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It's not inherently self-contradictory for us to say "Jesus revealed Himself as the Son of God and the Son of Man ... how can we properly speak about that?" ht

It's not inherently self-contradictory for us to say "Jesus revealed Himself as the Son of God and the Son of Man ... how can we properly speak about that?" https://www.newadvent.org/summa/4002.htm#article2 https://www.newadvent.org/summa/4002.htm#article2 - now that requires a lot of extra distinctions that we don't normally think about when thinking about being and essence, but it's certainly not impossible. "Mr. Archibald Potterfarthing is at the same time the Chair of the Committee and at the same time its most senior ranking member". Accidents, naturally, but co-existing in the same space-of-being. It turns out that "person" and "nature" are distinct (who knew?) and that it is possible for there to be one person with two natures just as well as there can be one person with two titles. But that presumes you believe the authority of the one who told you this - if not, it's useless to talk about it, because why would you ever need to distinguish person and nature unless you had encountered the reality of Christ? Nothing else we have encountered in the universe has (as far as we are aware) two natures. But nothing else behaves like a singularity either - uniqueness is not a proof of non-existence.

fluoridation 1y ago
>it is possible for there to be one person with two natures just as well as there can be one person with two titles. Of course, but that falls apart as soon as you reread the dogma. Jesus is entirely human and entirely divine. He is both things in the same way at the same time. He has to be entirely human for his sacrifice to have any meaning, but he has to entirely divine... I can't remember why. So he could be worshiped? A man who is both a doctor and a judge isn't entirely either one. There are moments of his day where he is neither presiding over a courtroom nor seeing any patients, and there are parts of his body that are neither judicial nor medical. More importantly, when he passes sentence he doesn't exercise his medical privileges, and when he prescribes medicine he doesn't do it in a judicial capacity. Even if both aspects bleed somewhat into each other, they're still mostly compartmentalized. None of this can apply to Jesus, if the word "entirely" or "fully" means anything. If he dies, he must simultaneously die like mortals do and live on like deities do. So which is it? Did he die or didn't he?
- svieira 1y ago
  > He is both things in the same way at the same time Not quite. He has a divine nature and a human nature. There is only one person, two natures, analogous to one person two job titles. He has both natures, fully. > Did he die or didn't he? Having two natures, he can experience things that people without two natures cannot experience. Like the experience of death in His human nature that in no way affected His divine nature (analogous to "experiencing censure as a judge, but still being able to practice medicine"). Fortunately, death isn't a cessation of human nature, merely an interrupting of part of its actuality (that is, an evil). You and I will still possess a human nature after we die. Just as we both would possess a human nature if we lost part of our bodies, we still possess a human nature after we lose our bodies completely in death.
  - fluoridation 1y ago
    >Not quite. [...] He has both natures, fully. You're contradicting yourself. >analogous to "experiencing censure as a judge, but still being able to practice medicine" That's only possible because, as I said, being a judge is not the totality of a person. If you strip a judge of his title the parts of him that are a person still remain. If you strip a person of their humanity then there's nothing left, because there's nothing of a person that's not human. A normal person according to Christianity is closer to having two natures in the way you describe, because their body is mortal while their soul isn't. But Jesus' body should be equally as divine as his soul. So then how can it die? If he was just an immortal soul in a mortal body then he was just a regular human.
    - kulahan 1y ago
      > So then how can it die? If he was just an immortal soul in a mortal body then he was just a regular human. He could die in the same way the bush could burn in front of Moses without becoming a burnt object. Divinity is not corrupting or corruptible.
      - krapp 1y ago
        But to be entirely human is to be corrupted by original sin, doomed to judgement and eternal separation from God. To be entirely divine is to be equal to God, untouched by sin and incorruptible. These two states cannot coexist within the doctrine itself. Jesus cannot be entirely human and entirely divine any more than matter can be antimatter. >He could die in the same way the bush could burn in front of Moses without becoming a burnt object. But that makes it not entirely a bush, or else not entirely a fire. Something other than "a burning bush" is going on there. It looks like that, but it cannot be that. If Jesus' soul wasn't corrupted by sin like any other mortal human then he wasn't entirely human. If Jesus was entirely human, he cannot also be divine, since God cannot coexist with sin. If Jesus can be both, then original sin is not an immutable transgression and the persistent state of evil and God's eternal judgement are simply arbitrary, and God can make exceptions whenever He likes. Which is the actual answer because there are instances in the Bible of humans who just ascend to Heaven because God liked them, despite that supposedly being existentially impossible. God simply sometimes bends the rules, He just won't do so for you or I. Assuming one wants to take all of this seriously and assume the Bible has univocality and try to interpret mythology with logic, which to me always seems like a bad idea.

