diana

Sis,

I thought God wearing a Jesus suit was the high point, myself.

Thanks for dropping in and wowing the crowds, Koy-I-don't-care-how-many-adoring-fans-need-me-I'm-still-retired-goddammit. We miss you (and I for one hope you're rechanneling all that scathing wit into something that'll be published).

Xman,

Pertaining to the coexistence of a "divine nature" and a "human nature," I must ask you to define, as thoroughly as you can, what is meant by "divine nature," exactly.

I will say that the fact that they both purport to define Jesus' "nature" suggests they're addressing the same "part" of him (if you will). The fact that Xns call one part "divine" and another part "human" also necessarily implies that each has different characteristics, something that makes each not the other.

To use a mundane example, I can drink either iced tea or hot tea. They're both tea, but each has characteristics that are mutually exclusive. That's why we label them differently, I suppose. Hot tea is characterized by [strength] and [heat]. Iced tea is characterized by [less strength] and [no heat]--and if you're in the South, also [sweetness]. Due to these mutually exclusive characteristics, the two cannot be combined in one entity without losing their defining characteristics. (Indeed, they'd be lukewarm, so that I'd spew them out of my mouth.)

I suspect the dual divine/human nature designation is only a device which allows the believer a ready explanation, regardless of the circumstances he's confronted with. It's a failsafe. In the story of Jesus, the divine nature is important because people need to understand which part of him is untouchable. The human nature part is important to explain everything else--how he can experience pain and anger and hunger and weakness and fear.

And somehow, it is the divine nature AND the human nature that get equal credit for him being "spotless." No mere human could have done it, so he was obviously divine. But it would have been meaningless if he weren't susceptible to human foibles.

And thus, we produce whichever "nature" better explains the problem at hand. But a "human nature" and a "divine nature," I submit to you, are mutually exclusive by definition.

d

[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: diana ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

I would add (not that you need it) that a "Human Nature" and a "Divine Nature" are not just mutually exclusive, but mutually contradictory (to coin a phrase); one cancelling out the other and vice (ooh) versa.

Actually, come to think of it, they aren't even aspects of the same construct, like a square is a rectangle but a rectangle can not be a square kind of thing, so all of this is logically inconsistent. X seems to be saying that the same thing is the same thing, no matter how completely different it is from itself.

Fine work if you can get it, but hardly substantive beyond the word play.

I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that it will all be sidetracked with a "it depends upon the sense/relationship" shuffle.

Just another reason why I'm still retired, however bored I may currently be at work today.

Earl

Howdy all. Here’s an essay I wrote several years ago on this fascinating and possibly devastating topic. The essay is pretty long, but the main section is called “_The negative effects of Jesus’ knowledge and motivations on his sacrifice_.”

See also one of my essays at the Secular Web, at <a href="http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=33" target="_blank">http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=33</a>

****

_Jesus’ Impossible Sacrifice_

“Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:1-2).

The central proposition in Christian theology is that Jesus’ death atoned for sin. In the popular terms of appeasement, Jesus’ death was God’s final, ultimate sacrifice which demonstrated his desire that all sinners be spared the just punishment for their disobedience. Jesus was uniquely enabled to offer his life for others because he was sinless and was in any case in some mysterious way both human and God himself. His death, therefore, had infinite sacrificial value, because his life was (and, according to the believer, still is) limitlessly precious.

But the doctrine of the Atonement, as outlined above, is self-contradictory. The qualities of Jesus’ character and divine nature that would have made his death infinitely valuable as a sacrifice should also have prevented him from suffering in the first place.

To appreciate this, imagine that Satan (possessing the complete opposite character of Jesus, of course) were forced to die as a sacrifice for other people’s sins. Satan would never offer his life in such a fashion because of his selfish character, but imagine he were forced to do so. What would be the quality of his sacrifice, or more precisely, how much would he suffer? An unwilling sacrificial victim would seem capable of producing frighteningly genuine pain. Satan would be unwilling to perform an altruistic act, and so if he were somehow forced to do so he would revolt with the urgency of all his selfish, scheming impulses. He would be tortured with the knowledge that his death would serve a purpose that he would have been desperate to sabotage. If genuine pain were required to pay for some crime, Satan’s sacrificial death would be ideal except, of course, for the fact that Satan would never volunteer himself in this way, and a forced sacrifice would be worthless. So Satan’s evil character would allow him to feel pure, unmitigated pain, yet this same aspect of his character would deprive his suffering of any sacrificial value. Satan could provide the pain but not the merit.

