Filioque??

[Apotheoun]

Perhaps submission, when there is no unity, is a problem for us but willing the Father’s Will be done is not passivity but Divine Action through our will.

Christ through His human will actively brings about our salvation in coordination with His divine will, because it is one and the same person who wills in both natures. There can be no division, nor is there any passivity.

 

[Apotheoun]

Perhaps submission, when there is no unity, is a problem for us but willing the Father’s Will be done is not passivity but Divine Action through our will.

Chrisb,

Were you at one time a Calvinist / Presbyterian?

 

[chrisb]

Christ through His human will actively brings about our salvation in coordination with His divine will, because it is one and the same person who wills in both natures. There can be no division, nor is there any passivity.

Was Jesus’ Human Nature tempted? Where does temptation come from? Why was Jesus’ Human Nature tempted? Or are you suggesting that it wasn’t? Was he tempted to pass the cup from himself?

Instead of trying to label me perhaps we can actually dialogue about these things.

 

[chrisb]

Chrisb,

Were you at one time a Calvinist / Presbyterian?

No, Free-Will Baptist actually.

 

[Apotheoun]

Was Jesus’ Human Nature tempted? Where does temptation come from? Why was Jesus’ Human Nature tempted? Or are you suggesting that it wasn’t? Was he tempted to pass the cup from himself?

He is not “tempted” in the way that we are, because He has no gnomic will. Thus, what Satan presents before Him has no hold upon Him, because He – by nature – chooses always the good.

The “let this cup pass from me” comment, as St. Maximos points out in his “Disputation with Pyrrhus,” does not indicate temptation at all; instead, it indicates that He is actively choosing to surrender one good, i.e., His human life, for a greater good, i.e., the salvation of mankind.

Finally, it is important to remember that the human will by nature is coordinate with the divine will, and that is why sin is not “natural” but is instead “personal.” In other words, sin does not involve our capacity to will, but our personal enactment of our natural will.

 

[Apotheoun]

Was Jesus’ Human Nature tempted?

Can “human nature” be tempted at all?

Nestorius made a similar comment in connection with the incarnation, because he held that Mary was the mother only of Christ’s human nature, and that is why he refused to call her Theotokos. St. Cyril in response pointed out that a mother gives birth to a person, and not merely a nature.

 

[JohnVIII]

Jesus of Nazareth has ‘two’ Natures only one of which is that of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. The Incarnation wasn’t the Second Person of the Holy Trinity walking around in a ‘flesh suit’… it was the Hypostatic Union of Man and God. I think this is vitally important for us to have a real understanding of the the submission of Our Lord’s Human Will to that of the Divine Will. Far more subtle teaching of the Incarnation than conflating Jesus the God-Man with the Logos prior. It was the submission of the Human Will to that of the Divine that makes Jesus a suitable “Lamb who takes away the sin of the World”. Yes it was God reconciling man to Himself but through the real submitted Human Will of the God-Man.

Is this point missed by everyone but me? Am I alone in this?

When you say "the Second Person of the Holy Trinity walking around in a ‘flesh suit’ ". I understand your suspicions. You suspect that perhaps I am a Monophysite of the Eutychianism type. I am not, I am Orthodox. I confess two natures in the one person of Christ. What I was trying to say earlier when I said

The fact is that most of the so-called non-Chalcedonian Christians are in agreement with the Council of Chalcedon even though they are called “Monophysite”, because they reject the teaching of Eutyches as well as Nestorius.

was that not all so-called Monophysite are really Monophysite at all. The Council of Chalcedon condemned the teachings of Eutyches (divine nature alone) and the teachings of Nestorius (human nature alone - or Mary was mother only of the human Jesus). Both Eutyches and Nestorius became patriarchs of Constantinople and they were both heretics, rightly condemned by the Council of Chalcedon. But there are other groups of Christians today that are called Monophysite but are actually Orthodox. The confusion comes about merely because different terminology that is used to express the same Orthodox truths.

