How can the incarnation be possible?

[WesleyF]

The incarnation implies that one person in God now has a resurrected human body. A human body is contingent. God is not contingent. God cannot change. If God changes, then it means that God is contingent, but that’s a contradiction. But by taking on human nature, the second person in God has changed. He has become what he was not. How is this possible?

 

[Trishie]

The Word Became Flesh

**1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.

3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men**. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’” 16From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.
John chapter 1 verses 1-5, 10-18

Wesley, The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
How can you expect to understand God.
How can the tiny flea understand the mind of men and all human understanding and achievements.
Fleas that we are, how can we presume to understand God?
The gospel of John gives some clues, faint clues, to the your question’s answer.

 

[levinas12]

The incarnation implies that one person in God now has a resurrected human body. A human body is contingent. God is not contingent. God cannot change. If God changes, then it means that God is contingent, but that’s a contradiction. But by taking on human nature, the second person in God has changed. He has become what he was not. How is this possible?

Anselm provides a partial answer. His famous “ontological” argument assumes that God-without-the-world is just as “great” as God-with-the-world. In other words, the world doesn’t add anything to God. The world does not fulfill a potentiality in God. God does not need the world. There is no lack, no absence that drives God to create the world. Thus, creation does not represent a change in God (change as understood by Aristotle).

God’s transcendence explains this unusual situation. God is totally outside the world. He is not just one entity among other entities. Not even a super entity. Because God does not have an essence that limits Him - no definite “shape” (“eidos”) with boundaries - because He is not just one distinct “thing” that can be compared and contrasted with other things - God is “unlimited” in a fundamental way.

As such, He can enter the world without overwhelming it. If God had, e.g., a lion’s nature, then His Incarnation as a human being would change human nature, producing a hybrid, half-man, half-beast. But this doesn’t happen. Jesus is true God, and true man. Jesus’ human nature is left intact.

And this explains why the Incarnation is not a change in the Second Person. His unlimited esse remains unlimited.

Jesus is the same Person before and after the Incarnation.

 

[Soldier_Of_God]

One must be careful not to get to caught up in metaphysical axioms as they often are arbitrary and can come to strange conclusions. As for Christ and the Incarnation, there is a hypostatic union of divine and human nature. The divine nature has not changed but has been conjoined with a human nature. However, the divine person (e.g. identity, character or personage) that is Christ has never changed. There are now two distinct natures in one Person.

 

[Lonely_guy]

For God all and everything is possible. And if we would have faith enough,we really could ask the mountain to go and throw it in the sea. But we don’t have that much faith so we need God.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

The incarnation implies that one person in God now has a resurrected human body. A human body is contingent. God is not contingent. God cannot change. If God changes, then it means that God is contingent, but that’s a contradiction. But by taking on human nature, the second person in God has changed. He has become what he was not. How is this possible?

How can you explain that a tree CHANGES and still from little to adult to death IT IS THE SAME TREE…

 

[Jaaanosik]

The incarnation implies that one person in God now has a resurrected human body. A human body is contingent. God is not contingent. God cannot change. If God changes, then it means that God is contingent, but that’s a contradiction. But by taking on human nature, the second person in God has changed. He has become what he was not. How is this possible?

There is a question. Do you believe that God can control every single particle of the universe?

 

[levinas12]

And this explains why the Incarnation is not a change in the Second Person. His unlimited esse remains unlimited.

Jesus is the same Person before and after the Incarnation.

But this is a great mystery. Jesus is the only human being with unlimited esse.

Jesus is not “defined” by His Body (in the way the rest of us are).

This is not to deny the reality of Jesus’ flesh.

But, somehow, Jesus continues to be the Second Person in the Incarnation.

As He Himself said, before Abraham, I AM.

We cannot say this. Our “person” would not survive an incarnation into another human body. Not withstanding what some religions, movies and sci-fi might suggest.

 

[catholictiger]

The incarnation implies that one person in God now has a resurrected human body. A human body is contingent. God is not contingent. God cannot change. If God changes, then it means that God is contingent, but that’s a contradiction. But by taking on human nature, the second person in God has changed. He has become what he was not. How is this possible?

this is a very classic problem when it comes to the incarnation

how Can God who is immutable become man, wouldn’t that change his divine nature?

well no in the incarnation his divine nature didn’t change at all, how does this happen I’m actually not sure.

But also another important thing to note is that God is also omnipresent meaning that God is in every single place possible. So God had already existed in Mary’s womb so God was just going into a place where he already was he wasn’t changing at all. He just entered into that place in a more complete way then ever before as man.

so the best way to explain this is that God’s nature didn’t change at the incarnation and because god is omnipresent he was already present in mary.

