Jesus really didn't suffer

[Vico]

A divine person cannot suffer whereas a human person can. We have a problem in the case of a person with two natures.

Ordinary person:

• human nature (form and matter) = immortal rational soul (intellect and will) + corruptible body

Jesus Christ the Son of God:

• divine nature
• human nature (form and matter) = immortal rational soul (intellect and will) + corruptible body

Due to the presence of human body and rational soul there is suffering in the flesh.

The Second General Council of Constantinople, 553 AD, decreed:

“We think that God the Word was united to the flesh, each of the two natures remaining what it is. This is why Christ is one, God and man; the same, consubstantial (homoousios) with the father as to the divinity and consubstantial with us as to the humanity.”

 

[Bahman]

What if Jesus, in his divine nature, could look out the window of his divine nature into his human nature, his human soul, and then “inspire his human soul” to understand things that no one else could see.

Then in his human nature, now understanding what no one else understands, he looks out into the world through the window of his human nature eyes and sees that he can tell people these things only he understands.

What you said is quite interesting.

Yes he could do all strange things as you mentioned accepting the fact that he is really what Catholic church claims.

 

[Bahman]

I think you’ve failed to object to my analogy.

I don’t think so because two natures of human and divine conflict with each other in the case of suffering.

Neither of your objections are logical.

My objection is very simple and real: A person with divine nature cannot suffer whereas a person with human nature can suffer so we are having a dilemma in the case a person has two natures.

If they are, they require further evidence.

You don’t need any evidence when simple logic tells you that a person with two natures, divine and human, is logically impossible.

 

[Bahman]

Jesus was able to turn his humanity or divinity on or off like a light switch. If you switch it up, the light comes on; when you switch it down, darkness. Jesus shows his divinity when he is changed to light at the transfiguration. He shows his humanity throughout the gospel accounts. So Jesus (1) who had two natures, when he switched divinity off, (2 = N/A), suffered as a human (3) without contradiction (4).

God cannot switch on or off his divinity.

 

[Bahman]

Human nature has a material decomposing anatomy. So what is the problem?

That is what human nature dictates. On the other hand divine nature does not allow suffering.

 

[John_Martin]

Yes he could do all strange things as you mentioned accepting the fact that he is really what Catholic church claims
John Martin;13718028:

What if Jesus, in his divine nature, could look out the window of his divine nature into his human nature, his human soul, and then “inspire his human soul” to understand things that no one else could see.

Then in his human nature, now understanding what no one else understands, he looks out into the world through the window of his human nature eyes and sees that he can tell people these things only he understands.

What you said is quite interesting.

.

I agree; he could do things we don’t dream of and he could tell us things that we could not know after a lifetime of trying to find out. And we, although we would not have that divine nature, would know divine mysteries.
The big problem is, how do you get close to him to find out for sure what and who he is. He lived 2000 years ago, so it would seem we are at a disadvantage for watching him and his activity.
Even though I can speculate now at this 2000 year and half the world distance, that is not the same as walking up to someone and asking, “Who are you? What are you? Where are you really from?”

 

[tp3192000]

In other words you have no clue and are not wanting to research it.

You can read and study Zeus and Baal until the cows come home and it will not lead to better understanding of the divine.

 

[dshix]

I don’t think so because two natures of human and divine conflict with each other in the case of suffering.

My objection is very simple and real: A person with divine nature cannot suffer whereas a person with human nature can suffer so we are having a dilemma in the case a person has two natures.

You don’t need any evidence when simple logic tells you that a person with two natures, divine and human, is logically impossible.

No, you’re incorrect. You still haven’t answered this statement of mine sufficiently:

Your wording of “does allow” and “does not allow” is deceiving. Rather, I would say that a person with a human nature can suffer, whereas a person with a divine nature cannot.

In this light, a person with both human and divine natures could suffer in his human capacity, but not his divine capacity.

There is one single key point of yours that you haven’t proven: that it is impossible for a single person to have two natures and experience events in those two natures separately.

 

[Vico]

God cannot switch on or off his divinity.

Summa Theologica, Part III, Question 46. The passion of Christ

Article 7. Whether Christ suffered in His whole soul?