Why I brought all this up in relation to the issue of the filioque is because the two natures of Christ are in perfect union with each other. A believe in the filioque requires that these two natures become divided, as the Holy Spirit must proceed from only the divine nature of Jesus Christ. Such a belief destroys the perfect unity of the two natures of Jesus Christ.

I must, however. disagree with your statement that

Jesus of Nazareth has ‘two’ Natures only one of which is that of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity

The problem with this is that you are saying that the Second Person of the Trinity is a “nature”. I know that there will be someone that will say I am wrong about what I am about to say but here it goes: The One Divine Nature (and there is only one, not two, not three!), the One Divine Nature IS a “Person” not an “it”, The One Divine Nature is the Person of the Father. In fact, when we speak if the Divine Nature of Christ that same Divine Nature is the Person of God the Father. And this is what the scripture means when it says, (2 Corinthians 5:19) “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself”. If there were a plural number of Divine Natures (such as one of the Father and another of the Son) then the filioque could be true, as the Father and the Son could consubstantialy be the source of the procession of the Holy Spirit (and this would also mean that there are two Gods!). But there is only One Divine Nature from which the Holy Spirit proceeds, in other words, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone.

 

[chrisb]

When you say "the Second Person of the Holy Trinity walking around in a ‘flesh suit’ ". I understand your suspicions. You suspect that perhaps I am a Monophysite of the Eutychianism type. I am not, I am Orthodox. I confess two natures in the one person of Christ. What I was trying to say earlier when I said was that not all so-called Monophysite are really Monophysite at all. The Council of Chalcedon condemned the teachings of Eutyches (divine nature alone) and the teachings of Nestorius (human nature alone - or Mary was mother only of the human Jesus). Both Eutyches and Nestorius became patriarchs of Constantinople and they were both heretics, rightly condemned by the Council of Chalcedon. But there are other groups of Christians today that are called Monophysite but are actually Orthodox. The confusion comes about merely because different terminology that is used to express the same Orthodox truths.

Personally, I see two extremes here. When we make the two Natures of the God-Man one Nature as Monophysites do there really is not ‘real’ humanity of the person of Jesus. No temptation becomes valid due to the radical divinity made of his person and we start to make no sense of Jesus as an Advocate between us and God. We can make no sense of the Father glorifying and rewarding the Son in heaven. Much of the Scriptures simply make no sense.

Why I brought all this up in relation to the issue of the filioque is because the two natures of Christ are in perfect union with each other. A believe in the filioque requires that these two natures become divided, as the Holy Spirit must proceed from only the divine nature of Jesus Christ. Such a belief destroys the perfect unity of the two natures of Jesus Christ.

I must, however. disagree with your statement that The problem with this is that you are saying that the Second Person of the Trinity is a “nature”. I know that there will be someone that will say I am wrong about what I am about to say but here it goes: The One Divine Nature (and there is only one, not two, not three!), the One Divine Nature IS a “Person” not an “it”, The One Divine Nature is the Person of the Father. In fact, when we speak if the Divine Nature of Christ that same Divine Nature is the Person of God the Father. And this is what the scripture means when it says, (2 Corinthians 5:19) “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself”. If there were a plural number of Divine Natures (such as one of the Father and another of the Son) then the filioque could be true, as the Father and the Son could consubstantialy be the source of the procession of the Holy Spirit (and this would also mean that there are two Gods!). But there is only One Divine Nature from which the Holy Spirit proceeds, in other words, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone.

So there are four persons of the Godhead? Are you really attributing a ‘personhood’ to the Godhead. I find that really challenging. Isn’t this to similar to modalism?

 

[chrisb]

Can “human nature” be tempted at all?

No but what I am trying to ask is that do you believe the person of Jesus of Nazareth could have been tempted. If so, I would argue it would be by an appeal to his Human Will to ‘break unity’ with the Divine Will. Surely, you would agree that Jesus’ Human Will is a product of his Human Nature. Right?

