Jesus and the Proofs

Jesus Christ and The Proofs

In an earlier post, I suggested that we might be able to “take care of” at least some of the issues regarding the personhood of the being that is the conclusion of the proofs by appealing to the incarnation, and that such an appeal can be used to help us understand idolatry a bit better. But before we appeal to the incarnation at least two things need to be done. First, we need to understand what the incarnation means, and second, we need to see if we can make sense of God becoming incarnate given the nature of God as set forth in the proofs we have been studying. In other words, we need to:

(1) get a bit clearer on the orthodox understanding of who Jesus really is

And

(2) attempt to reconcile the orthodox understanding of Jesus with God as pure act, absolutely simple, infinite divine intellect, existence itself, and absolutely necessary

In this post, we will briefly look at (1).

In 451 c.e. various leaders of the church gathered together to work out what all followers of Christ should believe about his nature. A bunch of views about who Jesus really is were circulating at the time and they were not all consistent with each other (i.e. they all could not be true). Furthermore, many of the views seemed to imply that Jesus was (a) not who he said he was, and (b) not capable of saving humans from their sin.  Here is the creed that the church leaders agreed upon, and is now agreed upon by every branch of Christianity in the world:

Chalcedonian Creed (or Creed of Chalcedon)
We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.

I want to highlight just a few things for us.

Jesus is fully God and fully human.
So, whatever God is, Jesus is, and whatever being human essentially is, Jesus is.

Jesus is two natures (divine and human) and one person.
Jesus is not two or more persons. He has a human nature (he is a complete human being) and a divine nature (he is completely divine). So, Jesus is God the Son, the second person of the trinity.

The two natures of Jesus are not:
            -Confused: they do not fuse together to form some third nature
            -Changed: the natures retain their essence
            -Divided: the natures are whole, complete; they are not partial
            -Inseparable: the two natures of Jesus cannot ever be separated

Question: thoughts?


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