The situation is reversed with Jesus: Jesus could have provided the merit but not the pain. His pain would have had special sacrificial value if only his suffering could have been genuine. His suffering would, however, have been mitigated precisely because of the selfless, divine aspects of himself that would have motivated him to offer his life as a sacrifice. These aspects are Jesus’ (1) knowledge as to his death’s (a) divine (just and merciful) purpose and (b) necessary reversal, and (2) his love for all sinners and God, and his hatred of the devil, together with (3) various other factors of Jesus’ humanity to be discussed below.

_Jesus’ knowledge and motivations on the cross_

Beginning with Jesus’ knowledge as to his death’s sacrificial purpose, the first question is, Did Jesus have such knowledge prior to and during his execution? Paul seemed to know the purpose and nature of Jesus’ death, and repeatedly elaborated on them in his letters. Should Paul have known more about Jesus’ substitutionary role than Jesus himself? But even if we were to assume that Jesus was never explicitly told his death’s exact purpose, still he must have been able to figure it out given what he must surely have understood, as the following will demonstrate.

At the very least, Jesus must have known that God the Father wanted him to die. In the New Testament, Jesus is recorded to have proclaimed the necessity of his death several times. His prayer at Gethsemane reveals his knowledge of a burdensome “cup” from which the Father wants him to drink (Matt.26:39). And if Jesus lacked even the knowledge that he had to die to please the Father he could not have obediently offered his life to please him, and thus his death would not have been sacrificial or meritorious. Furthermore, if Jesus knew he had been incarnated as a mortal with a human body, whereas before he had enjoyed a more glorious form in heaven, he should have known at least that physical death, as sustained by God, was inevitable for him.

Jesus might have offered his life without knowing the Father desired a sacrifice, but in this case in order for his death to have been intentionally and voluntarily sacrificial Jesus would had to have believed according to his own reason that his death was required. An involuntary sacrifice would be worthless unless the valuable part of a sacrifice were the offering itself rather than the way it is offered. Jesus might just as well, then, have been positively against the sacrifice, yet so long as his blood was spilled in the end and his death brought about painfully the “sacrifice” would have been complete. In this case, though, the death would not have had substitutionary value, because the unwillingness itself would have been selfish, and so Jesus would not have been a sinless offering able to die for others. Jesus’ sacrifice would have been as worthless as Satan’s, as above discussed.

So either way Jesus should have known that God wanted him to die. Yet Jesus must also have known that he was personally sinless. This is plain because his teachings throughout the gospels reveal that he had an unusually strong grasp of what constituted sin, and thus he should have known whether he had sinned. If Jesus did sin at some point, his death could not have had infinite sacrificial value in the first place. But if he was indeed sinless, he should have known this because of his superior knowledge of God’s law, and indeed because he was also the deity who legislated the law. Furthermore, if he was really born of a virgin, and thus was spared the yoke of original sin, he would probably have found out about this miracle.

Finally, Jesus should have known beyond any doubt that God the Father is a moral and benevolent being who would never commit an evil act. This is because God was allegedly revealed in Jesus and Jesus should have been aware of his own moral nature. Furthermore, if Jesus pre-existed as God’s Word, as the gospel of John asserts, he should have had an unusually full awareness of the Father. From his knowledge regarding God’s benevolent nature, Jesus would have known that death, being painful, must serve as a punishment. This is, at any rate, what the Jewish Scriptures suggest with the story of the Fall of humankind.

Given these three pieces of Jesus’ knowledge, his further awareness of his death’s exact purpose would have been unavoidable. Jesus knew that he had to die but also that he personally did not deserve death because, as the Jews believed, death is the punishment of (Adam’s) sin and he, Jesus, was sinless. God does not have people killed without a good reason. Jesus’ knowledge of sin should have informed him that many, if not all, humans were sinners. Since Jesus knew that his death was not a punishment for his sin, that death is nevertheless a punishment, that God is fair and just, and that many or all of those around him were personally guilty of breaking God’s law, it would have followed that his death was a sacrifice for other people. His knowledge of his own purity should have led to his understanding that his death would have limitless sacrificial value. Thus Jesus should have known that his death was a sacrifice for all human sin.

