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

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mrsdizzyd said:
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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But we’re back to my original pantheism objection, and also the default position of Isaiah 42:8.
 
You’re not identifying why you think there’s a logical contradiction.

Please do explain your understanding of the Incarnation and why you think it contradicts God being fully actualized.
 
21Dec17 said:
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mrsdizzyd:
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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But we’re back to my original pantheism objection, and also the default position of Isaiah 42:8.
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No, we are not.

Jesus was at once 100% human and 100% divine. This is consubstantiality. The divine remains totally unchanged. God is always and everywhere and at every time a spirit.

There are accidents of divinity in Christ (miracles for instance), but he is still very much human. So much so that he can still suffer as a human.
 
Kei said:
You’re not identifying why you think there’s a logical contradiction.

Please do explain your understanding of the Incarnation and why you think it contradicts God being fully actualized.
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mrsdizzyd said:
> > 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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> But we’re back to my original pantheism objection, and also the default position of Isaiah 42:8.

No, we are not.

Jesus was at once 100% human and 100% divine. This is consubstantiality. The divine remains totally unchanged. God is always and everywhere and at every time a spirit.

There are accidents of divinity in Christ (miracles for instance), but he is still very much human. So much so that he can still suffer as a human.
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The incarnation, as people are repeating, has the person of the Son have a unity between his divine nature and his human nature. The divine nature is 100% divine and the human nature is 100% human. Jesus is supposedly the human nature, of the person of the Son, of the being of God. There is no mixing of the human and divine nature, although their union allows for the man Jesus to call himself God.

I understand all of this.

I think that people’s confusion comes from my original post. Besides making it clear that pantheism and the hypostatic union are very different, I was not saying that Jesus’ soul is God or anything. My point was that God cannot take on a universe as a body, in a similar way that He cannot take on a human nature: because of the lack of potentialities.

Then, for the claim that the only change is in the human nature… well, you can read what I wrote there if you like.

Edit: I should also make it clear that the divine nature of the Son also supposedly has no potentialities.

Edit: I also think that there is a danger of viewing ‘God’ or ‘the Son’ as umbrella terms that can have a divine nature and a human nature. God IS his divinity, and both of these IS his unity. God is not an umbrella that can have different natures.
 
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21Dec17 said:
My point was that God cannot take on a universe as a body, in a similar way that He cannot take on a human nature: because of the lack of potentialities.
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God is not taking on a human body. The entirety of God is present with the body. God is unchanged.
 
21Dec17 said:
My reason for rejecting pantheism is similar to my reason for being sceptical of the hypostatic union: God has no potentialities.

A form of pantheism holds that God is the changeless soul of the changing universe, which is his body. But I reject this because God’s lack of potentialities makes this impossible.

Now I know that the hypostatic union is very different to pantheism, but it’s the same principle: surely He can’t take on a human nature.

Prove me wrong.
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God does not take on human nature, rather the Person of the Son of God assumes a human nature and there is no change in divine nature.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in Summa Theologiae
Third Part > Question 3. The mode of union on the part of the person assuming
Article 1. Whether it is befitting for a Divine Person to assume?
I answer that, In the word “assumption” are implied two things, viz. the principle and the term of the act, for to assume is to take something to oneself. Now of this assumption a Person is both the principle and the term. The principle — because it properly belongs to a person to act, and this assuming of flesh took place by the Divine action. Likewise a Person is the term of this assumption, because, as was said above (III:2:2), the union took place in the Person, and not in the nature. Hence it is plain that to assume a nature is most properly befitting to a Person.
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http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4003.htm#article1
 
Actually, you appear to misunderstand. Jesus is not merely the human nature, He is both the human and Divine nature.
Jesus IS God.

I don’t understand why you think God being actual keeps the Incarnation from happening. Becoming human wasn’t a potential that wasn’t operating fully or yet to manifest, it’s an entirely different operation.

For example, say a seed has the potential to become a mighty tree. That has nothing to do with whether or not I nail a piece of wood onto the tree. The seed reached its final end in becoming a tree, not in having a piece of wood nailed onto, or even into it. Of course this is an imperfect example, but I think it illustrates the point.
 
So are you saying that you think it is impossible that Christ could have been united in body but of two natures?

And, that you think this is impossible because it would require God to change?
 
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I truly think that with an accurate understanding of the terms involved, if you try to formate a logical proof for your position, you could not without some logical fallacy like a non sequitur.
 
I get that sense as well.

As he is explaining his position he is disproving it. It must be an issue of terms…
 
21Dec17 said:
You’re confusing the being of God with the person of the Father.
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That “confusion” was intentional. But anyway, I sense that you are looking for total consistency (under your current understanding of the terms) more than for a basis for faith, so I’ll leave any further arguments to others.
 
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I was mulling this over again, and here are some final thoughts before I bow out of this conversation:
  1. If God has no potentiality
  2. If God, as divine spirit cannot be changed by human nature
  3. If the nature of God and the human nature can exist together whole yet distinct.
  4. If the union between God and man therefore occurs in the person
Then, insofar as something must “change” it cannot and is not the divine that changes. It is the human person that is perfected by the incarnation not the other way around.

Consider the words of St. Thomas Aquinas as previously mentioned in this thread by @vico:
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Part 4, Article 1:

“In the word “assumption” are implied two things, viz. the principle and the term of the act, for to assume is to take something to oneself. Now of this assumption a Person is both the principle and the term. The principle—because it properly belongs to a person to act, and this assuming of flesh took place by the Divine action. Likewise a Person is the term of this assumption, because, as was said above (III:2:2), the union took place in the Person, and not in the nature. Hence it is plain that to assume a nature is most properly befitting to a Person.”