I answer that, A whole is so termed with respect to its parts. But the parts of a soul are its faculties. So, then, the whole soul is said to suffer in so far as it is afflicted as to its essence, or as to all its faculties. But it must be borne in mind that a faculty of the soul can suffer in two ways: first of all, by its own passion; and this comes of its being afflicted by its proper object; thus, sight may suffer from superabundance of the visible object. In another way a faculty suffers by a passion in the subject on which it is based; as sight suffers when the sense of touch in the eye is affected, upon which the sense of sight rests, as, for instance, when the eye is pricked, or is disaffected by heat.

So, then, we say that if the soul be considered with respect to its essence, it is evident that Christ’s whole soul suffered. For the soul’s whole essence is allied with the body, so that it is entire in the whole body and in its every part. Consequently, when the body suffered and was disposed to separate from the soul, the entire soul suffered. But if we consider the whole soul according to its faculties, speaking thus of the proper passions of the faculties, He suffered indeed as to all His lower powers; because in all the soul’s lower powers, whose operations are but temporal, there was something to be found which was a source of woe to Christ, as is evident from what was said above (Article 6). But Christ’s higher reason did not suffer thereby on the part of its object, which is God, who was the cause, not of grief, but rather of delight and joy, to the soul of Christ. Nevertheless, all the powers of Christ’s soul did suffer according as any faculty is said to be affected as regards its subject, because all the faculties of Christ’s soul were rooted in its essence, to which suffering extended when the body, whose act it is, suffered.

 

[Bahman]

Ordinary person:

• human nature (form and matter) = immortal rational soul (intellect and will) + corruptible body

Jesus Christ the Son of God:

• divine nature
• human nature (form and matter) = immortal rational soul (intellect and will) + corruptible body

Due to the presence of human body and rational soul there is suffering in the flesh.

The Second General Council of Constantinople, 553 AD, decreed:

“We think that God the Word was united to the flesh, each of the two natures remaining what it is. This is why Christ is one, God and man; the same, consubstantial (homoousios) with the father as to the divinity and consubstantial with us as to the humanity.”

Due to presence of divine nature there is no suffering in the person.

 

[Bahman]

No, you’re incorrect. You still haven’t answered this statement of mine sufficiently:

So I will give it another try.

Your wording of “does allow” and “does not allow” is deceiving. Rather, I would say that a person with a human nature can suffer, whereas a person with a divine nature cannot.

In this light, a person with both human and divine natures could suffer in his human capacity, but not his divine capacity.

So lets assume that the person has only divine nature. Does he suffer? No. Now lets add human nature and ask the same question. Does he suffer? According to you, yes, because you want it this way. According to me. The situation is paradoxical because we are dealing with one person and two conflicting natures.

There is one single key point of yours that you haven’t proven: that it is impossible for a single person to have two natures and experience events in those two natures separately.

We are talking about one person so he could only have one experience at a time depending on the situation.

 

[Bahman]

How can the OP assume that divine nature cannot suffer and how can any human know what divine nature is and how it operates?

A person with divine nature is changeless and cannot experience hence he cannot have emotions and cannot suffer.

 

[Bahman]

Summa Theologica, Part III, Question 46. The passion of Christ

Article 7. Whether Christ suffered in His whole soul?

I answer that, A whole is so termed with respect to its parts. But the parts of a soul are its faculties. So, then, the whole soul is said to suffer in so far as it is afflicted as to its essence, or as to all its faculties. But it must be borne in mind that a faculty of the soul can suffer in two ways: first of all, by its own passion; and this comes of its being afflicted by its proper object; thus, sight may suffer from superabundance of the visible object. In another way a faculty suffers by a passion in the subject on which it is based; as sight suffers when the sense of touch in the eye is affected, upon which the sense of sight rests, as, for instance, when the eye is pricked, or is disaffected by heat.