From the knowledge that God wished Jesus’ death to be a sacrifice for sin, Jesus would also have had the assurance that his death would successfully save a substantial number of sinners. Otherwise, his death would not have been worthwhile and the Father would not have wished it. For Jesus to have been the ideal substitutionary victim, he should have trusted that his effort would yield benefits for other people, and that the one who originally instigated the sacrifice, in this case God the Father, believed his sacrifice would be beneficial. Jesus should have trusted that God would have had, first, good reason to want his death as a sacrifice; second, the knowledge that the death would in fact bring about good results; and third, the power and authority to have been fully justified and correct in his judgments.

The second crucial piece of Jesus’ knowledge, besides his death’s purpose of atonement, is of the necessary cancellation and reversal of his ordeal, his suffering and his death. The New Testament states that Jesus prophesied both his death and his resurrection (Mark 8:31, 10:34, 14:25). In any case, from the knowledge of his own qualitatively infinite worth, Jesus should have known that a quantitatively infinite, endless sacrifice on his part was not required. Jesus knew, then, that he was free to suffer for a limited period, since even a short period of suffering would have infinite substitutionary value were the person undergoing the punishment infinitely valuable. Yet what should have become of Jesus after his sacrifice’s completion? Jesus would have had no reason not to believe that once his payment had been made his personal relations with the Father would be reestablished, that he would ascend to his heavenly home and be reunited with everything he had had in his pre-existence. Furthermore, if Jesus shared in the Father’s divinity, he can be expected to have understood the plan of the Atonement, including his resurrection and ascension.

At any rate, it seems incoherent to assert that God could forever keep one of the three divine persons in a state of shame and death, for this would amount to a breaking of the unity of the Triune God, and thus an unfathomable loss. A perfect, omnipotent God should be able to rectify his creatures’ disobedience without shattering himself, to Satan’s glee. As part of the Trinity Jesus should have known that there would be a happy ending to his death, that the three divine persons would inevitably be reunited because of God’s sovereignty.

Aside from Jesus’ knowledge that his death was a necessarily temporary sacrifice for sin, the other aspects of his ideal character and divine nature were his proper motivations for offering his life, namely his perfect love for sinners and God, and his hatred of Satan. There will be few theologians who would deny that Jesus had these motivations in abundance. The New Testament declares that Jesus was a great lover of humanity and God, and that he fought Satan’ temptations and will defeat him in the cataclysmic battle of Armageddon. Jesus’ love for sinners and God would have given his sacrifice its merit, since his loving nature would have made him sinless, and his sinlessness would have allowed him to suffer for others as opposed to himself.

_The negative effects of Jesus’ knowledge and motivations on his sacrifice_

The next question is, Would these pieces of knowledge, that his death was a necessarily temporary sacrifice for sin, and his selfless motivations have mitigated Jesus’ pain during his execution? The knowledge alone would have had no softening effect on his pain had Jesus not possessed the appropriate motivations for offering his life. Yet if Jesus had the proper motivations and was in fact an ideal, sinless candidate for a substitutionary victim, it follows that his knowledge of his death’s purpose together with these motivations would have satisfied his desires and softened his torments in various ways, preventing him from contributing the sacrifice’s content, the genuine substitutionary pain for the sinner’s torments in hell.

Imagine a mother, Margaret, who saves her child from certain death. What if Margaret were to take no pleasure of any kind at having saved her child’s life? Could we still believe that Margaret acted out of love for her child? The effect of her act, the saving of her child, might be positive, but without the accompanying emotions of relief and joy for her child’s newly secured welfare the most likely signs of a personal interest in her child would be suspiciously absent. In Jesus’ case, the whole point of his substitutionary act would have been to produce painful mental states. The worth of his sacrificial act would have depended crucially on his mental state, his experience of pain, whereas ordinarily a person’s feelings while performing a moral act are of secondary value to whether the act is successfully carried out. Now what if Margaret had only to feel pain in order to rescue her child? Knowing the instrumental value of her pain she would be in an impossible situation: she would desire to feel the pain, and so would be incapable of feeling it. She would be eager to go through what must be an unwanted experience to be genuine. Jesus would have been in precisely the same frustrating situation, but with the stakes far higher, and the love, or the desire to suffer, much greater.