Nestorius made a similar comment in connection with the incarnation, because he held that Mary was the mother only of Christ’s human nature, and that is why he refused to call her Theotokos. St. Cyril in response pointed out that a mother gives birth to a person, and not merely a nature.

I have no problem understanding the unity of the person of Jesus but I believe there was choice, especially, within the person of our Saviour.

 

[Apotheoun]

No but what I am trying to ask is that do you believe the person of Jesus of Nazareth could have been tempted. If so, I would argue it would be by an appeal to his Human Will to ‘break unity’ with the Divine Will. Surely, you would agree that Jesus’ Human Will is a product of his Human Nature. Right?

A divine person cannot succumb to temptation. Thus, Satan’s efforts to tempt Christ were pointless, unless you want to argue that Christ has a gnomic will.

Christ in His humanity is free from all sin and suffers none of the effects of the ancestral sin in the moral sphere. Or do you really want to say that the second person of the Holy Trinity could be tempted into sin?

I have no problem understanding the unity of the person of Jesus but I believe there was choice, especially, within the person of our Saviour.

Despite your protestations to the contrary, you appear to be making the human nature of Christ into a subject of action. Natures do not act, only persons can act.

Just as a friendly reminder, the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon condemned the idea that the human nature assumed by the eternal Logos was a subject of action. Christ is one divine person in two natures.

 

[Allyson]

I go to see a Spike Lee movie, and suddenly we are on the 44th page. That’s some action in one afternoon…okay, I am going to check it out now.

 

[JohnVIII]

I have always been confused about the two wills. It sounds like schizophrenia. How can someone have two wills and be one person? Doesn’t it seem like there would be a split personality, even if one is submissive to the other?

I realize that the Word had to become fully man in order to save man as the ancient statement says, what Christ assumed He saved.

I guess the Maronite in me is coming out.

After various Monophysite (one nature) heresies were settled in Constantinople, there arose a new teaching that Christ did have two natures but he had only one will. This came about because of a desire to find common ground between the Orthodox and the Monophysite’s. This error was called the “Monothelite” heresy. The error became so widely spread that a certain man named Saint Maximus the Confessor feared that it may even go as far as Rome. Saint Maximus traveled to Rome to warn the Pope of the spread of this new heresy. As it turns out, this was a time in the history of the Church that perhaps the only church that remained orthodox was Rome and Rome alone. The issue wasn’t definitively decided by a council the church until after the death of Saint Maximus. After the Council, several Patriarchs and even one Pope (Honorius I) were condemned (after their deaths) as heretics.:bigyikes:

 

[chrisb]

A divine person cannot succumb to temptation. Thus, Satan’s efforts to tempt Christ were pointless, unless you want to argue that Christ has a gnomic will.

So, why do you think the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the desert for 40 days? To simply show off?

Christ in His humanity is free from all sin and suffers none of the effects of the ancestral sin in the moral sphere. Or do you really want to say that the second person of the Holy Trinity could be tempted into sin?

So, are you saying that Jesus was so totally alien that he knew not our weaknesses?

Despite your protestations to the contrary, you appear to be making the human nature of Christ into a subject of action. Natures do not act, only persons can act.

No, I am saying that in any synergy that is participation in both the human and divine will. You seem to be suggesting that the presence of the Divine Will completely overshadowed Jesus’ humanity.

Just as a friendly reminder, the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon condemned the idea that the human nature assumed by the eternal Logos was a subject of action. Christ is one divine person in two natures.

He is one person with a human nature and a divine nature. You seem to be suggesting that Jesus’ Divine Nature eclipsed his Human Nature.

During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek. ~ Hebrews 5:7-10

The synergy within the Person of Jesus seems to have grown and evolved and ‘submitted’ and ‘learned obedience’ but you reject this… why?