So, then, we say that if the soul be considered with respect to its essence, it is evident that Christ’s whole soul suffered. For the soul’s whole essence is allied with the body, so that it is entire in the whole body and in its every part. Consequently, when the body suffered and was disposed to separate from the soul, the entire soul suffered. But if we consider the whole soul according to its faculties, speaking thus of the proper passions of the faculties, He suffered indeed as to all His lower powers; because in all the soul’s lower powers, whose operations are but temporal, there was something to be found which was a source of woe to Christ, as is evident from what was said above (Article 6). But Christ’s higher reason did not suffer thereby on the part of its object, which is God, who was the cause, not of grief, but rather of delight and joy, to the soul of Christ. Nevertheless, all the powers of Christ’s soul did suffer according as any faculty is said to be affected as regards its subject, because all the faculties of Christ’s soul were rooted in its essence, to which suffering extended when the body, whose act it is, suffered.

I don’t understand how your comment is related to mine.

 

[Vico]

I don’t understand how your comment is related to mine.

Your statement is: Due to presence of divine nature there is no suffering in the person.
My post is on how the human nature is present which allows suffering in the person.

 

[grannymh]

Here we go again. Another attack. Enjoy!

 

[Bahman]

Your statement is: Due to presence of divine nature there is no suffering in the person.
My post is on how the human nature is present which allows suffering in the person.

So I think we can agree on the fact that the human nature allows suffering and divine nature dos not allow it. The question is whether a person with both natures can suffer or not. This is a paradoxical situation.

 

[Vico]

So I think we can agree on the fact that the human nature allows suffering and divine nature dos not allow it. The question is whether a person with both natures can suffer or not. This is a paradoxical situation.

Not a paradox because Jesus Christ in his human nature, did not know everything that the Father knows, as he states, from Mark 13:31-33, something is reserved to the Father:
31 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.
32 But of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father.
33 Take ye heed, watch and pray. For ye know not when the time is.

 

[MaryHelp777]

Bahman,
Do you believe the Bible is God’s Word,

Or are you making up your own religion?

 

[Vico]

So I think we can agree on the fact that the human nature allows suffering and divine nature dos not allow it. The question is whether a person with both natures can suffer or not. This is a paradoxical situation.

Here I post a portion of The letter of Pope Leo to Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, about Eutyches, from circa 449 AD, (Adopted by the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD):

So, if I may pass over many instances, it does not belong to the same nature to weep out of deep-felt pity for a dead friend, and to call him back to life again at the word of command, once the mound had been removed from the four-dayold grave; or to hang on the cross and, with day changed into night, to make the elements tremble; or to be pierced by nails and to open the gates of paradise for the believing thief. Likewise, it does not belong to the same nature to say I and the Father are one, and to say The Father is greater than I. For although there is in the Lord Jesus Christ a single person who is of God and of man, the insults shared by both have their source in one thing, and the glory that is shared in another. For it is from us that he gets a humanity which is less than the Father; it is from the Father that he gets a divinity which is equal to the Father.

So it is on account of this oneness of the person, which must be understood in both natures, that we both read that the son of man came down from heaven, when the Son of God took flesh from the virgin from whom he was born, and again that the Son of God is said to have been crucified and buried, since he suffered these things not in the divinity itself whereby the Only-begotten is co-eternal and consubstantial with the Father, but in the weakness of the human nature. That is why in the creed, too, we all confess that the only-begotten Son of God was crucified and was buried, following what the apostle said, If they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty. And when our Lord and Saviour himself was questioning his disciples and instructing their faith, he says, Who do people say 1, the son of man, am? And when they had displayed a variety of other people’s opinions, he says, Who do you say I am ? --in other words, I who am the son of man and whom you behold in the form of a servant and in real flesh: Who do you say I am? Whereupon the blessed Peter, inspired by God and making a confession that would benefit all future peoples, says, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. He thoroughly deserved to be declared “blessed” by the Lord. He derived the stability of both his goodness and his name from the original Rock, for when the Father revealed it to him, he confessed that the same one is both the Son of God and also the Christ. Accepting one of these truths without the other was no help to salvation; and to have believed that the Lord Jesus Christ was either only God and not man, or solely man and not God, was equally dangerous.

ewtn.com/faith/teachings/incac1.htm

 

[Bahman]

Not a paradox because Jesus Christ in his human nature, did not know everything that the Father knows, as he states, from Mark 13:31-33, something is reserved to the Father:
31 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away.
32 But of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father.
33 Take ye heed, watch and pray. For ye know not when the time is.

There is a paradox here since Jesus is a person with both human and divine nature. Moreover how could not know what Father knows? He is a divine being.