Pain can be softened by pleasure just as pleasure can be by pain. Imagine that Frank wins one million dollars at the lottery. He is doubtless overjoyed. But what if Frank were to know that he owes the bank half a million dollars and has to pay the sum right away? Frank might still be happy at the prospect of clearing his debt, but there would have to be a dampening effect as well: his fantasy of having a million dollars to spend as he wishes would be tarnished by his debt to the bank. His joy would be clouded or undone by sadness, regret, disappointment, and perhaps even feelings of guilt due to a desire to steal the money and not pay back the bank. The extent of his joy’s alteration would depend on the circumstances. But the point is that the softening of Jesus’ pain would have been similar to the undermining of Frank’s joy. The difference would have been merely one of degree: Jesus should have had far more in the way of sabotaging motivations.

As to what Jesus specifically could not have suffered on the cross, in the first place he could not have felt pure, unmitigated fear. The most fearsome aspect of death is our lack of knowledge as to what if anything will happen afterward. The person who has at best only ambiguous information regarding the afterlife at the time of her death will likely feel fear, and this fear will not be countered by anything but perhaps the satisfaction of having lived a full life. In Jesus’ case, though, he knew or firmly trusted that his death would not be the end of him, but that on the contrary he would live forever and would once more enjoy the glory of being God’s Son in heaven. The fact that Jesus would have wanted what he once had is important, since the desire to retrieve what has been lost often produces more excitement, exhilaration, expectation, and joy than the desire to obtain something for the first time. If Jesus pre-existed as God’s “Word” and loved the Father, he would have wanted to be reunited with him and to serve him in his former glorious capacity. These expectations, along with his knowledge of his death’s temporary nature and extraordinarily loving purpose, would have softened any fear he might have felt on the cross. And yet surely the unrepentant sinner should feel fear as part of her just punishment.

Second, Jesus could not have felt guilt. Jesus either (1) became sinful on the cross and somehow lost his divine nature and knowledge of his sacrificial role so that he could genuinely suffer guilt exactly as an ordinary sinner might, or else he (2) remained aware of the fact that he himself committed no sins and was merely a priestly official performing a labour of love.

In the first case, Jesus would have been able to feel genuine guilt since he would have become evil, having lost his divine nature and self-awareness of his redemptive role. Yet without Jesus’ divinity, knowledge, self-awareness and praiseworthy character his death could not have had unlimited value. Imagine the following scenario. Hitler is captured and put on trial for his many crimes, but is suddenly struck with a genuine case of amnesia. Not only can Hitler not remember his crimes but he also can’t remember his top Nazi rank or even what his personality was like. Hitler is left with no self-knowledge, and thus, most importantly, his evil, guilty character is lost as well. Could he then be fairly tried for the criminal that he was? Certainly not. He would be judged incapable of standing trial and indeed undeserving of any punishment at all. Punishment of Hitler in this case would be pointless and without moral justification.

Similarly, if Jesus suffered a kind of amnesia on the cross, such that he could have forgotten the fact that he was treasured by God for being his dedicated Son and our sacrifice, and thus could have genuinely suffered the separation from God that sinners deserve, it would no longer have been Jesus himself who suffered for us. Thus his death would not have had infinite sacrificial value. Crediting the amnesiac Hitler with his many earlier crimes in order to punish someone who looks like Hitler but who no longer in fact is that person would be grotesque, and it would be equally grotesque to credit a husk of the person Jesus, having “become sin,” with his earlier righteousness in order to give his death sacrificial value.

In the second case, Jesus’ suffering could have had sacrificial value, because he would have retained his divinity and thus his unlimited worth, and yet he could not have felt genuine guilt in the first place: he would have known that he was merely an innocent, beloved substitute for real sinners. Any attempt on his part to have felt guilty would have been fraudulent. In order to have felt guilt Jesus would have had personally to sin, but in that case he would not have been a uniquely innocent substitute, and his death would not have carried infinite value. Guilt would have been impossible for Jesus, just as selfless love would be for Satan. Yet surely part of the punishment sinners deserve is to feel guilt.

