As stuart 12 says , there are certain inclinations , subsequent to original sin that we in our own human nature encounter, but which One who is free from sin would not be subject to . As one particular cofessor tells me from time to time ,
“It is the body which must obey the soul and not the soul which must obey the body” . I believe that is one way of partially summing up our own struggle in our human nature of body and soul . Partially, because, I ask myself the question - "Well, what if my soul gets/entertains a bad idea …?.. What’s following what then ? Maybe that would be one way to say it, if we’re comparing His human nature to our fallen nature : Christ couldn’t get/entertain a bad idea. Yet, He could still be tempted …
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A man in every way but sin, is how we sometimes refer to our Blessed Lord ; St. Paul says (Philippians 2:7-8) :
"…He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance,he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross .
It would appear, considering that human nature is both body & soul , that the best simple descriptive to differentiate between the condition of our human nature and that of our Blessed Lord’s human nature , would be the word
"perfect" .
It can be said that Jesus had a
“perfect” human nature - body and soul ; while it cannot be said that any of us have a perfect human nature.
“Perfect” is the descriptive used by Father John Hardon , S.J. , in his Modern Catholic Dictionary depiction of both of Christ’s natures - the divine and the human (highlights mine):
Fr. John Hardon:
FALLEN NATURE. Human nature since the fall of Adam. It is a nature that lacks the right balance it had originally. It is a wounded but not perverted nature. Since the fall, man has a built-in bias away from what is morally good and toward what is wrong. He is weakened in his ability to know the truth and to want the truly good. With the help of grace, however, he can overcome these natural tendencies and become sanctified in the process.
HYPOSTATIC UNION. The union of the human and divine natures in the one divine person of Christ. At the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) the Church declared that the two natures of Christ are joined “in one person and one hypostasis” (Denzinger 302), where hypostasis means one substance. It was used to answer the Nestorian error of a merely accidental union of the two natures in Christ. The phrase “hypostatic union” was adopted a century later, at the fifth general council at Constantinople (A.D. 533). It is an adequate expression of Catholic doctrine about Jesus Christ that in him are two perfect natures, divine and human; that the divine person takes to himself, includes in his person a human nature; that the incarnate Son of God is an individual, complete substance; and that the union of the two natures is real (against Arius), no mere indwelling of God in a man (against Nestorius), with a rational soul (against Apollinaris), and the divinity remains unchanged (against Eutyches).
“Perfect” human nature , would automatically preclude “fallen” human nature.
Here is
the link to Fr. Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary .
