Are there limits to human detachment

[Neoplatonist]

I guess I’d point back to the OP, and build on that a little:

Is there nothing that would have deterred Christ from his course of action? If not, then how can we really understand him as being fully human, for such seems beyond any of us. (In most conceivable scenarios, we would likely feel that the person had lost some part of their humanity.)

Now, we might argue that he was able to do so because he was truly aware of what his sacrifice would mean for the world and people a thousand generations hence. If he knew those things, then a second element comes into play because we have to ask: “how great, then, was the sacrifice?” If he knew more fully than any of us ever can that He would be seated at the right hand of the Father, that his sacrifice would redeem countless souls, and so on, then it seems more like the decision of a person to undergo surgery to donate a kidney to their child.

Thoughts?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I guess I’d point back to the OP, and build on that a little:

Is there nothing that would have deterred Christ from his course of action? If not, then how can we really understand him as being fully human, for such seems beyond any of us. (In most conceivable scenarios, we would likely feel that the person had lost some part of their humanity.)

Now, we might argue that he was able to do so because he was truly aware of what his sacrifice would mean for the world and people a thousand generations hence. If he knew those things, then a second element comes into play because we have to ask: “how great, then, was the sacrifice?” If he knew more fully than any of us ever can that He would be seated at the right hand of the Father, that his sacrifice would redeem countless souls, and so on, then it seems more like the decision of a person to undergo surgery to donate a kidney to their child.

Thoughts?

Sometimes I think it better to bypass the secondary theologies that have been overlaid on the basic reality of what Jesus’s did e.g. sacrifice, redemption, etc etc. and start from a simpler palette that does not have to be constrained by these highly focused narrow angles of understanding, formulated in older times that don’t take account of new questions and so cannot say everything about everything.

Personally and maybe too simplistic I see Jesus’s on a mission to carry out His Father’s Will. Near the end that mission, which seemed clear and relatively rosy at the start, by the untrusting opposition of the Jewish leaders became painful, failing and less than clear. Jesus needed as much blind faith and trust in His Father to keep going on his course (to preach the good news publicly without resorting to hate or force) as we ourselves do today. It was a work of love.

The only way to fail would be to do his own will or to be overcome by weakness due to bodily or mental extremities that impaired full human freedom. Both of these would be less than human actions but only the former truly sinful I suppose.

Perhaps you are suggesting Jesus’s should have worked miracles of power to prevent the theoretic scenarios you present?
Yet those scenarios in the last analysis are not moral evils for those on the receiving end, no matter how beloved they are to the Father so why could they not be allowed by God and endured by the Saints? And who is to say that Jesus’s and Mary did not suffer mentally just as much with what did come to pass?

It is a very hard truth for us modern Christians to accept, isn’t it, that God perfects those He loves through suffering for it makes love perfect.
This contradicts Old Testament notions (and some fundamentalist Christian or capitalist ones) that God rewards the just in this life.

 

[ynotzap]

I guess I’d point back to the OP, and build on that a little:

Is there nothing that would have deterred Christ from his course of action? If not, then how can we really understand him as being fully human, for such seems beyond any of us. (In most conceivable scenarios, we would likely feel that the person had lost some part of their humanity.)

Now, we might argue that he was able to do so because he was truly aware of what his sacrifice would mean for the world and people a thousand generations hence. If he knew those things, then a second element comes into play because we have to ask: “how great, then, was the sacrifice?” If he knew more fully than any of us ever can that He would be seated at the right hand of the Father, that his sacrifice would redeem countless souls, and so on, then it seems more like the decision of a person to undergo surgery to donate a kidney to their child.

Thoughts?