 

[JohnVIII]

What I reject in your comments is the view that Christ’s human will is “submitted,”

Everything I read from you on this matter sounds right on the money:thumbsup: . All except this quote of yours, that is, above. Christ’s human will did submit, willingly, to his divine will. (Have you ever heard of the way the so-called “old-believers” in the Russian Orthodox Church used to cross themselves with their hands? - They use two fingers, representing the two natures of Christ, but one of the two fingers were bent down, representing the human nature of Christ bowing down to the divine - But perhaps the way someone cross themselves doesn’t make a very convincing argument - but it’s true nevertheless).

 

[Apotheoun]

So, why do you think the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the desert for 40 days? To simply show off?

Christ’s life is the recapitulation of the life of the people of Israel, that is why He went into the wilderness, and He did perfectly what they (i.e., Israel) failed to do.

So, are you saying that Jesus was so totally alien that he knew not our weaknesses?

Jesus, as the eternal Son of God, by an act of His theandric energy knew our natural and innocent weaknesses (i.e., thirst, hunger, weariness, etc.) [1], but He experienced no moral weakness at all. Do you really believe that a divine person can be tempted to sin? Your questions reveal a deformed and crypto-Nestorian understanding of the incarnation.

No, I am saying that in any synergy that is participation in both the human and divine will. You seem to be suggesting that the presence of the Divine Will completely overshadowed Jesus’ humanity.

No, that is what you are saying, when you insist that His human will is passive and submissive. I hold, in opposition to your position, that Christ’s natural human will is good, and that the person of the Word incarnate always chooses (both humanly and divinely) to do the good.

He is one person with a human nature and a divine nature. You seem to be suggesting that Jesus’ Divine Nature eclipsed his Human Nature.

No, that again is your position, for you are the one who makes Christ’s human will submissive and inactive.

The synergy within the Person of Jesus seems to have grown and evolved and ‘submitted’ and ‘learned obedience’ but you reject this… why?

The hypostatic union was perfect from the moment that Christ was conceived in the womb of the Theotokos, and to say that there is growth in it is heretical.

[1] cf. St. John Damascene, “De Fide Orthodoxa,” Book III, Chapter 20.

 

[Apotheoun]

Everything I read from you on this matter sounds right on the money:thumbsup: . All except this quote of yours, that is, above. Christ’s human will did submit, willingly, to his divine will. (Have you ever heard of the way the so-called “old-believers” in the Russian Orthodox Church used to cross themselves with their hands? - They use two fingers, representing the two natures of Christ, but one of the two fingers were bent down, representing the human nature of Christ bowing down to the divine - But perhaps the way someone cross themselves doesn’t make a very convincing argument - but it’s true nevertheless).

John VIII,

The reason I avoid that terminology is because it makes it sound as if Christ’s human will acts independently of His divine person. In other words, by saying that “Christ’s human will did submit, willingly, to His divine will” it makes it sound as if His human will acts on its own, rather than being employed by the uncreated and eternal hypostasis of the Son of God. Thus, I repeat what I have said before, it is the Logos Himself who wills in both natures and He is always active in His choices.

Now, as far as your posts in this thread are concerned, I believe that we are in agreement even though I prefer to say that His (i.e., the eternal Word’s) two wills are always employed by the divine person of the Logos in perfect harmony, instead of speaking of submission, which involves – at least to a certain degree – passivity. Clearly, your Christological views are in line with the teaching of the ecumenical councils.

 

[Apotheoun]

John VIII,

I think that the reason I bristle at the use of the word “submission” in connection with Christ’s human will by Chrisb is that his Christological comments tend to evince a crypto-Nestorian view of the incarnation.

God bless,
Todd

 

[tdgesq]

Why I brought all this up in relation to the issue of the filioque is because the two natures of Christ are in perfect union with each other. A believe in the filioque requires that these two natures become divided, as the Holy Spirit must proceed from only the divine nature of Jesus Christ. Such a belief destroys the perfect unity of the two natures of Jesus Christ.

