While I'm on the subject of the Incarnation (the doctrine that God became human), I would like to post a few points once gleaned from Stephen T. Davis' wonderful book _Logic and the Nature of God_.
Davis initiates his discussion by citing John Hick, who avers that the claim "Jesus is fully God and fully man" (VERE DEUS, VERE HOMO) is in effect saying that a circle is fully square and fully circular. Hick argues that the claim is "devoid of meaning" and logically impossible. If an object is fully square, then it cannot be fully circular (it cannot be P and ~ P at the same time and in the same sense). Therefore, the proposition "Jesus is truly God and truly man" is deemed to be incoherent.
This point can also be illustrated by juxtaposing the properties of God and the properties of man. God is omniscient, but man is not omniscient; God is omnipotent, but man is not omnipotent; God is A SE ESSE, but man derives his existence from God.
God is immortal; man, however, is not. It seems that divine properties rule out finite properties subsisting in the same entity simultaneously? The predicates essential to God appear to be incommensurable with the predicates proper (essential) to man. Davis realizes this point and concludes that in order to coherently formulate the Incarnation doctrine--one must deny the essential nature of God's omniscience and furthermore, one must also state the Incarnation teaching in a way that does not imply Jesus has all of the essential properties of God or all of the essential properties of man SIMPLICITER. But surely this view is not in harmony with Chalcedonian orthodoxy. It reflects the kenoticist views of the 19th century.
In conclusion, I think that Davis' treatment of this issue shows the ineluctable conundrums that result when one tries to make the Jesus of the New Testament fit one's preconceived theological and philosophical notions of our Lord. He is an ardent defender of the Incarnation, but he has realized the logical difficulties associated with believing that God became man.
4 comments:
Tim Pawl's: Should it worry us if someone cannot understand, without having it explained, the meaning of the claim that Jesus Christ was God? It might be equally devoid of meaning in some listener's ear were I to say, "space itself is curved" without any explanation.' Is the supposed meaninglessness, sans explanation, of the claim a problem in the scientific case? If not, why would it be in the theological case? And if so, why should we expect the technical formulation of a heady concept to be immediately accessible without explanation? While it is true that there is no universally accepted metaphysical model of the incarnation, there are some models with a strong consensus (e.g. the Thomistic model). And even if there were no agreed upon consensus, the claim that the doctrine has no literal meaning at all—and so does not even rise to the dignity of being false-is a danger one might hope to extinguish by providing a model that does, at the very least, allow a truth-value to be assigned to the propositions in question.
Footnote: I borrow this example from Peter van Inwagen, who writes, in a typically delectable passage (2009, 266-7): "The world is full of mysteries. And there are many phrases that seem to some to be nonsense but which are in fact not nonsense at all. (Curved space! What nonsense! Space is that which things that are curved are curved in. Space itself can't be curved? And no doubt the phrase 'curved space' wouldn't mean anything in particular if it had been made up by, say, a science-fiction writer and had no actual use in science. But the general theory of relativity does imply that it is possible for space to have a feature for which, as it turns out, those who understand the theory all regard 'curved' as an appropriate label.)."
It just is persuasive. Let me modify Hick a bit:
Orthodoxy insisted upon God's being merciful, love and killing lots of people and choosing not to convert them when he could, coinhering in the one theological being of 'God'. But orthodoxy has never been able to give this idea any content. It remains a form of words without assignable meaning. For to say, without explanation, that the Old Testament God of vengance was also love is as devoid of meaning as to say that this circle drawn with a pencil on paper is also a square.
There are two questions that no Trinitarian has ever coherently answered IMO. First, how can an impassible and completely immutable God assume human nature? Second, how is it possible for two natures to subsist in one person?
Yes, there are many things in life that we don't fully understand. However, resorting to "it's a mystery beyond our comprehension" is not an explanation.
One writer proposed the following syllogisms:
All humans are mortal.
Jesus was human (According to Christian doctrine).
Hence, Jesus was mortal.
God is not mortal.
Jesus was mortal (According to the syllogism above).
Hence, Jesus was not God.
See https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre3.htm
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