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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: God the Son and the risen and ascended Christ
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Popping in for a sec--sin is not human nature. Sin is a destruction of human nature.
The reason Jesus can save us is precisely in the fact that in this one way alone, he is not like us. Just as those who donate platelets to save the life of a person with hemophilia are able to save him precisely because in this one aspect, their human nature is undestroyed. Unlike his.
[ 20. August 2012, 02:38: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
Thank you for that clarification LC.
But I'm afraid I don't have any respect for that kind of theory of redemption - seeing as how it is plainly not true.
I am still a sinful human being.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Must.Not.Take.Obvious.Cheap.Shot...
First of all, I really don't give a shit whether you have "respect" for that kind of theology. The question is not whether it is respect-worthy, it's whether it is true. That's what debate is for, right?
Second, what in the heck makes you think that redemption works instantaneously?
Seriously, I'm wondering what you think Jesus was doing up there on that cross. Because if you're expecting it to have made an instant, immediately obvious change in humanity or the world, then by your standards he clearly failed. Whatever he was up to.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Hell, you even argue like Aquinas - state the axiom, build the argument. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
If there is any other way to argue, then I don't want to know about it. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) But yeah, I'm a hobby Thomist as far as theology goes. (And as far as mysticism goes, I like the "dry" style of Master Eckhart a lot - so maybe I'm just a hobby Dominican...)
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You're thinking Aquinas here again right? Matter is the principal of individuation.
Actually, identity is not exactly the same as individuation and furthermore "form" is involved in separating something out of "prime matter" in the first place. But to put it simply, yes.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Whichever way it happens (or whether we lose individuality at all), my main point was that if the way we do it is different from the way Jesus does it because of his God nature, then something is amiss.
Fine, but missing my point. First, I have no doubt that it happens, by faith. But I'm precisely interested in how it happens, by theology. Second, I agree that if our human self gets tracked past to the resurrection body, then Jesus' self can be tracked in the same way. However, my point was that in the case of Jesus we have the direct possibility for "Divine" rather than "human" tracking. Hence it is not sufficient to simply point to Jesus and say "He did it, so we can, too." Rather one has to show that Jesus remained Jesus by virtue of His humanity past death, somehow.
I think there's a lot of depth to that question, theologically.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You are assuming the "person" is attached to his God nature, not his human nature. I don't think that is a valid assumption.
No, rather I clearly distinguish "who" from "what" here. Who is this? The Son, God the Word. Therefore a Divine Person. What is He? Both God and man, i.e., having Divine nature in eternity, and human nature since in 1stC in Palestine He individuated matter known as one Jesus Christ.
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Originally posted by Evensong:
If that were the case, then he only "assumes" or "appears" to be fully human.
Again, you have to say what you mean by "fully human". That simply is more ambiguous than you appear willing to admit. Whether "assuming human nature" amounts to "only appearing to be fully human" depends on your definition of what "fully human" means. If you say that "fully human" means "having human nature in all its aspects", then a Divine person assuming all of human nature is fully human.
What you are trying to do here is to define "personhood" as part of "nature", or perhaps identify the two. But that is contrary to the classical distinction at work here. I recommend reading the following concise but excellent entry:
quote:
Geddes, L. (1911). Person. In The Catholic Encyclopedia.
[W]e have a definition comprising the five notes that go to make up a person: (a) substantia - this excludes accident; (b) completa - it must form a complete nature; that which is a part, either actually or "aptitudinally" does not satisfy the definition; (c) per se subsistens - the person exists in himself and for himself; he is sui juris, the ultimate possessor of his nature and all its acts, the ultimate subject of predication of all his attributes; that which exists in another is not a person; (d) separata ab aliis - this excludes the universal, substantia secunda, which has no existence apart from the individual; (e) rationalis naturae - excludes all non-intellectual supposita.
To a person therefore belongs a threefold incommunicability, expressed in notes (b), (c), and (d). The human soul belongs to the nature as a part of it, and is therefore not a person, even when existing separately. The human nature of Christ does not exist per se seorsum, but in alio, in the Divine Personality of the Word. It is therefore communicated by assumption and so is not a person. Lastly the Divine Essence, though subsisting per se, is so communicated to the Three Persons that it does not exist apart from them; it is therefore not a person. ...