The third pain Jesus could not have felt is estrangement or abandonment by the Father. Feelings of abandonment by God are what the theologian often calls the essence of “spiritual death,” the ultimate punishment of sin. Again, if Jesus lost his knowledge of his own favoured positions as the sinner’s substitute and God’s beloved Son, and of his inevitable resurrection and ascension, his death could not have had unlimited value. Yet if Jesus retained this knowledge, any feelings of distance and abandonment by the Father he might have suffered would have been softened by his expectation of being inevitably reunited with him, and by his pleasure to save billions of lost sinners from hell.

Imagine the difference between the abandonment felt by the unrepentant sinner in hell and that by Jesus on the cross. The sinner would be truly lost and forever abandoned by God, and would have no expectation of ever being redeemed. She would, therefore, feel despair, loneliness, fear and guilt. Jesus, on the other hand, could not have felt lost, because he would have understood his sacrificial role. His loneliness would have been countered by his knowledge of his pain’s instrumental value in achieving a goal he, as a perfect lover of humankind, would have been desperate to achieve, the salvation of billions of sinners from hell. The instrumental value of his death would have been a result of God’s plan for the salvation of sinners, a plan in which Jesus would have participated by allowing himself to be executed, and which as God himself Jesus would have helped design. Therefore, far from feeling lonely Jesus should have enjoyed a sense of cooperation and fellowship with the Father in working towards an eminently worthwhile objective. Yet surely condemned sinners should be deprived of feelings of teamwork or of aiming towards an absolute good.

Despair for Jesus would have been impossible given his knowledge as to his death’s necessarily happy outcome. Even if Jesus knew that many sinners would reject God’s offer of salvation, his misery at this situation could only have faded, as opposed to remaining the same or becoming worse, in light of his knowledge that at least some, if not many, faithful Christian sinners who would not have been saved without his sacrifice would in fact now be saved from hell. As the “author and perfector” of faith (Heb.12:1-2), Jesus should have trusted that God’s way is best. Yet someone who trusts in God’s sovereignty could not at the same time descend into fear or pessimism. Faith and despair are contradictory attitudes. The sinner, though, would inevitably feel hopeless in hell.

Hand in hand with Jesus’ love for sinners and God should have went his hatred of the devil, which would have produced relief and satisfaction during the moment when Satan’s plan for our destruction would have been overturned, namely during Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross which would have provided sinners an escape route from Satan’s grasp. Hatred for the enemy often bolsters a hero’s courage and confidence. As someone relentlessly obedient to God, Jesus would have hated rather than feared the devil, and it is hard to see how he could fail to have been satisfied once his execution became unavoidable, since this would have signified a devastating blow to Satan’s evil scheme to enslave God’s children.

There are several more factors that should have turned Jesus’ pain into pleasure during his execution. These include the giddiness, expectancy, eagerness, and anticipation he should have felt even before he was nailed to the cross. He should have known prior to his death what the death would accomplish, and should have eagerly wished to complete his duty. This anxiety should have lessened all the substitutionary suffering he might have endured. Eagerness allows someone to plow through a trial while shielding her from agony. Anticipation limits the person's attention to the goal and spares the person pure suffering, which involves hopelessness, or at least a lack of certainty regarding a favourable outcome. Looking forward to something often involves fantasizing about it, or imagining the happy concrete details of what is anticipated, which tends to be a pleasurable experience. The expectant person who is trapped, say in a well, will look forward to rescue and will not be plagued with fear, whereas someone with no reason to expect rescue will likely suffer pessimism as a result of every inconvenience no matter how minor. Jesus' eagerness should have shielded him from this pessimistic, pain-inducing attitude, which might have made his period on the cross purely painful.

