Aquinas' God as Pure Act and the Incarnation

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If St. Thomas’ doctrine of God being Pure Actuality is right then this entails that there is no potentiality in God and hence God cannot change at all. But doesn’t the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation imply that God became man? This would seem to be a real change in God, first not part of a hypostatic union at t1 and then part of the hypostatic union at t2. So this means God as Pure Act must be wrong. This is still consistent with other ideas about God though I think, like those of Anselm, Bonaventure, or Scotus, who do not believe God is Pure Act.
 
awatkins69 said:
If St. Thomas’ doctrine of God being Pure Actuality is right then this entails that there is no potentiality in God and hence God cannot change at all. But doesn’t the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation imply that God became man? This would seem to be a real change in God, first not part of a hypostatic union at t1 and then part of the hypostatic union at t2. So this means God as Pure Act must be wrong. This is still consistent with other ideas about God though I think, like those of Anselm, Bonaventure, or Scotus, who do not believe God is Pure Act.
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The problem is the assumption of t1,t2,t3…etc. G-d as Actus Purus is precedent to everything else, Nothing exists outside Him because He is the very act of existing. Because absolutely all change is dependent on existence then it is already entailed in G-ds Actuality. That is why we say that there is no potentiality in G-d.
 
warpspeedpetey said:
The problem is the assumption of t1,t2,t3…etc. G-d as Actus Purus is precedent to everything else, Nothing exists outside Him because He is the very act of existing. Because absolutely all change is dependent on existence then it is already entailed in G-ds Actuality. That is why we say that there is no potentiality in G-d.
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But if we can’t use terms about time like t1,t2,t3, we have to say that there is no time at which God became incarnate. But that’s just false right?
 
awatkins69 said:
But if we can’t use terms about time like t1,t2,t3, we have to say that there is no time at which God became incarnate. But that’s just false right?
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Yes, that’s just false. For the reasons I already stated, but looking at your blog you already know this.🤷
 
warpspeedpetey said:
Yes, that’s just false. For the reasons I already stated, but looking at your blog you already know this.🤷
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So does that mean St. Thomas’s Pure Act theory is wrong? Because God did become incarnate at a time 2,000 years ago in the person Jesus Christ. I kind of want to find a way to integrate Pure Act with the Incarnation, because Aquinas’s theory is so clear and makes so much deductive sense. So I’m not sure what to think.

I haven’t mentioned this problem at my blog yet (I think) but I may some time in the future.
 
awatkins69 said:
So does that mean St. Thomas’s Pure Act theory is wrong? Because God did become incarnate at a time 2,000 years ago in the person Jesus Christ. I kind of want to find a way to integrate Pure Act with the Incarnation, because Aquinas’s theory is so clear and makes so much deductive sense. So I’m not sure what to think. I haven’t mentioned this problem at my blog yet (I think) but I may some time in the future.
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I take it to mean that all t is entailed in E. There is no contradiction between Actus Purus and the Incarnation.
 
Being or not in a union does not change God.

Just like that the fact that I am now talking about God doesn’t change him, even though yesterday it would be false to say “God is being talked about by Joel” and now that proposition is true.

Nothing that He does changes Him. But yes, propositions about Him that were false at t1 might be true at t2.

In this sense, He is like the square. The square may be drawn, thought about, forgotten, whatever. The square itself, the abstract definition, remains the same.
 
Joel_PF said:
Being or not in a union does not change God.

Just like that the fact that I am now talking about God doesn’t change him, even though yesterday it would be false to say “God is being talked about by Joel” and now that proposition is true.

Nothing that He does changes Him. But yes, propositions about Him that were false at t1 might be true at t2.

In this sense, He is like the square. The square may be drawn, thought about, forgotten, whatever. The square itself, the abstract definition, remains the same.
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It’s tricky applying Greek philosophical concepts to God. Anselm is helpful. God with creation is no greater than God without creation. In some strange way, God is outside the universe - He is not just one entity among others, not just one piece of furniture in the inventory. Therefore, applying concepts like “nature”, “essence”, even “esse” is putting a big strain on them. Why do we use this term of Actus Purus? To avoid limiting God.

But what this really means is that God, who is not limited, is totally “outside” and thus can blend with creation - without disrupting (in a certain sense) the finite - because He does not have a finite “nature”. If He were a lion or a rock, there could be no blending - a composite of “lion” and “man” wouldn’t really work. Being “outside”, God does not change in His Godhead. But, even though creation is not “pushed aside”, creation is changed by the Incarnation.

Actus Purus is a nice way of expressing this strange transcendence of God which also allows for an Incarnation… But all of this must be understood in a way that does not compromise the ontological integrity of creation. Actus Purus does not take over or displace our own “esse” - or the “esse” of the rest of creation - we and creation have a certain independence or autonomy (albeit God-given).

A good resource here is Robert Sokolowski’s book (The God of Faith and Reason).
 
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