worldling

Or both mortal and immortal? Christians do argue this. To deny it is mere sophistry. For Jesus to be "A", he must be "not B", because "not B" is a corollary of "A" (to be "mortal", one has to be "not immortal").

"hypostatic union" is a fancy term which tries to give a logical contradiction an air of intellectual respectability. In much the same way that "mystery" is used as a euphemism for "nonsense."

RED DAVE

Just a quick note.

It has always seemed to me that Jesus' consciousness that he was God, and therefore immortal, vitiates the pain of the sacrifice. If I knew that it would all be over in three days, and everything would be cool, I would voluntarily sacrifice myself, no sweat.

In fact, given the certainty of painful death and no belief in an afterlife, I would still be willing to sacrifice myself, as would most people who have some ideals or passions.

RED DAVE

[ December 02, 2002: Message edited by: RED DAVE ]</p>

Xman

Not in this case. The law of non-contradiction is that a thing cannot be both A and not A at the same time and in the same sense/relationship. Jesus was not mortal in the same sense/relationship that he was immortal. Rather, Christians believe in the immortality of the human soul and the mortality of the human body. This is not a contradiction because we are not mortal in the same sense that we are immortal. Jesus was more complex because he added an immortal divine nature to the picture, but there is still no contradiction -- only his human body was mortal.

Now, depending on who you are reading, you may find different definitions of death being used. In such cases, clear-thinking Christian authors might apply the terms "mortal" and "immortal" differently that I have here. But again, no contradiction exists unless they assert that Jesus was both A and not A at the same time and in the same sense/relationship. I would not affirm the conclusions of those who committed such an error, but I have not committed that error here, and you have not provided an example of a sense in which Jesus was both A and not A at the same time and in the same sense.

You may feel free to try to find a sense in which the doctrine of the hypostatic union is contradictory, and I will be happy to respond if you make the attempt.

worldling

Semantic shennanigans.

"hypostatic union" is a euphemism for "violation of the law of non-contradiction". You even come close to admitting as such when you say that for something to have "two natures" is "beyond the scope of our experience" (another eumphemism, this time for "logically impossible").

The term's Greek etymology gives it a veneer of respecability, but you (or rather, the apologist who coined it) might has well have coined a whole new word from scratch - like "spanglethrap".

In my pocket I have a spherical cube. Impossible you say? A violation of the law of non-contradiction? Not at all - it's a spanglethrap. It's beyond our normal scope of experience, but it's true nonetheless.

Butters

"A" God is not man
"B" Man is not God
therefore Jesus could only be God or Man.

Please define "Hypostatic union" and how it works.


Man, I've been mad at myself before, but never enough to hang myself on a cross.

diana

FOGuy,

Thanks for taking the time to address my questions. I think I understand where you're coming from, although I must say that I don't agree with your premises.

I would probably ask you to define SOUL and give me any solid, convincing evidence for its existence. Of course, the SOUL concept exists only within the framework of the Bible you're trying to explain. Because of my non-acceptance of the framework itself, interpreting the bible from this POV is an exercise in futility for me.

Based on the assumption that the bible is somehow both valuable and valid, I can understand why you'd want to find some way for it to make sense, some way that it can be explained in which it doesn't lose credibility.

The problem with my accepting this is that the "inerrancy" of the bible is used to "prove" its validity, so I'm precluded from assuming that the bible is valid prior to declaring it inerrant.

I've heard this theory before, and I think it's a valid approach to deciphering what was likely meant by the original writers. However, I wouldn't go so far as to posit that God inspired those writers and that all of humankind must seek the esoteric wisdom of the bible; this explanation seems too much of a stretch to me.

Glyph. Meaning through symbolism. I always find this stuff fascinating, but personally, I tend to see a cigar as a cigar, unless I'm explicitly told that it's actually a phallus, but the writer was too polite or afraid to use the word phallus, so he merely implied it through symbolism. Esoteric meaning can be read into anything. Anything. Even when the people deciphering the supposed symbolism know it wasn't written with any such thing in mind.