Then there is the relief he should have felt not just at the end of his suffering but during it, because of his knowledge that with his death the joyous moment for sinners and God had come. He should have been relieved that due to his imminent and inevitable, not to mention necessarily reversible, demise his loved ones were finally going to receive their atonement. Every pain he would have felt on the cross, every sign that his death was near and unavoidable, which without Jesus’ self-knowledge and positive motivations would have amounted to unmitigated suffering, would instead have added to Jesus’ relief. His torments equaled the sinner’s salvation. So if he lovingly wanted to save the sinner he should have been glad for each sign of his death’s nearness. The greater the pains the gladder he should have been for the sinner’s sake.

Add to Jesus’ relief the confidence that should have resulted from his sense of responsibility. Knowing that his death was part of a greater good, indeed an absolute Good, Jesus should have been full of confidence on the cross. Confidence often acts as a shield from genuine pain, allowing soldiers, for example, to endure the indignities and horrors of war with the knowledge that they are fighting for the common good. Jesus’ confidence should have bolstered him and prevented him from falling into despair.

Finally there is the ecstasy, delirium or joy he should have felt given the enormity of his sacrificial act. The husband who helps his wife in a minor way feels pleased. The soldier who fights for his country feels proud and noble. The mother who rescues her child from death feels enormous relief and joy. But what of Jesus’ heroic act? Imagine being given the opportunity to rescue potentially billions upon billions of beloved individuals not just from physical death but from endless suffering of the worst kind in hell, to please the Creator of the universe, to foil Satan’s plans for humankind. How could Jesus have failed to laugh at his physical torments in light of his knowledge and positive motivations? What could have stopped him from dashing to his place of execution in a frenzy, and impaling himself to the cross eager to begin the most loving and effective act conceived by God for the sake of his children’s eternal destination?

_Objections_

Pain is not absolute and can be overcome by pleasure, depending on such circumstances as the person’s state of mind, belief-system, awareness of the facts, physical tolerance, and motivations. If ever there was a situation in which pain should have been converted to joy, or at least dramatically mitigated by pleasurable sensations, this was Jesus’ moment of triumph on the cross. Of course, Jesus should have known that he was both the best and the worst candidate for the ultimate pain-bearer. The very same attributes that would have made his death infinitely valuable should have negated his pain, making his sacrifice impossible from the outset. This is to say that the Atonement is contradictory, and could never have been ordered by God.

The apologist speaks of Jesus' empathy for sinners that should have caused him sorrow and disappointment for our sake in recognizing our low state in God’s judgment. So far as it goes this point seems correct, but the empathy should have gone both ways: not only should Jesus have felt sorry for sinners because of their predicament, but due to his love for them he should have felt glad as well, because his death would have secured their atonement. Jesus' empathy would have been a double-edged sword. It would explain how Jesus might have suffered for others, but it would also have provided for the limitation of this suffering due to Jesus' love for sinners, the empathy’s engine, as it were. Empathy is based on an emotional connection with another person. Jesus' connection with sinners would have been informed by his love for them. While his love for sinners might have caused him disappointment because of their guilt in God's judgment, his love or sympathy should also have caused him relief that finally many sinners would now be spared hell and given eternal life.

Jesus’ humanity in general would have been both sacrificially vital and counterproductive. The theologian often asserts that Jesus’ divinity gave his death unlimited sacrificial value, whereas his humanity allowed him to undergo the punishment in the first place. Thus the beauty of the Incarnation. God entered a human body, which permitted him to feel pain as mortals do. But again, this point is encouraging only as far as it goes: Jesus’ humanity should also have forced him to express his love for sinners and God at least as fully as human nature ordinarily expresses itself in love, namely with the appropriate emotions of relief, confidence, eagerness, anticipation, exhilaration, determination, and joy when the beloved’s welfare is potentially or actually increased.

In order for someone to identify with the apologist’s talk of Jesus’ perfect “love” for sinners, this love must be analogous to human love. “Perfect” love cannot mean unfathomable love; otherwise we might as well say Jesus “hated” sinners. Ironically, the more Jesus was able to give his pain special sacrificial value, the less he could have carried out the sacrifice by actually feeling the pain. His sacrifice was impossible.

winstonjen

Earl, well done on an excellent essay!

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Could you please post it on the Catholic forum here - <a href="http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00AFUQ" target="_blank">http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=00AFUQ</a>

Matthew144

Divine nature and human nature are not "mutually contradictory" categories. In order to be, something essential about being in one of the categories would have to make it impossible to be in the other category.

