you, haven't noticed you round here much in quite a while, but maybe that's just me being blind. I read the paper and he seems to be being particularly obtuse in the way he goes about reasoning through things, creating problems that really don't seem to be there unless you take an overly rock-like version of God. | | Back to Top | | |
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