Bill Tingley in a comment:
Regarding the mortality of Christ, his incarnation subjected him to all the same physical frailties of all other human beings, including bodily death. So he was mortal, as we all are, until he was resurrected, as Christians hope to be.
Of course, the precise nature of the Hypostatic Union of man and God is a mystery, and so ultimately requires faith to believe that Christ was both fully human and fully God. However, it is essential to Christian belief that Christ was mortal, because it was only through his actual death our sins have been redeemed.
Clear as mud, right?
Let me say first that I am not hostile to Christianity. Far from it. I would like it to be true. If I am hostile to anything I am hostile to the Left's contemptible assault on it. But as a philosopher I cannot do otherwise than make use of my presumably God-given reason. To not make use of this marvelous faculty would be to show disrespect for the One who has bestowed it on me, would it not?
Tingley's doctrinal summary above is very good; I see nothing in it to which an orthodox Christian could object. To redeem us Christ had to die. So he was mortal. But since he is God, Christ is also immortal. God is immortal; Christ is the Incarnate Logos, the Logos being the Second Person of the Trinity; ergo, Christ is immortal.
But now there is at least the appearance of a difficulty since we seem driven toward a contradiction: Christ is mortal and Christ is not mortal. He is both mortal and immortal during his earthly tenure inasmuch as he is both fully human and fully divine. Quite clearly, this logical contradiction is an affront to reason, that God-like faculty in us.
No doubt there are responses that can be made. I consider some of them in this hard-published article.
The appeal to mystery is unavailing. For what is to stop the materialist from claiming that his pet theses are mysteries? Consider a crude materialist who claims that the mind is identical to the brain and that every token mental state is identical -- strictly and numerically -- to some token brain state. I point out to him that there are mental states that have properties that no brain state could possibly have, the property of intentionality, for example, and he responds by saying it is a mystery. It is true, he tells me, true, even though the mind in attempting to understand it slams into a stone wall of contradiction.
Clearly, the appeal to mystery is too easy since any real or apparent absurdity can be 'validated' in this way.
In mathematics there are ways of resolving multiplicities into unities by means of higher dimensions. Might not the concept of dimensions, spatial or non-spatial, provide a clue as to how these mysteries might be resolved? The notion of "spirit" in general seems to imply the existence of invisible parallel dimensions.
"Contemptible assault"? I think it's unsurprising to see a little pushing back, given how things are here in the USA. Perhaps a bit shrill, yes, (though not alone in that), and perhaps, unprovably, even mistaken, but understandable.
I'll have to read your hard-published article before I can respond, just a general point: I think Christian theologians &philosophers (at least Roman-Catholics) are usually trying to use human reason to explain or deal with certain basic acts of faith, as Bill T's statement certainly is. Without these basic assumptions, one could not call oneself a Christian. This is different from using human reason to 'prove' basic acts of faith - which I believe is a contradiction in terms. (But that is a different question.)
Anyway, I'll get back to this, as I just finished this book; technical but very interesting, and very relevant.
I will need to read your article "Incarnation and Identity" before making further comment, except that I would like to say one thing now. You are absolutely correct that reason must be used first and foremost to understand God's revelation.
To say that "X" is a mystery is not to declare it off-limits to examination by reason. Theologically a mystery is a revelation of "X", the full nature of which is not fully comprehensible to finite and fallible human reason. One must use reason to first determine whether the revelation of "X" is, in fact, from God. Then one must use reason to assess whether or not "X" is a mystery.
Such a rational examination of "X" to this end will lead to significant understanding of it. For example, knowing that "X" cannot embody a contradiction will yield fruitful knowledge about what is or is not the nature of "X", even if that nature cannot ultimately be completely determined with certainty. However, because reason fails to fully comprehend the nature of "X", reason declares it to be a mystery.
As a mystery, "X" is a truth that a Christian takes to be certainly true, as a matter of faith, despite lacking certain and full knowledge of the nature of "X". Faith in "X" without the firm foundation of reason is fideism, and is, as you suggest, Bill, "disrespect for the One who has bestowed it on me".
Regards, Bill T
You appear to be becoming ever more mystical. A bit surprising for an engineer.
