Here is something I posted elsewhere about the Incarnation:
Let "S" represent a human person:
1) S became a doctor
2) S became a Christian
3) S became a ruffian
In each of the cases listed above, it would be safe to conclude that some type of actual change or process has occurred to/regarding S. But if we now consider another proposition:
4) The Logos became flesh
We are asked to believe (by the majority of Incarnation advocates) that change neither occurred to the nature of the Logos nor to the divine person who was supposed to be the subject of the Incarnation: no real alteration took place. Yet if the Logos became (was made) flesh, it is still hard to comprehend how he (the person) became flesh without undergoing some kind of change. To just argue that God cannot experience actual change, the Logos is God, therefore, the Logos did not experience actual change seems like petitio principii to me.
Using the language of assumption doesn't make the problem go away either. If by assume, we mean "take to oneself" (Aquinas in the Summa Theologica), then to say that the Logos assumed human nature (flesh) could possibly be akin to assuming another identity or assuming a posture that one did not previously had. No, I'm not saying that Christ just assumed a new identity; my point is that the word "assumption" could also indicate change/alteration.
Before: The Logos is strictly spirit
Post-Incarnation: The Logos is flesh
However, most say that no actual change occurred to the nature or person of the Logos (Word).
4 comments:
I think the key to decision making about this text lies with John 14:6 compared with Exodus 18:20, Psalms 119:142 & Deuteronomy 32:47.
Exodus 8:18, 19 - “It is the finger of God!”
Deuteronomy 9:10 "then YHWH gave me the two tablets of stone written upon with God’s finger."
So the Christ BECOMES the word IN ACTION - he puts on all its aspects. So the word does not change but the method of application does.
I think the more important aspect of John 1:1 is "beginning" - what beginning? in light of Matthew 19:28 "In the re-creation" also 1 John 1:1 "That which was from beginning" also Mark 1:1 "beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ" also Luke 1:2 just as those who from beginning became eyewitnesses and attendants of the message delivered these to us.
Interestingly "News" & "Flesh" in Hebrew come from the same root:-
H1319
בּשׂר
bâśar
BDB Definition:
1) to bear news, bear tidings, publish, preach, show forth
1a) (Piel)
1a1) to gladden with good news
1a2) to bear news
1a3) to announce (salvation) as good news, preach
1b) (Hithpael) to receive good news
H1320
בּשׂר
bâśâr
BDB Definition:
1) flesh
1a) of the body
1a1) of humans
1a2) of animals
1b) the body itself
1c) male organ of generation (euphemism)
1d) kindred, blood-relations
1e) flesh as frail or erring (man against God)
1f) all living things
1g) animals
1h) mankind
A Pleasant coincidence?
The primarily ontological interest raised the most disputed issue in post-Tridentine Christology: what could be the aspect of existence (causa formalis) that incorporates Christ's humanity into the Word? Among the attempted solutions, three have gained greater significance.
1. The solution of the Thomists started from these principles:
a) Nature and person differ from each other in reality (realiter), since the human nature mentioned in the definition of man can be possessed by several individuals, several persons.
b) The same real (realis) difference exists between nature and existence. After all, the nature (or essence appearing in its definition) of an imagined and an existing person is the same; existence adds something extra to nature.
c) What is the relationship between existence and personhood (hypostasis)? To this question, the various representatives of Thomism give slightly different answers, but all agree that existence is the crowning moment of personhood (actus ultimul), i.e., this gives completeness, operational possibility to personhood. The task of personhood is to bundle and actualize the abilities given by nature. However, this task can only be fulfilled after existence. An non-existing person's nature does have the ability to think and act, yet he/she cannot think or act; one cannot travel on an imaginary vehicle either. But existence also presupposes personhood, because the existing person also thinks and acts.
What follows from these principles? Primarily, Christ's human nature itself cannot have existence, because existence – being a crowning – presupposes personhood, and thus the existence of human nature would lead to dyophysitism, Nestorianism. Therefore, the human nature taken up by Christ is, on the one hand, without personhood, and on the other hand, without existence. It owes its existence to its incorporation into the Word, to the "fact of the Word's existence". It did not exist before its incorporation, but was created at the moment of incorporation, and if - per absurdum - it could be disconnected from the Word, it would immediately perish, as it does not have its own existential aspect.
So, according to the Thomist understanding, the aspect of existence that incorporates Christ's humanity into the Word is the "fact of the Word's existence" (actus existendi Verbi).
2. The main opponents of the Thomist view were the Scotists. Referring to Duns Scotus, they do not see in personhood the positive aspect of bundling and actualizing the abilities of nature, but a negative one. According to them, hypostasis primarily signifies incommunicability (incommunicabilitas), separateness, a separate mode of existence, existence in itself: it is not part of another being, but has an independent existence. We cannot claim hypostasis about animalistic instincts existing in humans, or about the human ear, nose, etc., because these can only exist in the living human organism, in the human hypostasis, in such a way that they also function. What would become of these if they were to leave the living human body? Would something with hypostasis emerge from these, would they receive independent existence?
In the listed examples, we must answer with no, but in the case of human nature connected to Christ, we answer with yes, because we are talking about real and complete humanity here. Therefore, if the humanity of Christ - per absurdum - would disconnect from Christ, it would become an independently existing hypostasis, an independent human person.
Indeed, no real difference can be asserted between person and nature, as well as nature and existence, and person and existence, but only a "formal" kind of difference. Formal difference implies conceptual difference but ontological sameness. Therefore, the human hypostasis of Jesus is only missing because his humanity does not stand alone, since it is incorporated into the Word. However, the incorporation could not have extinguished, could not have annihilated (due to the purely formal difference) the human hypostasis, but it was as if it had become potential, therefore a possible disconnection would be able to actualize it again.
The Scotist view is today said to be the continuation or revival of the viewpoint of the ancient Antiochian catechetical school. Its logical consequences can be just as serious as those: the danger of adoptionism and Nestorianism. It seems obvious, the thought that this human personhood must have existed before its incorporation into the Word - if not temporally, then logically beforehand; moreover, if it became potential by the incorporation, it theoretically exists even today. However, this assertion is semi-Nestorianism or covert Nestorianism.
3. Suarez sought an intermediate solution, according to which the human hypostasis of Jesus cannot be logically assumed before its incorporation into the Word, because nature and personhood truly differ from each other, as the Thomists say. However, the Thomists are wrong in claiming that nature and existence really differ, because a non-existing but only imagined human does not have a real human nature. Therefore, according to Suarez, Christ's human nature could have existed before being incorporated into the Word - not in a temporal, but a logical precedence - but its missing personhood had to be supplemented by something.
The Scotists thought that before the incorporation - not in terms of time, but logically - the human hypostasis, accompanying the human nature but withdrawing at the moment of incorporation, becoming potential, would hold together Jesus's human body and soul. Suarez denies this hypostasis, but to replace it, he introduces a substitute hypostasis specially created by God, which he calls "modus unionis," and his more recent followers call "modus substantialis". The task of this substitute hypostasis is twofold: on the one hand, to forge body and soul into one nature, and on the other hand, to incorporate the thus created human nature into the hypostasis of the Word.
Many people today criticize this conception, arguing that if Jesus assumed a human nature without personhood, then He did not assume a concrete human, but an abstract human nature. But can such exist, and can we speak of the full humanity of Jesus in this case?
The same difficulty can be raised against the Thomist conception as well. Moreover, since according to the latter, the fact of existence of the assumed humanity is also missing, many accuse it of covert Monophysitism.
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