A new Attribute?

[ApologiaSophia]

God is a Self-existent and flesh is a Creature. Self-existent is not equal Creature. In such relation, we have two substances, or two beings or two persons: A God and a Creature. How can we imagine that God and his Creature are one person or one being?

Let us distinguish between a creature and a creation. A bunny is a creature, a rock is a creation, but not a creature. But as far as the person of Christ, yes his human nature was created, without doubt.

We have two natures, but I do not see why you keep positing that there are two persons. Jesus is one person with two natures. I am one person with one nature, but he has two natures. Google homousion and hypo-static union if you haven’t already. I think it would be best to look into these things more deeply.

As far as imagining, there is certainly a level of mystery to the dual natures of Christ. How God became man will always have a level of mystery. Nonetheless, we do know that Jesus was one person. Again, do some Google work on the above terms. Furthermore, what Scriptural evidence do you have of Jesus being two persons as opposed to one person with two natures? Who died on the cross? The human person, the divine person or both? Well… there is no human person or divine person, there is one person and his name is Jesus, the Son, the Word, the Christ. One person died on the cross.

As I have said, God is three persons of one substance. The person of Christ, the Son, the Word, became flesh, conjoined by hypo-stasis. The incarnate word is still the same person, with the same divine nature/substance only conjoined with a human nature in a way that does not alter is divine nature. The person remains the same and the divine substance remains the same. Therefore God, the three persons of one substance, has not been changed or altered in anyway. So God did not change, the persons and the substance remain the same. The Word now has a human nature as well as a divine nature, but this has done nothing to affect the Godhead in contributing attributes. If you are unconvinced, perhaps you should research the Nestorian controversies and why Nestorianism was ultimately rejected by the Church.

 

[zro_x]

Great question! this is one I have been struggling with as well. God is supposedly eternal. how can an eternal being enter time? Eternal means “no time”, which in turn means “no change”. moving from eternity to time would be a change.

There is another seeming problem of the incarnation. According to my understanding of the hypostatic union, Jesus is one person with two natures. A person is who does the action, and a nature is what the person is. Before coming down from heaven, the second person of the trinity had one nature. Now, he has two. It seems like he collected another atribute, since he is now both human and god, as oppposed to just god.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Jarvid, Apologia, Zero x

We need to get this straight. The Incarnation did not create a " new attribute " in the Second Person of the Trinity, and therefore no new attribute in God.

Firstly, it a Dogmatic teaching of the Church from the Laterain Council that God is immutable. So the Incarnation neither adds to nor subtracts from His Nature.

We firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true God, eternal infinite (immensus) and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty and ineffable, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; three persons indeed, but one essence, substance or nature entirely simple.(Lateran Council IV Ds 800)

My post #5

From the Catholic Encyclopedia under Incarnation, Catholicism, we have the following Philosophical explanation.

It is to be remembered that, when the Word took Flesh, there was no change in the Word; all the change was in the Flesh. At the moment of conception, in the womb of the Blessed Mother, through the forcefulness of God’s activity, not only was the human soul of Christ created but the Word assumed the man that was conceived. When God created the world, the world was changed, that is. it passed from the state of nonentity to the state of existence; and there was no change in the Logos or Creative Word of God the Father. Nor was there change in that Logos when it began to terminate the human nature. A new relation ensued, to be sure; but this new relation implied in the Logos no new reality, no real change; all new reality, all real change, was in the human nature. Anyone who wishes to go into this very intricate question of the manner of the Hypostatic Union of the two natures in the one Divine Personality, may with great profit read St. Thomas (III:4:2); Scotus (in III, Dist. i); (De Incarnatione, Disp. II, sec. 3); Gregory, of Valentia (in III, D. i, q. 4). Any modern text book on theology will give various opinions in regard to the way of the union of the Person assuming with the nature assumed.

It is a danger to ones faith to speculate too much. It may also be a danger to the faith of others. I would like to suggest that we allow the speculations to stop here. I doubt if anyone is going to improve on the explanations of Thomas, Scotus, Gregory of Valentia.