Christology

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Random thoughts on classic two-natured christology..just correct me sir..


1.) if Logos assumed Human nature without sin, then he is immortal in divine and human nature both, since mortality is a result of sin.

2.) all statements about "lowliness" of Jesus, his humanity, his suffering and his death on the cross, are reduced in favor of statements about his divinity.

3.) differentiation between the two natures marks incarnation christology and does not derive from the history of Jesus himself.

4.) patristic christology must be taken with a grain of salt due to the political sitz im leben of their time.

[Myles Domini]

[quote name='Revprodeji' post='1136335' date='Dec 6 2006, 08:07 AM']
Random thoughts on classic two-natured christology..just correct me sir..
1.) if Logos assumed Human nature without sin, then he is immortal in divine and human nature both, since mortality is a result of sin.

2.) all statements about "lowliness" of Jesus, his humanity, his suffering and his death on the cross, are reduced in favor of statements about his divinity.

3.) differentiation between the two natures marks incarnation christology and does not derive from the history of Jesus himself.

4.) patristic christology must be taken with a grain of salt due to the political sitz im leben of their time.
[/quote]

1) Immortality was one of the preternatural gifts given to men by God. It is not a property of human nature, even perfect human nature, proper.

2) This is not a question it is an assertion and not one I support. For instance, St Thomas Aquinas' atonement Christology states that Christ's perfection in humanity allows his human nature to experience pain to a perfect degree. In the preaching and teaching of the Doctors of the Church on the subject of Christ's humanity there is no visible effort to reduce that He was a human. It is a maxim that comes down to us from the Cappodocians (with its genesis in St Irenaeus) that what is unassumed cannot be redeemed.

3) This is not a question it is an assertion and again is not one I support. How exactly can you justify making this statement? Are you attempting to say that the Fathers' ignored the Bible in developing their Christology?

4) What does the political sitz im leben have to do with the Christology of the Fathers? Are you attempting to say that their understanding of Christ is the product not of the Bible but of their own biases? In that I would have to disagree with you and ask you to reference the set texts that illustrate this point. Moreover, to take patristic Christology with a pinch of salt would be to put yourself on the wrong side of several Ecuemnical Councils.

PS) Have you actually read the patristic source texts?

[Myles Domini]

[quote name='Myles Domini' post='1136428' date='Dec 6 2006, 05:26 PM']
1) Immortality was one of the preternatural gifts given to men by God. It is not a property of human nature, even perfect human nature, proper.

2) This is not a question it is an assertion and not one I support. For instance, St Thomas Aquinas' atonement Christology states that Christ's perfection in humanity allows his human nature to experience pain to a perfect degree. In the preaching and teaching of the Doctors of the Church on the subject of Christ's humanity there is no visible effort to reduce that He was a human. It is a maxim that comes down to us from the Cappodocians (with its genesis in St Irenaeus) that what is unassumed cannot be redeemed.

3) This is not a question it is an assertion and again is not one I support. How exactly can you justify making this statement? Are you attempting to say that the Fathers' ignored the Bible in developing their Christology?

4) What does the political sitz im leben have to do with the Christology of the Fathers? Are you attempting to say that their understanding of Christ is the product not of the Bible but of their own biases? In that I would have to disagree with you and ask you to reference the set texts that illustrate this point. Moreover, to take patristic Christology with a pinch of salt would be to put yourself on the wrong side of several Ecuemnical Councils.

PS) Have you actually read the patristic source texts?
[/quote]

I have a tendency to respond often without properly explaining myself. So I will attempt now to flesh out what I have said. The preternatural gifts are not natural to man but above his nature, of the order of grace. They were given to our first parents as a gift from God to make them not only His image but also His likeness. These gifts include impassibility, immortality, freedom from concupisence etc. Abstract 'humanity' does not consists of these gifts. They are above human nature and were added onto it by the benevolence of God. This is how Christ could have a perfect humanity and still die. The preternatural gift of immortality is not essential to human nature. Likewise the preternatural gift of impassibility (Christ suffered, miserably), the gift of knowledge (Christ grew in knowledge like an ordinary person Lk 2) etc.etc.

The key to understanding the word of God is the Word of God, the Divine Logos who communicates the truth about God as well as it can be known. This is why the Bible must be read Christologically and why the New Testament has priority over the old. To paraphrase St Augustine all that is in the New Testament is hidden in the Old and all that is in the Old Testament is revealed in the New. The Fathers' understanding of the immutability of God and his inability to change is a result of this.

Principally they believe rightly that the deposit of faith given to the Apostles clarifies all that went before it. So when James 1:17 says "the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change" or Hebrews 1:12 reads "like a mantle thou wilt roll them up, and they will be changed. But thou art the same, and thy years will never end" these things are taken seriously. The Fathers do not disregard those elements of Scripture that imply God changes what they must do is take into account verses that seem to say one thing and verses that seem to say another and give a coherent explication of the why. In the same way that we might take Jesus' statement to cut off your hand if it causes you to sin and interpret it as hyperbole in light of his statement that sin comes out of the heart. The New Testament allies itself with Malachi 3:8 where it is written "For I the Lord do not change" and the Fathers thus were left to solve the riddle of how at an earlier stage in salvation history God appeared less transcendent. Their answer of course was that God doesn't really change there's simply accomodation going on. This can be seen and confirmed by natural theology for as St Paul says "Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made." (Rom 1:20) and we see through reason that God cannot be changeable.

The sitz im leben of the Fathers had nothing to do with this. Some of the Fathers' may have been well lettered and acquainted with Platonic ideas but there were many that were not. The Syriac tradition, for instance, was not very philosophical at all and yet it is out of that particular Church that we got Nestorianism and the absolute insistence that even the appearance that God might change must be countered by using the word 'Christotokos' rather than 'Theotokos'. The Fathers, all of them, Latin, Copt, Syric and Greek were commited to the Bible. Just look at their works. One of the reasons that the Orthodox of today (and even some Greek Catholics) are only lukewarm towards someone like St Augustine is because they think he's too rationalistic and departs too much from Jerusalem to Athens. Obviously, I disagree, but I am using this to illustrate the kind of mindset that they've inherited from the Greek Fathers. If you ever get the chance read some of St Gregory Nanzianzen's Theological Orations and you'll soon see what I mean.