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> 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. AH, T

> 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. AH, THERE'S YOUR PROBLEM! Cartesian dualism isn't the best lens to view human nature through and it makes talking about Christ's nature harder than it needs to be. The human person is a being whose nature is body+soul. The separation of the soul and the body at death is an evil brought about by sin. Put another way, death is injurious to human beings, not natural to them. (See https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3164.htm#article1 https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3164.htm#article1). Jesus is fully man. His human nature is body+soul. His human soul is immortal, as all human souls are. Unlike other human beings (other than Adam and Eve before they sinned) He was not subject to death as a punishment for sin, but He accepted it on our behalf. When He died, he really died. His soul and His body were separated and for three days He could be spoken of as "not a man". See https://www.newadvent.org/summa/4050.htm#article4 https://www.newadvent.org/summa/4050.htm#article4 for the details. Follow that up with https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1075.htm#article4 https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1075.htm#article4 for how that relates to us. One particularly striking quote - "[c]onsequently, to say that Christ was a man during the three days of His death simply and without qualification, is erroneous. Yet it can be said that He was "a dead man" during those three days." Jesus is also fully God. His divine nature is perfect and unchanging. His divine nature is immutable (not merely immortal) and was not subject to death. Thus Jesus was subject to death in His human nature not in His divine nature.

fluoridation 1y ago
I'm not going to respond to any arguments that rest on the veracity of mythology (such as the garden of Eden). I'm only interested in the internal consistency of Christian doctrine. >Jesus is also fully God. His divine nature is perfect and unchanging. His divine nature is immutable (not merely immortal) and was not subject to death. Thus Jesus was subject to death in His human nature not in His divine nature. This is maddening. Okay, so these are the logical relationships between the terms, * Jesus is fully God. * God is immutable. * Something immutable is also immortal (and by contraposition, something mortal is not immutable). * Jesus is fully man. * Jesus is mortal and died. Correct? None of this is in dispute, I assume, since it's what you said. Alright. To this I answer: if Jesus is mortal then he is not immutable, and if he's not immutable then he's not fully God. If you insist he is God then that's a contradiction by the terms you yourself laid out. The supposed two natures don't matter if they lead to this conclusion. To give a simple analogy, you can make a sword that's sharp only halfway along its length and is blunt the rest of the way. The statements "the sword is sharp" and "the sword is blunt" are both simultaneously true. What you can't do is make a sword that's both sharp and blunt all throughout its length. You can say, "well, God can do the logically impossible". Fine. But then you're telling me that I'm right, that Christian theology does contain contradictions.
- svieira 1y ago
  Yep - you're still missing the distinction. Jesus is the person. This person has two natures (we've been working with the "being a judge and a doctor" analogy here and both can be operative together, as when the judge is hearing a case where his knowledge of medicine has bearing on his ability to judge the situation). One nature is immutable, the other is mutable. Nothing contradicts there. "Jesus, in His human nature, changes. God the Son (His divine nature) does not change." But you can make it sound contradictory, just as you could say (if we make "The doctor does not judge, but the judge does" sound contradictory if we say "Susan does not judge but Susan judges!") It is not a logical contradiction for two distinct things to be distinct.
  - fluoridation 1y ago
    Like I've said more than enough times already, Susan is not wholly a judge nor wholly a doctor. If every part of her was simultaneously judge and doctor in equal parts and completely, then it would be false to say "Susan does not judge in a medical capacity, she judges in a judicial capacity", because she would not be able to compartmentalize those two aspects of her self. Everything she does would be in both capacities, because she is wholly those things. You are both a eukaryote and three-dimensional. Everything you do is in the capacity of a three-dimensional eukaryote and there's no way for you to momentarily abandon one of those natures while you do something. Not without fundamentally changing what you are. Jesus' must be equally and inextricably imbued by these natures if he is to be said "wholly" human and divine. More so, in fact, because at least your atoms are not eukaryotic. So if Jesus changes, God the Son also changes, because Jesus is God the Son. They're two names for the same thing. If they're not the same thing, if Jesus does not completely overlap with God the Son, then Jesus is not wholly divine. There are parts of him that are not divine. That's a tenable position, but it's not the position of the church.
    - svieira 1y ago
      Actually, that _is_ the position of the Church, funnily enough. Jesus is both God and man. These natures are distinct in Him, while being entire and wholly what they are (the God-nature is not diminished or changed by admixture and human-nature is not absorbed by the totality of divinity). One person, two natures.

fluoridation 1y ago

I'm not going to respond to any arguments that rest on the veracity of mythology (such as the garden of Eden). I'm only interested in the internal consistency of Christian doctrine. >Jesus is also fully God. His divine nature is perfect and unchanging. His divine nature is immutable (not merely immortal) and was not subject to death. Thus Jesus was subject to death in His human nature not in His divine nature. This is maddening. Okay, so these are the logical relationships between the terms, * Jesus is fully God. * God is immutable. * Something immutable is also immortal (and by contraposition, something mortal is not immutable). * Jesus is fully man. * Jesus is mortal and died. Correct? None of this is in dispute, I assume, since it's what you said. Alright. To this I answer: if Jesus is mortal then he is not immutable, and if he's not immutable then he's not fully God. If you insist he is God then that's a contradiction by the terms you yourself laid out. The supposed two natures don't matter if they lead to this conclusion. To give a simple analogy, you can make a sword that's sharp only halfway along its length and is blunt the rest of the way. The statements "the sword is sharp" and "the sword is blunt" are both simultaneously true. What you can't do is make a sword that's both sharp and blunt all throughout its length. You can say, "well, God can do the logically impossible". Fine. But then you're telling me that I'm right, that Christian theology does contain contradictions.

svieira 1y ago
Yep - you're still missing the distinction. Jesus is the person. This person has two natures (we've been working with the "being a judge and a doctor" analogy here and both can be operative together, as when the judge is hearing a case where his knowledge of medicine has bearing on his ability to judge the situation). One nature is immutable, the other is mutable. Nothing contradicts there. "Jesus, in His human nature, changes. God the Son (His divine nature) does not change." But you can make it sound contradictory, just as you could say (if we make "The doctor does not judge, but the judge does" sound contradictory if we say "Susan does not judge but Susan judges!") It is not a logical contradiction for two distinct things to be distinct.
- fluoridation 1y ago
  Like I've said more than enough times already, Susan is not wholly a judge nor wholly a doctor. If every part of her was simultaneously judge and doctor in equal parts and completely, then it would be false to say "Susan does not judge in a medical capacity, she judges in a judicial capacity", because she would not be able to compartmentalize those two aspects of her self. Everything she does would be in both capacities, because she is wholly those things. You are both a eukaryote and three-dimensional. Everything you do is in the capacity of a three-dimensional eukaryote and there's no way for you to momentarily abandon one of those natures while you do something. Not without fundamentally changing what you are. Jesus' must be equally and inextricably imbued by these natures if he is to be said "wholly" human and divine. More so, in fact, because at least your atoms are not eukaryotic. So if Jesus changes, God the Son also changes, because Jesus is God the Son. They're two names for the same thing. If they're not the same thing, if Jesus does not completely overlap with God the Son, then Jesus is not wholly divine. There are parts of him that are not divine. That's a tenable position, but it's not the position of the church.
  - svieira 1y ago
    Actually, that _is_ the position of the Church, funnily enough. Jesus is both God and man. These natures are distinct in Him, while being entire and wholly what they are (the God-nature is not diminished or changed by admixture and human-nature is not absorbed by the totality of divinity). One person, two natures.