Person vs Nature (contd.)

[Aner]

Same place as Linus - our teacher, St. Thomas Aquinas (and it can also be found by being a student of Aristotle, though without the parts that can only be known by revelation - which revelation is the Person Jesus)

Thanks John. I have no familiarity with Aquina other than he was a monk during the the dark ages. I just did a quick Wiki read and see that he is quite the lofty fellow in your communion. It appears that he takes precedence over the Word of God even.

To clarify -
Each of the definitions you have provided above are specifically stated by Thomas Aquinas?

Thanks,

Aner

 

[Aner]

First, I need to clarify, John, that I am not on the same page as you and Linus on the dependence of Jesus on Deity for full functionality. In the Hypostatic Union, the man Jesus and God the Son, by virtue of having independent, distinct and full-functional natures, ought to be having independent mind-will-intellect, since the mind-will-intellect reside in the nature.** If that independence was absent, then Jesus would be a mere puppet/extension of the Deity**.

Thank-you AFT - I think I am falling in love with you… (yeah, I am trying to figure out which goofy smiley to use with this one too…)

MY POINT EXACTLY - the HP reduces the “manness” of Jesus to a puppet and therefore completely irrelevant status. Come on guys, we need a REAL, GENUINE MAN to be our Mediator (ITim2:5) and High Priest before the God of gods!!. A genuine conscious thinking person that COULD sin but DID NOT, that could have a contrary Will to God - and DID - and then followed God instead. Amen

Best,
AFT

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Linus ]

Thanks for providing some meat. Can you explain to me the difference between Jesus human soul - and what a human person would be? Also, I assume that at some level you are seeing the human soul as substantial as opposed to simply ideational or a potential set of functions. But as something that is real.

Sorry but I missled you. When Jesus died, his human soul left his body. But the Divine Person remained united to the dead body, and thus it did not decompose, and the Divine Person remaind united to the human soul while it was in the underworld. The Catechism covers this in paragraphs 626-627.

Christ’s body and soul are real. And Christ is a real man. But there is only one Person, that of the Divinity. The Second Person assumed a human nature to which he united his Divine nature.

Here is a good example - when we say “Linus decides” - is “Linus” the soul or the person making the decision? For a discussion on this point see Christ’s Humanity, paragraphs 470-477 of the Catechism linked below.

Pax
Linus2nd

 

[Aner]

Posted by Aner
OK - I believe that is the issue. According to my colleagues Linus and AFT, the “manness” of Jesus could NOT independently function just like you and I and every other man. The manness of Jesus required an incarnated deity to function in any sense of the word. Therefore, there was something fundamental of “manness” that was missing. What was/is it? And, does not then render Jesus something other than a genuine man?

 

[Aner]

Sorry but I missled you. When Jesus died, his human soul left his body. But the Divine Person remained united to the dead body, and thus it did not decompose, and the Divine Person remaind united to the human soul while it was in the underworld. The Catechism covers this in paragraphs 626-627.

Christ’s body and soul are real. And Christ is a real man. But there is only one Person, that of the Divinity. The Second Person assumed a human nature to which he united his Divine nature.

Here is a good example - when we say “Linus decides” - is “Linus” the soul or the person making the decision? For a discussion on this point see Christ’s Humanity, paragraphs 470-477 of the Catechism linked below.

Pax
Linus2nd

Linus

Thanks for the clarification!

So what I have are a lot of terms that I don’t understand the clear relationship

1. Human Soul - ? (not sure what a “non-human” soul is either…perhaps just a soul that a non-human has…?)
2. Body - Well, I am okay with that.
3. Person was united to body - This makes Person substantial - as opposed to John Martin who indicated that Person was ideational. PLEASE HELP!!

This also results in a substantial difference between the manness of Jesus (no substantial human person) and the manness of you and I and all man - who have a substantial human Person. There is some not manness about Jesus - which then necessitates that He is NOT a genuine man in your Christology.

1. Nature - ?? (not sure what this is relative to Body? Soul? Person?)

I did click on the link but did not see paragraphs 470 - 477. Perhaps you would be so kind as to give me a formal, functional one sentence summary.

Best,
Aner

 

[levinas12]

I don’t want to complicate matters but …

According to Thomas and other Catholic theologians, there is only one Divine primary substance - this is analogous to saying that God is numerically one - footnote: primary substance in Aristotle is a numerically one entity.