Malcolm,
An assault leastways. Later we may discuss how contemptible.
I think you are missing the point on the main issue. I was imagining a materialist who accepts the force of my arguments but says that the identity of mind and brain is a mystery.
Deuce writes, "...I don't see the contradiction, unless death is taken to mean complete cessation of existence rather than mere separation of soul and body."
On the Christian view we are not naturally immortal: we are mortal body and soul. Any immortality that we come to acquire requires a supernatural agent operating in a supernatural way. Christianity is on this point un-Platonic, and comports better with Judaism and Aristotelianism. So if JC is fully human, then he is mortal in soul and body. But if he is fully divine, then he is not mortal. The implication seems to be that one and the same person is both mortal and not mortal, which is a contradiction.
I read your article. It was interesting and challenging. As an enthusiast of philosophy without any formal education in it, I will admit to a penchant for wading into waters a little too deep for me. Nevertheless, I think I can address some of the points you made.
You started with the following statements:
“1. Necessarily, if two things are identical, they share all their (non-intentional) properties.
“2. God the Son and Jesus do not share all their (non-intentional) properties.
“3. God the Son and Jesus are identical.”
I’ll take issue with the first statement, because identity includes location in time and space. The Son of God is eternal – i.e., exists outside of time and space – whereas His incarnation as Jesus Christ was a historical event that occurred in the first century A.D. in the Roman province of Judea. That is one reason for agreeing with the second statement and disagreeing with the third statement.
As for Council of Chalcedon implying the third statement, I’ll punt on that. That’s because the Council of Constantinople two centuries later, in response to the Monothelite heresy, further clarified the nature of the Hypostatic Union. The Church taught that God’s incarnation as Jesus Christ possessed both the divine will of the Father and the human will of Jesus. Even though Christ’s human will was subject to and in harmony with His divine will, both existed. So, if I understand you correctly regarding numerical identity, Christians do not profess it because the divine person of Jesus Christ numbered two wills.
Later you made these statements:
“6. God the Son is accidentally human.
“7. Jesus is essentially human, therefore
“8. God the Son is not identical with Jesus.”
I’ll grant that from our perspective as timebound beings, it would appear to us that God’s incarnation is accidental. However, God created us in His image for a purpose. While His creation of us was gratuitous, once He had done so, His incarnation was necessary for the fulfillment of that purpose. As God exists outside of time, the necessity of His incarnation was manifested upon His creation of us – i.e., He didn’t have to wait around to see how events unfolded on Earth to decide whether or not to incarnate Himself. His decision to create us was also His decision to incarnate Himself, in the person of the Son, as one of us. Therefore, God the Son was essentially human.
That said, I agree with you that the Son is not identical to His incarnation as Jesus Christ, because the former exists outside of time and the latter within it. That part of the divine person of the Incarnation within time is mortal; that outside of time is not.
Regards, Bill T
Aquinas held that the existence of God could be proven by reason alone unaided by revelation from facts of experience. But of course he did not think that specific doctrines such as the Incarnation could be proven.
Another distinction is that between proving a proposition and inquiring into just what proposition it is that is being discussed. My concern is with the latter. Just what does the Incarnation claim? Whay is the identity of the thesis? If I cannot understand how it COULD be true, if it looks like a contradiction, then what exactly IS the proposition?
Your knowledge of these matters is impressive. We agree in our opposition to fideism. And I think we have roughly the same understanding of what a mystery is. I would say that a mystery is a proposition the truth of which cannot be known by unaided human reason, but is accepted on the basis of divine authority. But although mysteries cannot be proven by human reason, they are also not supposed to be refutable by human reason either. Nor are they supposed to be unintelligible.
The problems I raise concern the intelligibility of the Incarnation doctrine in its orhtodox Chalcedonian formulation. I am not demanding a proof of it. I am 'demanding' an explanation of its possible truth.
The agent is God the Son, the one who incarnates himself, and does so freely. The locus of Incarnation is the one in whom the Son incarnates himself. Now either the Son incarnates himself in himself, in which case agent and locus are identical, or he incarnates himself in another, in which case agent and locus are distinct. The first disjunct clearly makes nonsense of the very concept of the Incarnation. For the concept implies inter alia that a purely spiritual being enters into the material world. Hence a purely spiritual being cannot incarnate himself in himself, where ‘cannot’ expresses a conceptual impossibility.
