cjh@petsd.UUCP (Chris Henrich) (03/15/85)
[] In a discussion about "What does it mean that Christ died for us?" Frank Silbermann writes, > >Quite frankly, I think we have to reject the idea that when the man Jesus > >was dying in the cross, he was thinking individually of every one of the > >billions of people who God intended to save through him. This would require > >Jesus to have more than a conventional brain. Hence the idea is heretical. [Quoting Chuck Hedrick] > > Sounds reasonable to me. However, I think most Christians do indeed > assume that Jesus had more than a conventional brain. I assume you > are speaking for one of the more liberal denominations. Speaking *as* a Catholic, though not *for* any denomination, I have to admit that yeah, probably, a lot of Christians do assume that. But those who, having thought about the issue, still hold that assumption seem to me to be wandering toward Docetism. This is an unorthodox tendency that tries to deny the human-ness of Jesus Christ. The earlier Docetists tried to say that Jesus was some sort of a phantom (and so He didn't really suffer on the cross). Modern Docetism tends to picture Him as a super-human being, who (in First Century Palestine) knew what quasars are, who was going to kill President Kennedy, etc. Too much of this kind of glorification makes Christ seem so far from us that His life has nothing in common with ours. Jesus was human. The Bible, the creeds, and common sense agree on that point. I think that in taking human qualities, He also took (for His created nature) human limitations. His human qualities may have been those of an extraordinary person, but not those of an impossible person. You may say, if you like, that he was a very strong man, but it is unlikely that he could leap tall buildings in a single bound. (Satan suggested that he should try it... ) Peace, Chris -- Full-Name: Christopher J. Henrich UUCP: ..!(cornell | ariel | ukc | houxz)!vax135!petsd!cjh US Mail: MS 313; Perkin-Elmer; 106 Apple St; Tinton Falls, NJ 07724 Phone: (201) 870-5853
ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (03/19/85)
>> >Quite frankly, I think we have to reject the idea that when the man Jesus >> >was dying in the cross, he was thinking individually of every one of the >> >billions of people who God intended to save through him. This would >> >require Jesus to have more than a conventional brain. Hence the idea >> >is heretical. This does not necessarily follow at all! If God can make a `conventional' man walk on water or return from the dead, why couldn't God cause a `conventional' brain to think otherwise impossible thoughts? -michael
hedrick@topaz.ARPA (Chuck Hedrick) (03/20/85)
> If God can make a `conventional' man walk on water or return from the > dead, why couldn't God cause a `conventional' brain to think otherwise > impossible thoughts? The short answer is that to allow Jesus (and Peter) to walk on water involves changing the physical properties of the water, and/or gravity, whereas to allow Jesus to think simultaneously of billions of people involves removing (or at last radically modifying) the finiteness of Jesus' human nature. I claim that the second is heretical, whereas the first is not. (We are assured by Paul that all of us will eventually have "resurrection bodies" such as Jesus', so the resurrection does not violate his human nature either.) I do not say that it would be any more difficult for God to change Jesus' properties than the water's. However it would have more serious theological consequences. We are not depending upon the water to be our savior. Christians consider it important that our savior was completely human. The rest of this message is somewhat more technical. It assumes that you are interested in the details of Christian theology. (For that reason, I am posting this response only to net.religion.christian.) Christians have said that Christ knows everything that the Father knows. The problem is knowing what that statement means. The obvious meaning is that Christ is some sort of superman: he is a man who is somehow modified so that his knowledge is no longer finite. But I think that is wrong. Christian doctrine says that Christ has two natures, a normal human one, and the divine nature. They are united to form a single entity. This entity is spoken of as having all of the properties of each of its natures. Thus it can equally be said that Christ knows everything that the Father knows, and that Christ is finite. Let me go back to my analogy of a character in a novel that is meant to represent the author's viewpoint. When you look at this character, you are seeing two different things at the same time. You are seeing whatever the character in the book is supposed to know. But you are also seeing through him to what the author knows. Now this is not perhaps a complete analogy. We want to say that God took up Christ's human nature in such as way that Jesus' actions are in fact God's actions. That would not be true of a novel. In Christ we are brought face to face with God himself. Jesus' life and actions embodied the full knowledge of God. But they did so only when we think of them as God's actions, and see Jesus' life and character as being in some sense a window into God. Jesus as a human being did not have more knowledge than a human being could handle. (Indeed, in Mt. 24:36, he specifically said that he did not know every detail of the Father's plan for the future.) Unfortunately, we are dealing with a gap of many hundreds of years since the Church Fathers. It is very hard to know exactly what some of their words meant. If somebody is going to object to what I have said, it is going to be on the basis that I am not doing justice to the unity of Christ's person. It would be objected that I do not seem to have taken account of the fact that Christ's human nature was united with the divine nature to form a single entity. (The technical name for this charge would be Nestorianism. Another similar charge would be Arianism.) The problem is that it is very hard to know what the Fathers meant when they talked about a single entity. If they meant a single person, in the in sense of the modern word "personality", then I am probably in trouble. My model clearly leaves Jesus with a normal human personality, and has the union with God at a somewhat more abstract level. However the evidence seems to be that the Church Fathers meant the term entity to be somewhat more abstract. Two hundred years after the definition of Chalcedon (which I quoted in my last message), the Church was presented with a very interesting issue: Did Christ have one will, or two separate ones, one human and the other divine? The decision was that there were two separate wills. The following wording seems to illuminate the balance that they intended between a single entity and two natures: "We also glorify two natural operations in the same our Lord Jesus Christ, our true God, without separation, without change, without partition, without confusion, that is, a divine operation and a human operation, as the divine preacher Leo most clearly says: "For each form does what is proper to it, in communion with the other; the Word, that is, performing what belongs to the Word, and the flesh carrying out what belongs to the flesh." We will not therefore grant [the existence] of one natural operation of God and the creature, lest we should either raise up into the divine nature that which is created, or bring down the preeminence of the divine nature into the place suitable for things that are made. ... the difference of nature being recognized in the same one entity by the fact that each nature wills and works what is proper to it, in communion with the other. On this principle we glorify two natural wills and operations combining with each other for the salvation of the human race."