God has no potentiality - so He can't take on a human nature?

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I might not know exactly how to answer that, but these words from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans (8:22-30), comes to mind, perhaps not for an instant answer, but something to meditate on:

“For we know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now. And not only it, but ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen, is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he hope for? But if we hope for that which we see not, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity. For we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit himself asketh for us with unspeakable groanings. And he that searcheth the hearts, knoweth what the Spirit desireth; because he asketh for the saints according to God. And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints. For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son; that he might be the firstborn amongst many brethren.”

And the DRC’s notes have:
“[26] ‘Asketh for us’: The Spirit is said to ask, and desire for the saints, and to pray in us; inasmuch as he inspireth prayer, and teacheth us to pray.”
“[29] ‘He also predestinated’: That is, God hath preordained that all his elect should be conformable to the image of his Son. We must not here offer to pry into the secrets of God’s eternal election; only firmly believe that all our good, in time and eternity, flows originally from God’s free goodness; and all our evil from man’s free will.”
 
AlNg said:
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Entwhistler:
One thing we have to remember is that God is outside the material world.
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I thought that Jesus was God and that he was inside the material world ? Further, the Eucharist is God and the Eucharist is inside the material world also.
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I think what he meant was that God exists outside the material world, but is not constrained by that reality. He can also enter into the material world at his pleasure as evidenced by Son and Holy Spirit.
 
St. Thomas Aquinas speaks to this:
Reply to Objection 1. God is above all things by the excellence of His nature; nevertheless, He is in all things as the cause of the being of all things; as was shown above in this article.

Reply to Objection 2. Although corporeal things are said to be in another as in that which contains them, nevertheless, spiritual things contain those things in which they are; as the soul contains the body. Hence also God is in things containing them; nevertheless, by a certain similitude to corporeal things, it is said that all things are in God; inasmuch as they are contained by Him.
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http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1008.htm
 
AlNg said:
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meltzerboy2:
through His act and subsequent acts, does there not appear to be a change in the Creator with regard to His interaction with His creation, which did not exist prior to His creating it?
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Yes. That is the question that I have. For example, does God respond to our prayers? The bible says that God changed His mind after hearing a prayer: "Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened."Exodus 32:12-14 .
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This quote from St. Thomas Aquinas makes the case for why our human language and passions imperfectly explain God’s actions:
When certain human passions are predicated of the Godhead metaphorically, this is done because of a likeness in the effect. Hence a thing that is in us a sign of some passion, is signified metaphorically in God under the name of that passion. Thus with us it is usual for an angry man to punish, so that punishment becomes an expression of anger. Therefore punishment itself is signified by the word anger, when anger is attributed to God.
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http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1019.htm#article10
 
meltzerboy2 said:
Do you also reject all aspects of change brought on by G-d, including the Creation? In this case, G-d may not be changing per se, but through His act and subsequent acts, does there not appear to be a change in the Creator with regard to His interaction with His creation, which did not exist prior to His creating it?
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I like to think of God to be like a road sign. It does not change. Yet it is causing so much change outside of it.
 
It seems to me that in your question, God is “God the Father”. But in Catholic theology, it is God the Son (i.e. Christ) who takes on human nature. I believe that your point that God the Father could not have taken on human nature, is correct. But RC theology does not equate God the Father and God the Son – it holds that they are consubstantial. I believe this resolves what has appeared to you as an impossibility.
 
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Jesus is not a mix of human and divine nature, but it is doctrinally defined (see the heresy of Nestorianism) that Jesus had both human nature and Divine Nature. In short, Jesus has 2 Natures in One Person, not one nature and not a mixture of natures, but fully human and fully Divine.

Also, keep in mind that Jesus is the LOGOS.
 
AlNg said:
It is a question. If God is changeless, how can He take on human nature? 3000 years ago, God did not have a human nature. However, 2000 years ago, God did have a human nature. But God is changeless.
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God is outside time. What He was going to do 2,000 years ago, He had already done 3,000 years ago because He is not limited by time. We live in linear time: God lives in eternity.
Were this not so then how could the changeless God speak His word to Abraham and to Moses? Surely when we speak we change; our words were not spoken and then they were.
Were it not so how could the changeless God perform the miraculous plagues that drove Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt?
 
Roguish said:
It seems to me that in your question, God is “God the Father”. But in Catholic theology, it is God the Son (i.e. Christ) who takes on human nature. I believe that your point that God the Father could not have taken on human nature, is correct. But RC theology does not equate God the Father and God the Son – it holds that they are consubstantial. I believe this resolves what has appeared to you as an impossibility.
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You’re confusing the being of God with the person of the Father.
 
Ron_Conte said:
God is pure Act, with no potentialities. But he does not need the potential, exercised or not, to take on a human nature. What changes in the hypostatic union is not the divine nature, but the human nature that is united to the unchanging divine nature.
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21Dec17 said:
Continuing the discussion from It takes two to tango: the hypostatic union of the changeless divinity :

It takes two to tango: the hypostatic union of the changeless divinity

> > But as creation itself did not affect the immutability of God, so neither did the incarnation of a Divine Person; whatever change was involved in either case took place solely in the created nature.
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> http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm#IIC

This is from a previous thread. But I didn’t get my answer there, so I reworded the problem in this current thread.
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If the only difference is in the human nature, then my objection is this:

‘I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other’ (Isaiah 42:8).

A Catholic might object by saying that the context is speaking about idols, but this begs the question, as the burden of proof is with the position that Jesus is not an idol but God. And since I have a reason to believe that it is logically impossible for God to take on a human nature, I really need to be proven wrong here if Catholicism holds the truth.
 
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He didn’t give his glory to any other. He gave it to himself.

I’m not following you.
 
21Dec17 said:
He didn’t give his glory to any other. He gave it to himself.

I’m not following you.
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Maybe if it would help if instead of calling Jesus the human nature, I just called him Jesus until I’m proved wrong of the impossibility.
 
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You’ve just entered the realm of faith. I cannot prove to you that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. All I can say is that knowing what we know about the person of God it is reasonable to believe the Holy Spirit could conceive Jesus.
 
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mrsdizzyd said:
You’ve just entered the realm of faith.
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I’m willing to accept God being incomprehensible. But logic can still discern truth from contradictions - the contradiction being a God who has no potentialities taking on a human nature.
 
21Dec17 said:
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mrsdizzyd:
You think it is reasonable to believe that Human nature can not change the divine, correct?
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I don’t see how that’s relevant, but you could say that.
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If you believe that then it is also reasonable to believe that, in the incarnation, the divine spirit (God is spirit) would change human nature while remaining unchanged itself.
 
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