Now that said, according to Thomas, there is only one intellect and one will in the Divine primary substance (i.e., in God).

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit all have the same (numerically one) Divine ntellect and Will. With Jesus, there is the additional complication that He also has both a Divine Intellect and Will and a human intellect and will. (2 intellects and 2 wills). We need to explore this further but not right now.

This, of course, is not true of human persons - each of us has our own intellect and will. But one can argue that the intellect and will belong to the substance side of the equation - because, otherwise, the Trinity becomes unintelligible. Person qua person must, in a sense, “transcend” intellect and will (i.e., while a person must have an intellect and will, a person is not reducible to intellect and will).

So, returning to the Trinity, the difference between the 3 Persons must not reside in the intellect and will. Is there something else that explains the difference between the Persons?

Maybe not. One could say that the Trinitarian difference is “pure” (i.e., without any other positivity than the relational difference itself - that is what is meant when Thomas says that the relations are subsistent, i.e., not based on any other difference or positive content).

It’s the “purity” of the difference that explains why “person” is a singularity.

With “person”, so to speak, we have drilled down as far as we can go (this applies both to Divine Person and human person).

And thus, “Person” is deeper than “substance”.

 

[John_Martin]

To the individual human himself, be he Jesus or you, his intellect became aware of its (his) individuality over time, became aware of his identity, became aware of what is real outside his intellect’s understanding, became aware of intelligent control of his body and of body’s conscious thought via love (desire that an understood good object be not only in his understanding but in material reality), thus his will.

We, including Jesus, learned as humans who we are from others telling us our individual names and where we came from. They say “You” to us, and we acknowledge “I am” to them, just as the young Samuel heard, “Samuel”, and responded per Eli’s instruction, “I am here, Lord”. In this light, we have an individual human being (soul / body) saying, “I am Jesus, son of Mary and Son of God”. (understanding this in the intellect, desiring in the will to make it apparent, and animated in the mouth to make it heard).

I was told by my parents where I am from, and my soul, in my intellect understands that, able to move conscious description of that in my thoughts and speech with my will. Jesus was told by Mary and Joseph where he came from, that he was the Son of the Most High, that he was all the fulfillment of the expectation for the Messiah, that God was his Father, that the Holy Spirit overshadowed his mother and he was incarnate in that moment from God, that he would save his People from their sins, etc. The soul of Jesus was learning who he is as an individual human. But the Person he is, and the person who any human is, is that person he learns himself to be once given being, given his individual being by his parents. And the person acts out, actualizes, himself as known to himself (in his intellect). The “hypostatic union”, one person with two natures, is in that both natures (human and divine) knew themselves as being what was spoken, thus that they are one and the same. When Jesus said, “I Am (the Son of God)” to the High Priest, it was a human individual declaring his Person. If the Word in Heaven says, “I Am” it is a divine person declaring this. And the hypostasis, if you hear it from the man, you are hearing it from the Word, from Heaven. Jesus gave a parallel understanding to his Apostles when he told them “Whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in Heaven”. The Son of God, the divine person, gave his identity to this human being, by declaring it to him (in “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”). At his anointing as Messiah, his Person was declared, “This is my Son, the Beloved”. The Father from Heaven was saying, I want you to meet this Person; this is my Son who has been my Son from eternity. And, strangely, this man understood the truth of his person, and at one point stated, “Before Abraham was, I Am”.

That Jesus, the man we hear about, could not sin, is because of his soul being “full of Grace and Truth”. This meant he not only learned who he is as he grew in wisdom and stature. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit from the Father and the Son, filled his intellect and will, infused it with the Virtues of Faith, Hope, Love, and with this fullness of Grace, when he heard with his ears anything from God, his human soul understood immediately that “this is truth, and good to be part of me”. And if he heard something from Satan or the world that would lure him to some untruth, he immediately understood it was not from God and not good to be part of him. Any and every human will love and desire union with what it knows is true, good, and good to be united to. Jesus was no exception. Being full of grace and truth, he loved one thing and would love nothing else, just as we will love nothing else than what we call true and good and good to be united to, though we are not full of grace and truth (apart from union with Him). And Love is in the will, and actualizes the union with what is loved through the body. Jesus could not sin.

You can find all this in Aquinas’ Summa, the first, second, and third parts if you become his student and understand / trust him. Then you will also put it in your own words from your understanding as I have.

As to Thomas’ authority above Scripture, or Jesus (the Word of God), you and your Wiki do not understand being Catholic.