We have to keep in mind as the Church teaches in the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union, the union of human nature with the divine nature. Jesus was totally human except for sin (and this is a crucial point) but He wasn’t a human person, but a Divine Person with human nature, thus the title God-man. This union was necessary for the redemption of mankind in order to re-establish man’s contact with God, the reception of the grace Adam and Eve had before their fall, and to make it possible by giving mankind all the means necessary to attain union with God. His human nature suffered even more intensely because, He being God knew that all He did, would not be accepted by some, He even sweated blood in His agony. He cried over Jerusalem, knowing what would happen to them, not a stone left upon a stone. He had another mission that only He could perform, to strip Satan of his powers that held manking in spiritual bondage. This is a truth from Divine Revelation, and many of the Faithful in the past and in the present have experienced this reality. It also explains the evil in the world. Jesus said “No greater love has one for another than to give up his life for the other” When the Crucifixion took place, Satan lost his reign over men who turn to Jesus for salvation. Satan through sinful men, murdered Jesus who had no sin, so he exceeded his power and reign, for Jesus was a Just Man. Being God as well as man He merited by His complete life on earth all the graces needed for salvation, by giving man His and His Father’s Spirit to man, the Holy Spirit. A new life made possible by supernatural grace, the work of the Holy Spirit.

Mary’s suffering was more acute than the sufferings of other mortals because she knew her Son, that He was Goodness and Love itself. She identified with Him, it is stated that she would have taken His place on the Cross if God allowed it. She was without sin, and full of grace and possessed the Gifts of the Spirit, and with these gifts knew better than anyone else what was taking place in the life of Christ. She was the first Christian. This in not philosophy, but taken from Divine Revelation.

 

[Neoplatonist]

But the more we reflect on how unique and special Christ was, the less we feel like we should be capable of living up to the same standards. Does Schwarzenegger tell people they have a moral duty to become world-class bodybuilders if they don’t have the genetics for it? Does Einstein put a moral obligation on every struggling school child to push back the frontiers of science? Yet Christ, with His hypostatic, fuel-injected supernatural awesomeness puts a moral obligation on us all to become saints? This gets at what his human-ness means, in prescriptive terms, for us.

Second, you mentioned something that brings up a new point: so God let 1000’s of generations of humanity languish in spiritual bondage to Satan just so he could set up the (admittedly dazzling) trick of the redemption. I don’t mean “trick” in some inauthentic way. But, wouldn’t all the souls born in that time have been effectively sent into a state of slavery by God? So God created souls knowing they would be born into slavery to Satan and knowing that they would live and die a thousand years before the chance of redemption through Christ. How is that compassion?

 

[Neoplatonist]

but He wasn’t a human person, but a Divine Person with human nature, thus the title God-man. This union was necessary for the redemption of mankind in order to re-establish man’s contact with God, the reception of the grace Adam and Eve had before their fall, and to make it possible by giving mankind all the means necessary to attain union with God.

Apparently not. He could have just had all of us descend from Mary, or he could have just allowed all children from a certain point forward to be born without original sin as he did with her. I’m not arguing he should have done this or that. I’m arguing about how well the claim of “necessity” holds up. Why could he not have had Noah’s family be born without original sin, the flood would have been a feasible turning point. Why did there have to be a bajillion more people born under a sentence for someone else’s crime?

 

[ynotzap]

Apparently not. He could have just had all of us descend from Mary, or he could have just allowed all children from a certain point forward to be born without original sin as he did with her. I’m not arguing he should have done this or that. I’m arguing about how well the claim of “necessity” holds up. Why could he not have had Noah’s family be born without original sin, the flood would have been a feasible turning point. Why did there have to be a bajillion more people born under a sentence for someone else’s crime?

God, being God makes no mistakes He is the author of all intelligence for His is Intelligence. No one can improve on His Providence, to think that we could is arrogance. We try with human intelligence to improve on His designs but fall short. Who has the mind of the Lord. If God did it it was necessary, to accomplish His will. I don’t have to know the reasons, after all where did my reasons come from, not me. I am fallible and so is my reasoning and to know the reasons what God does is not for me to question. Mary when approached by the Angel Gabriel said " I am the hand-maid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to His will" And I know that His will is the best for all.