As I understand it, Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, and the Holy Spirit.
It’s been explained to me that the reason Jesus had to be born of a woman, was to enable him to be human. Jesus being fully human is an essential part of the salvation story.
As an aside, I don’t see how Jesus can be ‘‘fully’’ human when He did not have a human father, but my main question is this - were Adam and Eve humans?
We’re all descended from Adam and Eve, our first parents. Jesus had to be born of woman to be human. But Adam and Eve were created.
What makes these ‘‘created’’ beings ‘human’?
If it’s not necessary to have ‘‘human’’ parents to be human, why did Jesus need to be born of a human woman to be human? Why couldn’t He have just been created, in the same way Adam and Eve were?
Sarah x
Sarah:
Not having been there, I think it’s important to attempt to understand how God might have created the universe, Adam, Eve, and Christ. I think that God exists at a level (one could call it the ‘implicate’ level) that is so different from the level at which we exist (the ‘explicate’ level, we could say), and that any
creation most likely proceeds in much the same way, and at that level. In order to make that which is ‘physical’ God configures all or parts of
continuous space (delineated by
points) into what is perceived by humans beings as matter. The within of matter is almost 100%
space, but not the standard, discrete stuff that we tend to experience and think of as space, but rather that
space which we think of as
Infinite Space (such as that which cohabits with electrons in electron shells), that we often refer to as
God.
Space consists of those ‘points’ that flowed from an infinitesimally small singularity at the Big Bang. As these points (dimensionless particles) flowed from the singularity, they were configured into a lattice-like configuration, and this configuration resulted in “gaps” (s-gaps), that are permeated by the Infinite in a manner that has always been mysterious to us. Living, material beings can be thought of as configurations of s-points, animated by a particle of/from God, which we may call
“Form” (after St. Thomas). I tend to think of Adam, Eve and Christ as Forms created by God, that were provided commissions, so to speak, that were extremely important in terms of God’s Divine Plan. Their s-point configurations were not any different from any other s-point configurations, except that those
particle-s-point composites were tasked with specific objectives determined by the One, Subsistent, Omniscient Being. God
selected them and endowed them with their formal differences, as has been revealed to us, with Christ being given formal speciation at the highest level God could possibly endow.
God endowed Christ with two forms - God’s own Form and the form of man - in one hypostatically unified Being - that Christ often had to re-consider as He was going through His earthly existence, especially during His passivity period, i.e, His human end-time.
Christ, then, would have proceeded into human existence in the same manner as any human being, by way of a mother. God has created species, albeit simpler ones, that are able to reproduce without the express presence of males, and I suspect that He can do this without too much effort.
As for Adam and Eve, our primal parents were created in the same way that everything is created, by the configuration of space (s-points) in composition with a “life-spark,” i.e., a God-spark, or
soul.
This may or may not be precisely “how” it is/was done and I’m not saying that it is, only that it aligns with science so that science is no longer seemingly opposed to the religious conception of “creation.” Like any “theory,” this is one that is held by some, but is subject to change, or modification, if a more explanatory theory, or revelation, comes along.
God bless,
jd