Now, I believe I have said enough. If you want to be Thomas’ student, you can read him here: ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.toc.html I believe this thread keeps running as a kind of debate we used to have in college and seminary among the students trying to out-think one another, yet granting no authority to the others as “knowers or teachers the truth”.

 

[Aner]

I don’t want to complicate matters but …

According to Thomas and other Catholic theologians, there is only one Divine primary substance - this is analogous to saying that God is numerically one - footnote: primary substance in Aristotle is a numerically one entity.

Now that said, according to Thomas, there is only one intellect and one will in the Divine primary substance (i.e., in God).

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit all have the same (numerically one) Divine ntellect and Will. With Jesus, there is the additional complication that He also has both a Divine Intellect and Will and a human intellect and will. (2 intellects and 2 wills). We need to explore this further but not right now.

This, of course, is not true of human persons - each of us has our own intellect and will. But one can argue that the intellect and will belong to the substance side of the equation - because, otherwise, the Trinity becomes unintelligible. Person qua person must, in a sense, “transcend” intellect and will (i.e., while a person must have an intellect and will, a person is not reducible to intellect and will).

So, returning to the Trinity, the difference between the 3 Persons must not reside in the intellect and will. Is there something else that explains the difference between the Persons?

Maybe not. One could say that the Trinitarian difference is “pure” (i.e., without any other positivity than the relational difference itself - that is what is meant when Thomas says that the relations are subsistent, i.e., not based on any other difference or positive content).

It’s the “purity” of the difference that explains why “person” is a singularity.

With “person”, so to speak, we have drilled down as far as we can go (this applies both to Divine Person and human person).

And thus, “Person” is deeper than “substance”.

WHEW!! Lev, you are really stirring the pot now my good friend. Here, let me go pour a stiff drink and get back to decipher and lay out the algorithms you have presented mathematically…

Aner

 

[Aner]

To the individual human himself, be he Jesus or you, his intellect became aware of its (his) individuality over time, became aware of his identity, became aware of what is real outside his intellect’s understanding, became aware of intelligent control of his body and of body’s conscious thought via love (desire that an understood good object be not only in his understanding but in material reality), thus his will.

Egads John - You are adding in new term after new term creating all sorts of relationships. This could take us an eternity to simply unwind your first sentence!!

Can you put the above back into simply Person vs Nature construct that we have been grappling with in light of the OP? Just wondering if possible…

John,

I greatly appreciate your in-depth effort at using specific detailed examples. What I think would be most helpful is to provide very simple algorithmic structures to clarify Nature vs Person issue - which is our goal. I am open to adding in Soul to this. To accomplish this, I have retrieved my very simple questions to your prior statements. Is it possible that you can provide a simple, straight-forward answer?

Posted by John
No, Jesus was a 100% human person, just like you and I.

AFT and Linus told me that Jesus is NOT a human person but only a divine person… You told me that the Person existed before the incarnation. Certainly we can agree that there is no human person that has ever existed before itself…?? But now you are telling me that Jesus IS a human person…

Please clarify whether Jesus was a Divine person and a Human Person - or just a Divine Person.

At the moment the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, such that she conceived, the divine Son (a person) was now to be found (experienced in material and spiritual reality) with a human soul and body, or the correct term is “assumed these”.

Ok, so the divine person “assumed” a human soul + a human body. So JM’s Christology asserts that Jesus had a “human soul” and a “human body”. I am pretty good with understanding a “human body” but I am at lost as to the constituent elements of the “human soul”.

Can you please provide a couple basic characterstics of a human Soul? Especially in contrast to Nature and Person.

In a way, a “person” is an “idea” or a recognition of a specific individual by one (by you) as a specific individual.

OK - so you are telling me that a “person” is not actually a substantial reality but simply a term to connote the existence of a complete set of substantial (vs ideational) realities. Can you please confirm? I will review this with our other colleagues to confirm that they agree.

The on-going question remains - what is the fundamental difference between my manness and Jesus manness. Can you clarify this?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Aner:
OK - I believe that is the issue. According to my colleagues Linus and AFT, the “manness” of Jesus could NOT independently function just like you and I and every other man. The manness of Jesus required an incarnated deity to function in any sense of the word. Therefore, there was something fundamental of “manness” that was missing. What was/is it? And, does not then render Jesus something other than a genuine man?

John, Jesus was not a human person. That is a proposition held by the Nestorians and condemned by the Church. Christ had a human nature united assumed by the Second Person of the Trinity. In Christ there is one Person, one hypostasis, one substance - that of God - one being only, God. See paragraphs 470-477 of the Catechism. Thomas Aquinas says the same thing in S.T., Part 3, ques 2-6. We tend to forget because we don’t think of it so often and we don’t hear it repeated often enough.

Yes, Jesus was a man, but he was a Divine Person, he was God in the flesh, as the Catechism says and as Defined by the Councils of the Church…

Pax
Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

The crux of my disconnect with Linus on the Hypostatic union is that I say that it consists of two beings - one human and one divine- claiming a single personhood, whereas he says that there is only one being there, viz. the Deity. The problem I see with such a construction is that it will lead to a doubt as to the true independence of the finite human intellect from the infinite divine intellect. He further reinforces my doubt when he says that it was IMPOSSIBLE for the earthy Jesus to sin, because that would require the finite intellect to overrule the infinite intellect, which is an impossibility.

Once you permit domination of nature in one power (viz. will), then its open season for domination in other powers of the soul also, viz. love, forgiveness, fortitude, etc. etc. Very soon the human nature is rendered null and void (except for the physical body) and the divine nature becomes the operative nature. In such a scenario, would you still be able to say that Jesus was 100% man like the rest of us?

AFT. I recognize your problem. You do realize that your position is the heresy of Nestorianism condemned by the Church. Please read paragraphs 470-477 of the Catechism. We cannot diviate from this teaching. It is plane from the readings that all Jesus did was through the Person of the Second Person of the Trinity.

Pax
Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

John,

I greatly appreciate your in-depth effort at using specific detailed examples. What I think would be most helpful is to provide very simple algorithmic structures to clarify Nature vs Person issue - which is our goal. I am open to adding in Soul to this. To accomplish this, I have retrieved my very simple questions to your prior statements. Is it possible that you can provide a simple, straight-forward answer?

Sorry, both John and AFT are wrong. In Jesus Christ there is one Person, one subject, one substance, that of the Second Person of the Trinity. Every thing Christ did, he did through the personhood of the Second Person of the Trinity.

Pax
Linus2nd

 

[levinas12]

… you are really stirring the pot now my good friend …

Remember that the Divine Nature is not like any worldly nature - because God is totally outside the universe (i.e., is radically transcendent), He can join His Divine Nature to human nature without “altering” either “nature”.

Only God can do this. No worldly nature can “unite” with another worldly nature without changing itself and the other nature.

Thomas uses “analogy” to address this “unusual” situation. “Analogy” signals that “nature” when applied to God does not have the same meaning that “nature” has when applied to worldly entities.

Yet “analogy” may not solve the problem.

What if “person” (whether Divine or human) cannot be explained in terms of Aristotelian metaphysics? “Analogy” fails to address this question.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Linus

Thanks for the clarification!

So what I have are a lot of terms that I don’t understand the clear relationship

1. Human Soul - ? (not sure what a “non-human” soul is either…perhaps just a soul that a non-human has…?)

The human soul is the form of the man. It is the spiritual, intellectual, source of life that is the source of all of man’s activities. The only non-human souls are those of plants and non-human animals.

1. Body - Well, I am okay with that.

1. Person was united to body - This makes Person substantial - as opposed to John Martin who indicated that Person was ideational. PLEASE HELP!!

" Person " is not ideational. It means a particular, living man. It is the real subject composed of a body and a rational soul. Yes a human person is a substantial being.

This also results in a substantial difference between the manness of Jesus (no substantial human person) and the manness of you and I and all man - who have a substantial human Person. There is some not manness about Jesus - which then necessitates that He is NOT a genuine man in your Christology.

Jesus is a genuine man but his human nature has been assumed by the Divine Person.
So he is a Divine Person, not a human person. Yet he is a human, a real man, but on account the assumption of his nature by the Divine Person, he is no human person…

1. Nature - ?? (not sure what this is relative to Body? Soul? Person?)

Human nature refers to that class of animals which are a composit of body and rational soul.

Nature refers to body-soul composit. Person refers to an actually existing person…

I did click on the link but did not see paragraphs 470 - 477. Perhaps you would be so kind as to give me a formal, functional one sentence summary.

Just click the next page " button " until you get to paragraph 470. I don’t feel capable of giving a one sentence summary. So you have a homework assignment.