John,

I am totally confused as to how this is an argument against the filioque. It could be used against any of the eternal trinitarian relationships with God the Son.

I could just as easily say that God the Son being eternally begotten of God the Father destroys the unity of the two natures of Jesus because it occurred “before” the incarnation. Since the eternally begotten Son did not include the human nature of Jesus, wouldn’t you have to say that the eternal relationship between God the Father and God the Son destroys the unity of the two natures of Jesus?

Your argument goes too far as it would apply to all of the eternal relationships with the second person of the trinity. They would all somehow be deficient because the incarnation hadn’t happened yet.

 

[bpbasilphx]

I don’t know it it has been posted here yet, but I thought the opening of the Treaty of Brest was apropos:

We require prior guarantees of these articles from the Romans before we enter into union with the Roman Church.

1.—Since there is a quarrel between the Romans and Greeks about the procession of the Holy Spirit, which greatly impede unity really for no other reason than that we do not wish to understand one another—we ask that we should not be compelled to any other creed but that we should remain with that which was handed down to us in the Holy Scriptures, in the Gospel, and in the writings of the holy Greek Doctors, that is, that the Holy Spirit proceeds, not from two sources and not by a double procession, but from one origin, from the Father through the Son.

 

[chrisb]

Christ’s life is the recapitulation of the life of the people of Israel, that is why He went into the wilderness, and He did perfectly what they (i.e., Israel) failed to do.

Jesus, as the eternal Son of God, by an act of His theandric energy knew our natural and innocent weaknesses (i.e., thirst, hunger, weariness, etc.) [1], but He experienced no moral weakness at all. Do you really believe that a divine person can be tempted to sin? Your questions reveal a deformed and crypto-Nestorian understanding of the incarnation.

For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. ~ Hebrew 2:18

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. ~ Hebrews 4:15

Being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry. ~ Luke 4:2

Yes actually I do believe Jesus of Nazareth was ‘in all points tempted as we are’. In fact, the note in the Orthodox Study Bible for verses 5:8, 9 state, “Christ learned obedience in His human will, which continually and freely submitted to the divine will. In the agony of injustice and in physical pain He submits to the will of the Father. This perfecting of human activity in communion with God shows Christ alone to be the Savior.”

No, that is what you are saying, when you insist that His human will is passive and submissive. I hold, in opposition to your position, that Christ’s natural human will is good, and that the person of the Word incarnate always chooses (both humanly and divinely) to do the good.

And that ‘good’ was to 'freely submit… to the divine will [of the Father] by your own Orthodox Study Bible.

No, that again is your position, for you are the one who makes Christ’s human will submissive and inactive.

As I said before, not passive, for it is in the creaturely nature to move toward corruption and nothingness.

The hypostatic union was perfect from the moment that Christ was conceived in the womb of the Theotokos, and to say that there is growth in it is heretical.

And the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him. ~ Luke 2:40

And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor [grace] with God and men. ~ Luke 2:52

In the Orthodox Study Bible note for verses 2:49-51 it states, “Christ’s eternal generation from the Father is divine, while his maternal ancestry is human. Accordingly, Jesus was first obedient to the will of His Father, and then is willingly subjected to His mother and father.”

Again we see evidence of the submission of the will of Jesus to the Father and even to His mother and father afterward. The divine nature within the personhood of Jesus was ever the Second Person of the Holy Trinity but we see ‘an increase’ in Jesus as He grew. An increase might suggests a ‘lack of perfection’. Should we assume that this is to be found in the divine nature present in our Lord? I say ‘absolutely not’ but we must recognize rather, it indicates that in emptying Himself and assuming human nature (Php 2:7), He [the Second Person of the Holy Trinity] subjected Himself to human development and expression. (See the Orthodox Study Bible notes for Luke 2:40)