...
But if the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, this can only mean that the Word became an individual concrete human being, and not a human being in the abstract. Surely nothing can become man without becoming a man. God can become man only by becoming a particular man. So the point stands: God the Son incarnates himself in, and as, another.
I don't think the former definition of Incarnation is accurate, in that the traditional doctrine is that the Word assumes the abstract human nature, so He isn't Incarnate "in" anything. Moreover, I don't think the latter actually defeats the possibility of anhypostasis, and if it doesn't, then all of the references to Jesus as an individual human being distinct from the Word are irrelevant.
Regarding whether God depends on anything else in order to be Incarnate (viz., He must be Incarnate "in" something), it would seem that God can create ex nihilo (which you have rightly characterized as ex Deo in a real sense), so that it is even possible for Him to exist outside Himself in a way that limited things actually have individuality. ISTM if Incarnation is viewed as a divine action of personally acting in a limited manner, then it isn't any more difficult in conceiving an immutable God being able to create time-bound, material things than to be Incarnate in one. In either event, it is simply a mode of conferring reality on a thing outside Himself; God need not depend on anything outside Himself in order to do that.
Removing the concept of the nature needing a separate individuality dispenses with most, if not all, of the objections. If there is literally no individual human named "Jesus" apart from the Word of God, then statements about this "Jesus" are literally senseless. The only sensible statements would be things like "The Word of God was not born of Mary in all possible worlds," not "Jesus does not exist in all worlds," because in fact, there is no Jesus (referring to an individual human being who was also God) in any world.
I'm afraid you are biting on granite if you question the Indiscernibility of Identicals. Nothing is clearer than this: if two things are identical, then they share all properties. And it has nothing to do with space and time either -- it holds generally.
It doesn't seem obvious to me that, on the Christian view, we are not naturally immortal. Didn't death only enter the picture when sin did? Maybe I am unclear on what you mean by mortal though.
You said "As for Council of Chalcedon implying the third statement [God the Son and Jesus are identical], I’ll punt on that." Turns out you don't need to punt. Chalcedon does not make that claim, because it denies that there is any individual Jesus distinct from God the Son. There aren't two things to be declared identical, because there aren't two things.
The real question is whether a divine person can instantiate the human nature in the abstract. It's not obvious to me why God can't do this, given that He is already immanent in all instantiations of every abstract nature.
1. Whether a human being, Jesus or anyone else, can have an immortal part and a mortal part (not: simultaneously have the property of being mortal and immortal).
2. Whether Christ could have both a human nature and a divine nature.
I believe Jonathan is correct that Christian doctrine is that human beings have a soul that is immortal by nature. So there is no contradiction in the affirmative answer to (1).
I agree with Don's statement about Christian doctrine also, except that it gets confusing since the doctrine he is referring to is presumably about the death of the body.
We agree on the theological meaning of mystery, your definition being more precise and to the point in this discussion. So the question is whether you have, by dint of reason, raised a serious challenge to the Incarnation.
When I questioned your use of "identical" in your article, you suggested I was chewing on granite. Be assured I do that only when I'm not banging my head against the wall. ;) I grant that there is a coherent and useful meaning of the word for describing two or more objects that are the same in all respects save the fact they are more than one object.
As Jonathan Prejean noted, God's incarnation of Himself as Jesus Christ is one person, so there is no issue of comparing two persons to determine whether or not they are identical. However, that one person has two natures, divine and human. It is bedrock Christian teaching that these two natures are not identical, because God in His divinity cannot suffer and so must acquire humanity to do so and redeem us for our sins.
Therefore, the Son of God and Jesus Christ are identical in the same sense that any person is identical to himself. Furthermore, the two natures of Jesus Christ are not identical for the plain reason that the divine and the human are profoundly different. So, unless I am missing something critical in your article (certainly possible), I don't see how it raised a challenge to the mystery of the Incarnation.
Regards, Bill
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