Personally, I need more than the fact that you can find symbolic meaning to make the leap into accepting that the piece was written with that in mind.

Whenever I am urged to stop trying to make sense of something using logic, I wonder what tools the person suggests I use in its place--and indeed, what tools he thinks he's using to reason against the logic he's trying to convince me to discard. If not logic, what? Illogic?

Perhaps the bible isn't true or valid at all, but just a collection of man-made stories and "wisdom" of ancient peoples in an admirable effort to explain the world around them, which has always been confusing, unpredictable and frightening. You admit that logic disagrees with your belief; in resolving your cognitive dissonance, you are perhaps too quick to discard logic as the invalid idea.

Any new ideas that are tested and proven worthy, I gladly embrace. So far, logic has proven itself worthy to me, time and again. If you have a better tool, I'm keen to hear it.

d

[ December 02, 2002: Message edited by: diana ]</p>

Butters

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

Xman

Butters & Wordling,

The premises (lines 1 & 2) define God and man by pointing out true attributes: God is not man, and man is not God, but they are actually false as stated. By using the word "is," Butters has effectively equated "God" with "not man" and "man" with "not God." In short, Butters has defined everything that is not man as "God," and everything that is not God as "man." That implies that only God and man exist, and that everything in the universe is either God or man.

I suspect what Butters really meant, though, is something more like:

"A" If it is God then it is not man. (If C then not D.)
"B" If it is man then it is not God. (If D then not C.)
"C" It is God.
"D" It is Man.

From which the argument could proceed:
If C then not D.
D, therefore not C. (By modus tonens, if you like academic terms for syllogisms.)

Unfortunately for this interpretation of Butters argument, premises A and B are unproven, and I am not about to stipulate to them. They are conveniently invented to prove the conclusion, but they are untrue. Unless you can prove these premises, the argument is not convincing.

Let me offer a couple illustrations that point out the way this argument would look in other settings:

"A" The president is not the vice-president.
"B" The vice-president is not the president.
Therefore the vice-president is not the president.

But consider this argument in the case of a corporation in which the same person holds both offices. Both offices are still distinct, being president is not an attribute of being vice-president, and being vice-president is not an attribute of being president. But it is possible for one person to have both the set of attributes that go with being president and the set of attributes that go with being vice-president, and it is possible for one person to hold both offices (as is often the case in personal corporations).

Here's another example:

"A" Awake is not hungry.
"B" hungry is not awake.
Therefore one cannot be both hungry and awake.

The error of this argument is rather self-evident, I think.

The illustration of the spherical-cubical spanglethrap, while interesting, also does not disprove the hypostatic union. The illustration would only apply if Christians argued that Jesus' divinity was his humanity, and that his humanity was his divinity. But this is not the Christian argument. Rather, in the Christian argument Jesus' divinity and humanity remain distinct. The argument is not "God is man, and man is God." Rather, it is "Jesus is God and Jesus is man." These are two very different arguments. Consider how easy it is to tell these types of arguments apart if we substitute "tall" for "God" and "strong" for "man." It might well be true that "Jesus is tall and Jesus is strong," but that in no way implies that "tall is strong, and strong is tall."

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.

Lastly, for clarification, when I said "beyond our experience," what I meant was "None of us has both a human and a divine nature, so it is a difficult concept of which to conceive." But difficult is not impossible, and beyond our experience does not imply any logical failure.

winstonjen

Xman, a person can be both awake and hungry because the two qualities are not mutually exclusive. However, something cannot be both immortal and not - you are either one or the other. Likewise, Jesus' suffering for our sins cannot be both permanent and temporary. If it was permanent, he would have to suffer from the instant A & E ate the forbidden fruit.

Xman

Christian teaching is that all persons are immortal (via the immortality of the soul), unless you means something else by "mortality." Mortality pertains to the body. Thus, a person can have both a mortal body and an immortal soul. What about this strikes you as contraditory?

Regarding your point on temporary vs. permanent distictions, I'm afraid I don't understand the significance of your most recent statement. Would you mind expanding your objection a bit?