For your further consideration, here is another quote from the same article:
“Since the Divine Person is infinite, no addition can be made to it: Hence Cyril says [Council of Ephesus, Part I, ch. 26]: “We do not conceive the mode of conjunction to be according to addition”; just as in the union of man with God, nothing is added to God by the grace of adoption, but what is Divine is united to man; hence, not God but man is perfected.”
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4003.htm#article1
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All of this taken together shows us that the incarnation is reasonable and without contradiction. God remains distinct and unchanged. Indeed, he still has no potentiality.

There is no issue of pantheism here. God remains his distinct and wholly intact self even in the incarnation.

By reason alone, we can only determine that a thing is not contradictory. The rest is the realm of faith.
 
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21Dec17 said:
My reason for rejecting pantheism is similar to my reason for being sceptical of the hypostatic union: God has no potentialities.

A form of pantheism holds that God is the changeless soul of the changing universe, which is his body. But I reject this because God’s lack of potentialities makes this impossible.

Now I know that the hypostatic union is very different to pantheism, but it’s the same principle: surely He can’t take on a human nature.

Prove me wrong.
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While true that God is not “the changeless soul of the changing universe,” it is nevertheless true – according to Aquinas – that since God is the active cause of all that exists, all perfections have to “pre-exist” (logically and not chronologically speaking) in him in a super-excellent way. That implies that whatever exists as an aspect of the universe has to exist in God, eternally.

So all qualities that are instantiated in human beings that would make us perfectly human to begin with, existed “primordially” in God who is the Pure Act of Being Itself.

Aquinas, referencing Dionysius makes this observation:
…Dionysius is saying just this by saying that God “does not exist in any qualified manner,” but possesses primordially in himself all being, unqualifiedly and unrestrictedly. And he later adds that God is the being of all that subsists. (Summa Theologiae I q.4, a.2 from An Aquinas Reader, Mary T. Clark, ed.)
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In other words, God can take on human nature precisely because all of the perfections of human nature exist in God in a super-excellent way, eternally.

Continued…
 
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Or using a different translation…
First, because whatever perfection exists in an effect must be found in the effective cause: either in the same formality, if it is a univocal agent—as when man reproduces man; or in a more eminent degree, if it is an equivocal agent—thus in the sun is the likeness of whatever is generated by the sun’s power. Now it is plain that the effect pre-exists virtually in the efficient cause: and although to pre-exist in the potentiality of a material cause is to pre-exist in a more imperfect way, since matter as such is imperfect, and an agent as such is perfect; still to pre-exist virtually in the efficient cause is to pre-exist not in a more imperfect, but in a more perfect way. Since therefore God is the first effective cause of things, the perfections of all things must pre-exist in God in a more eminent way. Dionysius implies the same line of argument by saying of God (Div. Nom. v): "It is not that He is this and not that, but that He is all, as the cause of all."

Secondly, from what has been already proved, God is existence itself, of itself subsistent (I:3:4). Consequently, He must contain within Himself the whole perfection of being. For it is clear that if some hot thing has not the whole perfection of heat, this is because heat is not participated in its full perfection; but if this heat were self-subsisting, nothing of the virtue of heat would be wanting to it. Since therefore God is subsisting being itself, nothing of the perfection of being can be wanting to Him. Now all created perfections are included in the perfection of being; for things are perfect, precisely so far as they have being after some fashion. It follows therefore that the perfection of no one thing is wanting to God. This line of argument, too, is implied by Dionysius (Div. Nom. v), when he says that, “God exists not in any single mode, but embraces all being within Himself, absolutely, without limitation, uniformly;” and afterwards he adds that, "He is the very existence to subsisting things."
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Source: SUMMA THEOLOGIAE: The perfection of God (Prima Pars, Q. 4)
 
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First of all, the only way to begin understanding the sacred mysteries is to humble oneself and accept the revelation by faith. Only by submitting your mind to a higher mind can you begin to share in that higher mind’s understanding. This is just as true with even human masters as in the Divine Master: who is foolish enough to think that one’s vision and skill is even close to perfect?

As a start, whatever reason you propose that the Incarnation involves the divine nature being moved, ask yourself: would this also make God moved through the act of creation? You are correct to avoid pantheism, but you might be going so far away from pantheism that you are denying any existence to creation. Is God having a potential actualized when he creates? Why not?

Christi pax.
 
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Lucretius said:
As a start, whatever reason you propose that the Incarnation involves the divine nature being moved
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That’s not what I’m saying. I’ll be making a more formal argument today I hope.
Lucretius said:
ask yourself: would this also make God moved through the act of creation? You are correct to avoid pantheism, but you might be going so far away from pantheism that you are denying any existence to creation. Is God having a potential actualized when he creates? Why not?
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I already addressed this:
21Dec17 said:
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.
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I’d like to thank HarryStotle for reading my points very carefully, because everyone else are ignoring some key points. For example, people are repeating that the only change is in the human nature even though my original post wrote of a form of pantheism that has God as a changeless soul of a changing universe. The hypostatic union has a parallel to the universe being a union of divine and physical to make the universe to be God.

Edit:

While mrsdizzy84 has left the discussion, I’d like to address this:
mrsdizzyd said:
If the union between God and man therefore occurs in the person
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Being a person or not, my point remains.
 
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