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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Nature and will
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
DAFYD! Mousethief! Or anyone.
Sorry about this, but where, scripturally, do we get, infer the Chalcedonian two natures (dyophysitism), each with a will (dyothelitism), in the single, individual reality (NOT substance, ousia) hypostatic union (person?) of human and divine nature, AKA Jesus.
And a nature is a substance?
And where in logic do we get that a nature has a will? Or imparts a will in a person? That a p/P/erson gets their will from their (nurtured...) nature? That's beginning to feel more and more right. I'd always felt that will was separate from nature, that it was 'personal'.
[ 29. December 2017, 17:19: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
Martin:
Why do you need to infer it from the Scriptures?
And why concentrate on the particular vocabulary of the day? To many, Chaledonian Christology is about believing:
1. Jesus was a fully human person, not lacking in anything that defines a human person.
2. Jesus was Divine, not lacking in anything that it part of Divinity.
3. Jesus is one.
The NT witness is uneven. I'm sure parts of it are contrary to Chalcedonian Christology, but that overall the definition is preferable to other competing ones.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
Having grappled with Philippians 2 for the year on Christmas Eve, all I have left for you Martin is another quote - you seem to elicit them in me.
From Ursula Le Guin for a change; I just read this and instantly thought of you: quote:
Rational, and valuing reason more highly after an intolerable experience of the immortal mindless...
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
E. How could you KNOW?! UKLG!!
[ 29. December 2017, 20:25: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
And a nature is a substance?
Definitely not.
Substances have natures.
Where you have a concrete noun (naming word) in language and in corresponds to something in the world you have a substance. Sometimes nouns are just there for linguistic convenience: then we don't have a substance. Such is the case with 'nature'. When we say a man or woman has a human nature, we're just saying that they're human: we're not supposing that they carry around a mysterious metaphysical entity with them.
quote:
And where in logic do we get that a nature has a will? Or imparts a will in a person? That a p/P/erson gets their will from their (nurtured...) nature? That's beginning to feel more and more right. I'd always felt that will was separate from nature, that it was 'personal'.
Natures don't have wills. Substances that have human natures (or divine natures or sentient AI natures) have wills by virtue of being the appropriate kind of thing.
Having a will means that one decides on a course of action reasonably according to the appropriate processes.
Jesus is really a human being. Therefore, he makes reasonable decisions the way human beings do (his brain or mind or soul go through the usual motions).
Jesus is really God. Therefore, he makes reasonable decisions the way God does.
So Jesus makes reasonable decisions through two processes, which is what 'he has two wills' is trying to say.
[ 29. December 2017, 22:19: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Thank you Dafyd. ... I'm so sodding dim your answers proliferate questions. I see that substances have natures. Which is more meaningful than the opposite. ...
Groan.
I'll try and form yes/no questions.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
And a nature is a substance?
Definitely not.
Substances have natures.
Coooo. Sohhhhh. We're in ancient Greek to early modern territory. Aristotle to Locke? We're not going to hear Nietzsche and the bundle beyond. We're smack in the middle of ancient Greek to early modern with Nicea? Substance is real and more than a collection of properties.
Substance=essence=object, matter with form, thing-in-itself, ding an sich, with instantiated properties, attributes, qualities, characteristics. 'A' is for apple... I've started a mind-map. I'm going to need a bigger wall.
A property can have properties.
A property can be an object. A substance. An instantiated substance.
A nature can be a substance...
quote:
Where you have a concrete noun (naming word) in language and in corresponds to something in the world you have a substance.
Inhered in a particular?
quote:
Sometimes nouns are just there for linguistic convenience: then we don't have a substance. Such is the case with 'nature'. When we say a man or woman has a human nature, we're just saying that they're human: we're not supposing that they carry around a mysterious metaphysical entity with them.
My trouble is, I'm sure you're 1000% right, but every word proliferates questions, then every sub-sentence, then... Human is a type of nature? A property. That CANNOT be a substance? Again, I'm sure you're right...
quote:
quote:
And where in logic do we get that a nature has a will? Or imparts a will in a person? That a p/P/erson gets their will from their (nurtured...) nature? That's beginning to feel more and more right. I'd always felt that will was separate from nature, that it was 'personal'.
Natures don't have wills. Substances that have human natures (or divine natures or sentient AI natures) have wills by virtue of being the appropriate kind of thing.
quote:
Is a will a property that cannot be a substance? It is another property that a substance that has the instantiated property of human or divine nature gets?
Having a will means that one decides on a course of action reasonably according to the appropriate processes.
Rather than an inexorable, automatic drive, impulse, instinct? A meta-drive?
quote:
Jesus is really a human being. Therefore, he makes reasonable decisions the way human beings do (his brain or mind or soul go through the usual motions).
Jesus is really God. Therefore, he makes reasonable decisions the way God does.
So Jesus makes reasonable decisions through two processes, which is what 'he has two wills' is trying to say.
Ooooooooh. Makes my 'ead ache. How does God make decisions? Any more than He DOESN'T have to calculate, work out anything? To me the only way divine will, a property(/substance?!) the human Jesus uniquely had, works conceptually is as a compunction, a drive, an instinct to do the most loving thing, the most other-centred thing, in any and every situation. He said to His Father, '...not my will, but thine, be done.'. He didn't seem to be aware of having two wills. Which I realise He had to have nonetheless. I think. Will in Jesus was a perichoresis of human and divine wills? Which are properties in the one substance Jesus deriving from the operation of two prior properties, human and divine nature?
If will is a cognitive process, then Jesus had two going on at once that felt and looked like one.
The trouble is, that divine will looks like a superfluous entity from some angles, as Jesus uniquely had the entity of divine nature.
And nothing scriptural seems to demand it.
Ah well.
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Love wins
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