fluoridation 1y ago

>it is possible for there to be one person with two natures just as well as there can be one person with two titles. Of course, but that falls apart as soon as you reread the dogma. Jesus is entirely human and entirely divine. He is both things in the same way at the same time. He has to be entirely human for his sacrifice to have any meaning, but he has to entirely divine... I can't remember why. So he could be worshiped? A man who is both a doctor and a judge isn't entirely either one. There are moments of his day where he is neither presiding over a courtroom nor seeing any patients, and there are parts of his body that are neither judicial nor medical. More importantly, when he passes sentence he doesn't exercise his medical privileges, and when he prescribes medicine he doesn't do it in a judicial capacity. Even if both aspects bleed somewhat into each other, they're still mostly compartmentalized. None of this can apply to Jesus, if the word "entirely" or "fully" means anything. If he dies, he must simultaneously die like mortals do and live on like deities do. So which is it? Did he die or didn't he?

svieira 1y ago
> He is both things in the same way at the same time Not quite. He has a divine nature and a human nature. There is only one person, two natures, analogous to one person two job titles. He has both natures, fully. > Did he die or didn't he? Having two natures, he can experience things that people without two natures cannot experience. Like the experience of death in His human nature that in no way affected His divine nature (analogous to "experiencing censure as a judge, but still being able to practice medicine"). Fortunately, death isn't a cessation of human nature, merely an interrupting of part of its actuality (that is, an evil). You and I will still possess a human nature after we die. Just as we both would possess a human nature if we lost part of our bodies, we still possess a human nature after we lose our bodies completely in death.
- fluoridation 1y ago
  >Not quite. [...] He has both natures, fully. You're contradicting yourself. >analogous to "experiencing censure as a judge, but still being able to practice medicine" That's only possible because, as I said, being a judge is not the totality of a person. If you strip a judge of his title the parts of him that are a person still remain. If you strip a person of their humanity then there's nothing left, because there's nothing of a person that's not human. A normal person according to Christianity is closer to having two natures in the way you describe, because their body is mortal while their soul isn't. But Jesus' body should be equally as divine as his soul. So then how can it die? If he was just an immortal soul in a mortal body then he was just a regular human.
  - kulahan 1y ago
    > So then how can it die? If he was just an immortal soul in a mortal body then he was just a regular human. He could die in the same way the bush could burn in front of Moses without becoming a burnt object. Divinity is not corrupting or corruptible.
    - krapp 1y ago
      But to be entirely human is to be corrupted by original sin, doomed to judgement and eternal separation from God. To be entirely divine is to be equal to God, untouched by sin and incorruptible. These two states cannot coexist within the doctrine itself. Jesus cannot be entirely human and entirely divine any more than matter can be antimatter. >He could die in the same way the bush could burn in front of Moses without becoming a burnt object. But that makes it not entirely a bush, or else not entirely a fire. Something other than "a burning bush" is going on there. It looks like that, but it cannot be that. If Jesus' soul wasn't corrupted by sin like any other mortal human then he wasn't entirely human. If Jesus was entirely human, he cannot also be divine, since God cannot coexist with sin. If Jesus can be both, then original sin is not an immutable transgression and the persistent state of evil and God's eternal judgement are simply arbitrary, and God can make exceptions whenever He likes. Which is the actual answer because there are instances in the Bible of humans who just ascend to Heaven because God liked them, despite that supposedly being existentially impossible. God simply sometimes bends the rules, He just won't do so for you or I. Assuming one wants to take all of this seriously and assume the Bible has univocality and try to interpret mythology with logic, which to me always seems like a bad idea.