 

[Jaaanosik]

this is a very classic problem when it comes to the incarnation

how Can God who is immutable become man, wouldn’t that change his divine nature?

well no in the incarnation his divine nature didn’t change at all,** how does this happen I’m actually not sure. **

But also another important thing to note is that God is also omnipresent meaning that God is in every single place possible. So God had already existed in Mary’s womb so God was just going into a place where he already was he wasn’t changing at all. He just entered into that place in a more complete way then ever before as man.

so the best way to explain this is that God’s nature didn’t change at the incarnation and because god is omnipresent he was already present in mary.

Here is a possible explanation.

At the time of incarnation God starts to control Mary’s womb particles, through particles He controls atoms, through atoms He controls cells, … that’s how it starts. Nine months later Baby Jesus was born.

 

[catholictiger]

Here is a possible explanation.

At the time of incarnation God starts to control Mary’s womb particles, through particles He controls atoms, through atoms He controls cells, … that’s how it starts. Nine months later Baby Jesus was born.

from the human perspective yes

but the issue here is how can God become man if God is immutable, wouldn’t God becoming human make him mutable?

I say no because his divine nature doesn’t change, and he goes into a place where he already was just in a more complete way.

from the divine nature perspective its the way it HAS to work.

 

[Jaaanosik]

from the human perspective yes

but the issue here is how can God become man if God is immutable, wouldn’t God becoming human make him mutable?

I say no because his divine nature doesn’t change, and he goes into a place where he already was just in a more complete way.

from the divine nature perspective its the way it HAS to work.

Because there is a link between Jesus’s human nature that includes His human soul and His divine nature.

 

[Whadyamean]

What fascinates me is that there has been an alternate explanation of the hypostatic union for some five thousand years. Maybe longer.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

What fascinates me is that there has been an alternate explanation of the hypostatic union for some five thousand years. Maybe longer.

GASP! <A record player scratches to a halt and the music stops, while simultaneously we hear some dishes drop and break offstage and horse whinny in terror in the distance. All turn and look at Whadyamean wide-eyed and wringing hands as they await with bated breath his next sentence.>

Announcer: “Tune in next time folks for the startling conclusion to our drama The Alternate Explanation of the Hypostatic Union! Brought to you by Ovaltine. Remember kids, drink your Ovaltine! Until next time!”


VC

(sorry, just couldn’t resist!)

 

[Whadyamean]

GASP! <A record player scratches to a halt and the music stops, while simultaneously we hear some dishes drop and break offstage and horse whinny in terror in the distance. All turn and look at Whadyamean wide-eyed and wringing hands as they await with bated breath his next sentence.>

Announcer: “Tune in next time folks for the startling conclusion to our drama The Alternate Explanation of the Hypostatic Union! Brought to you by Ovaltine. Remember kids, drink your Ovaltine! Until next time!”


VC

(sorry, just couldn’t resist!)

 

[Alindawyl]

The incarnation implies that one person in God now has a resurrected human body. A human body is contingent. God is not contingent. God cannot change. If God changes, then it means that God is contingent, but that’s a contradiction. But by taking on human nature, the second person in God has changed. He has become what he was not. How is this possible?

It is possible because God is eternal and we are temporal. The entire concept of change as we understand it is predicated upon time. So because God is not constrained by time, we cannot speak of God changing.

Think of the time line which is common in many history textbooks, showing a list of dates and events from the past to the present, and use that as an analogy. We are temporal beings who only experience a single point along that line at any given moment. We move from past to future at a constant rate. But when we look at a time line in a textbook, we see all of it at once. We don’t just see the point where we are in the present, but the points of the past as well. By looking at a time line we experience both the present and the past as the present, so to speak.

God is like that. He created the line of time. He is not constrained by it. His existence “predates” the creation of time. What we experience as past, present, and future because we are constrained by and moving along that line of time point by point, God experiences as an eternal present because He sees the whole line at once.

In a temporal sense Jesus did not have a human nature until the point along the time line representing the Incarnation, because the Incarnation is a temporal event. But in an eternal sense Jesus has “always” had a human nature, even “before” there was humanity in time, because God is not constrained by time.

Your head will explode if you try to shoehorn eternity into the finite, hence my use of quotes when using temporal terms to talk about God. Something finite like time cannot contain an infinite God.

 

[WesleyF]

Wesley, The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
How can you expect to understand God.
How can the tiny flea understand the mind of men and all human understanding and achievements.
Fleas that we are, how can we presume to understand God?
The gospel of John gives some clues, faint clues, to the your question’s answer.

I don’t think I can understand God, but I believe that there are certain things about God that I can understand with my finite mind.

 

[WesleyF]

There are now two distinct natures in one Person.

But that’s precisely my point. The one Person didn’t always have two distinct natures, but now he does. That means he has changed in time.

 

[WesleyF]

How can you explain that a tree CHANGES and still from little to adult to death IT IS THE SAME TREE…

Tree is contingent. My argument is that God CANNOT change. Anything that changes is subject to time. God, being a timeless being, cannot change.

 

[WesleyF]

There is a question. Do you believe that God can control every single particle of the universe?

Yes.