Earlier in the discussion someone said that since human is mortal and divine is immortal then human and divine are incompatible. This correctly notes the fact that in order to be divine one would have to be immortal, however, it incorrectly assumes that in order to be human one has to be mortal. One can be immortal and still be human.

If you go down the list (or if you make your own list) of objections to the hypostatic union, you will find that all of them contain at least one non-essential attribute.

[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: Matthew144 ]</p>

babelfish

* &lt;swoons&gt; *

Koy, may I please bear your child?

<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Doubting Didymus

I really missed out on something, having only just registered when koy was about to retire. Nice to see he occasionally comes back. This stuff is fully sandwich.

Earl

Winstonjen,

Thanks. I’m not sure I want to register with my email address at that other site, but I give you permission to post it.

****

XMAN: As far as defining the hypostatic union, goes, there are many good descriptions in theology books, if you are interested. If not, here is a summary: The doctrine of the hypostatic union is that Jesus is one person with two natures. As such, he possesses both the full attributes of God and the full attributes of man, with each set of attributes residing in its appropriate nature.

Perhaps I can illustrate the hypostatic union by the metaphor of a peanut butter sandwich. The peanut butter is not the bread, and the bread is not the peanut butter, but the peanut butter sandwich contains both the bread with its full set of breadly attributes and the peanut butter with its full set of peanut-buttery attributes.

EARL: The distinctions between “nature,” “attribute,” and “person” come from Aristotle, whose metaphysics has been superseded by Darwinian thinking, according to which there are no fixed natures. A more flexible way of handling the Incarnation would be to say that Jesus had two dispositions, or ways of behaving, each with its own set of powers, or “attributes.” But look what happens when we drop the Aristotelian essentialism: no longer need we take these two ways of behaving as fixed or necessarily distinguishable, except perhaps in a statistical or pragmatic sense. We no longer regard the divisions between species as absolute or created. The Catholic notion of Jesus as “fully” both man and God is already essentialist and Aristotelian. Since humans have evolved and are still evolving, there is no such thing as “fully,” that is, finally human. There is no end point or goal of evolution.

For these reasons, the Christian should think of Jesus as the single member of a separate species (as I believe certain theologians view the angel), that is, as an anomalous creature with a huge range of behaviour, each set of characteristics distinguished, however, not by metaphysics but by the observer’s interests. How many sub-categories of the human mind should we draw? How many faculties, aspects, capacities, dispositions or “natures”? There’s our use of concepts, our receiving of sensations, our memory, our imagination, and so on, so how many “attributes” are required to form a “nature”? The answer is about as significant as the number of angels on the head of a pin. We can say that Jesus had two--and only two--natures, but the absoluteness of this claim has been quite undercut since Darwin.

Why, then, does the Christian want to hold on to Aristotelian essentialism? Why not view Jesus’ “natures” as pragmatically, or at least flexibly, categorized dispositions rather than absolutely rigid, “full natures”? The answer seems to be that were we to conceive of Jesus as a freakish species with one member, that is, as an anomalous person with no fixed natures at all but simply two widely varying capacities plus as many other “natures” as we would care to distinguish, we could no longer identify with him as one of us. God would not have revealed himself in a way that we could easily understand, but would instead have transformed himself into a hybrid creature, not a species of divinity or of humanity but as some third species, something with the powers of both a deity and a mortal. This is to say that the Christian’s basic theological doctrines appear to rest on an outmoded, anti-Darwinian, essentialist metaphysics.

[ December 04, 2002: Message edited by: Earl ]</p>

winstonjen

Thank you Earl, I'll use an anonymous name and email.

winstonjen

This was Eugene's typically 'enlightened' reply:

"This is an overblown, indulgent, lamentable post. The writer is a clueless sophist and poseur.
To devote 2,000 words and so much narcissism to a pointless argument is typical of atheists. No love exists worth their respect. You can explain their mirthless existence in direct ratio to their scorn for divinity.

But posts like this one reflect their infatuation with the banal. And they actually think they can hold your attention with balderdash like this! Hell on earth defined!"