The human nature of Christ is possessed by the Word and exists by His infinite esse. It has no separate esse of its own and for this reason is not a person. The suppositum is a suppositum as being ens in the strictest sense of the term. Of all Latin theories this appears to approach most nearly to that of the Greek fathers. Thus in the "Dialogues of the Trinity" given by Migne among the works of St. Athanasius, the author, speaking of person and nature in God, says: He gar hypostasis to einai semainei he de theotes to ti einai (Person denotes esse, the Divine nature denotes the quiddity; M. 28, 1114).
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Originally posted by Evensong:
Personally I don't understand how salvation is wrought in this Athanasian sense. I'm just trying to get the assumptions straight in my head on the two natures.
Well, see above. Note in particular the quote from Athanasius in the Encyclopedia entry.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
If Jesus was without sin, then he was not like me. If he was not like me, how am I redeemed?
Well, personally I'm not particularly impressed by the idea that the Logos necessarily had to become like us in order to affect our salvation. I see not the slightest reason why that should be the case. Yes, it sure is fitting and beautiful (in a tragic manner) and presumably best that God became man. Necessary? Nonsense. God is omnipotent, if He wills you saved, so you are. No ifs, buts and whys. (In this I agree, as I do most of the time, with St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas...)
From this perspective then, I would ask: would it be fitting and beautiful (in a tragic manner) and presumably best that God became sinful man? Even if that were possible (I don't think it is...), I would say no, that would be inappropriate, ugly and bad. God is the ought to our is, and He remains so on becoming human. Jesus is how a human being ought to be - tragically so, amidst humans that are not how they ought to be.
So instead of any necessity for God to become fully human, I see simply the grandeur and mercy of God in His accommodation of our weakness. We would likely have found it rather difficult to follow a virtuous dolphin to our salvation, but if we see in Christ what we are but ought to be, then we can try to become like Him. From this pragmatic perspective I have no problem with Jesus being a Divine person, and not being stained by sin. That surely does not interfere with Him showing us how a human life can unite with the Divine. And with that out of the way, is it not actually more beautiful that it is a Divine Person that became man? God died on the cross, the Divine Person of the Logos through His human nature. It was not some kind of derived, associated "human person" but God Himself who died as a human being.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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egg
Shipmate
# 3982
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
If Jesus was without sin, then he was not like me. If he was not like me, how am I redeemed?
Well, personally I'm not particularly impressed by the idea that the Logos necessarily had to become like us in order to affect our salvation. I see not the slightest reason why that should be the case. Yes, it sure is fitting and beautiful (in a tragic manner) and presumably best that God became man. Necessary? Nonsense. God is omnipotent, if He wills you saved, so you are. No ifs, buts and whys. (In this I agree, as I do most of the time, with St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas...)
From this perspective then, I would ask: would it be fitting and beautiful (in a tragic manner) and presumably best that God became sinful man? Even if that were possible (I don't think it is...), I would say no, that would be inappropriate, ugly and bad. God is the ought to our is, and He remains so on becoming human. Jesus is how a human being ought to be - tragically so, amidst humans that are not how they ought to be.
I tread with some trepidation into an area in which others have clearly read a good deal more of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas than I have. The real trouble, it seems to me, is Augustine’s theory of Original Sin (more accurately, I think, described as Original Guilt in the form that Augustine or his successors give it), which appears to have been built upon Jerome’s mistranslation (or poor translation) of Romans 5.12 (see in particular City of God, book 13). If Augustine is right, then plainly Jesus, who was born without Original Sin, is not like me. But if Original Sin denotes an inborn tendency to sin (which I would equate largely with self-centredness, the besetting sin of the current Age) which is present in all human beings, the difference between Jesus and me is that he, though “in all points tempted like as we are, [was] yet without sin” (Heb.4.15), whereas I, and all other human beings who have been capable of doing so, have succumbed to temptation and have sinned.
As to being saved, I started a thread nearly a year ago with the question, “From what are we saved?”; and the conclusion that I think it came to is that we are saved from missing out on eternal life, by faithfully following the teaching and example of Jesus in his earthly life. I won’t repeat what was said then, but Jesus’s repeated promises of eternal life were one of the main elements in the good news that the early Christians heard. Yes, of course, if God wills you saved, so you are; but your faithfulness to the teaching and example of Jesus helps you to achieve that desirable end; and eternal life is promised to each one of us, in a life after death in which we are recognisable as individuals in our human persons, just as Jesus is recognisable in his human and divine persons.
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egg
Posts: 110 | From: London UK | Registered: Jan 2003
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