Pax
Linus2nd

]

 

[Aner]

Linus

You are a tough man regarding my homework assignment. However, we are tracking together now the kind of orientation that will allow progress. Please see blue below.

The human soul is the form of the man. It is the spiritual, intellectual, source of life that is the source of all of man’s activities. The only non-human souls are those of plants and non-human animals.

Soul = Form of the Man. What does that mean? Is that really in the catechism like that?

You are apparently including the Intellect in the Soul - is that right? Let’s get that term down and then we will come back to “spiritual” (not sure what you mean by that) and “source of life” (completely lost on that one).

1. Body - Well, I am okay with that.

" Person " is not ideational. It means a particular, living man. It is the real subject composed of a body and a rational soul. Yes a human person is a substantial being.

OK - so you mean substantial because it is composed of two substances - and we call the sum of the conjoining of two substances “Person”. I can see that. My point of clarification was that Person is not a separate substance from either the body and soul - but in fact is their substantial summation.

Now, let’s see how well I am tracking. If Jesus is NOT a human person - as you have affirmed - he must NOT have a either a human body or a human soul. Because otherwise, per your defintion of Person as the sum of a body and soul, a human person would result.

Well, I am pretty sure Jesus has a human body. Then according to your logic He must NOT have/be a human soul. However, I am pretty sure the vatican teaches that Jesus is a human soul - in fact, I am pretty sure that you have said that here.

OK - I trust you can unravel the knot and clarify for me at what point I have gotten off.

Jesus is a genuine man but his human nature has been assumed by the Divine Person.
So he is a Divine Person, not a human person. Yet he is a human, a real man, but on account the assumption of his nature by the Divine Person, he is no human person…

On what basis is Jesus a “genuine man” - other than simply saying so because it fits a Bible text - all the while stripping the most fundamental characteristic of a genuine man - the human person - right out of Him…

Human nature refers to that class of animals which are a composit of body and rational soul.

Nature refers to body-soul composit. Person refers to an actually existing person…

Huh?!? What is the difference between a body-soul composite and an actually existing person - when the are both comprised of the same thing - a human soul and a human body…

Just click the next page " button " until you get to paragraph 470. I don’t feel capable of giving a one sentence summary. So you have a homework assignment.

Pax
Linus2nd

]

 

[afthomercy]

Sorry but I missled you. When Jesus died, his human soul left his body. But the Divine Person remained united to the dead body, and thus it did not decompose, and the Divine Person remaind united to the human soul while it was in the underworld. The Catechism covers this in paragraphs 626-627.

Christ’s body and soul are real. And Christ is a real man. But there is only one Person, that of the Divinity. The Second Person assumed a human nature to which he united his Divine nature.

Here is a good example - when we say “Linus decides” - is “Linus” the soul or the person making the decision? For a discussion on this point see Christ’s Humanity, paragraphs 470-477 of the Catechism linked below.

Pax
Linus2nd

Aner, here you go for the page links to the specific paras:
470-477: vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1J.HTM
626-627: vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1P.HTM#-RT

Linus,
The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God’s Son (that’s two persons). I don’t think I can be slotted into this particular heresy because as I said before, I do not recognise the terms “human person” and “divine person”. I’m comfortable with saying that the earthly Jesus and God the Son were two independent beings who were simultaneously one and the same person (or who claimed a common personhood). Can you tell me which specific teaching I contradict?

Aside:
Para 627 of the CCC (linked above) states: Christ’s death was a real death in that it put an end to his earthly human existence. But because of the union his body retained with the person of the Son, his was not a mortal corpse like others, for “divine power preserved Christ’s body from corruption.”
With due respect, I don’t see why the union of the divine person to the dead body was necessary to prevent corruption/decay. All that God needed to do was to revive the heart-lung function of the body without reinfusing the soul. That would be a pure physical miracle without need to bring the Hypostatic Union into play. Medical science has advanced to the extent that today even we humans have achieved that capability viz. the heart-lung machine keeping the body fresh in a brain dead person.

 

[John_Martin]

John, Jesus was not a human person. That is a proposition held by the Nestorians and condemned by the Church. Christ had a human nature united assumed by the Second Person of the Trinity. In Christ there is one Person, one hypostasis, one substance - that of God - one being only, God. See paragraphs 470-477 of the Catechism. Thomas Aquinas says the same thing in S.T., Part 3, ques 2-6. We tend to forget because we don’t think of it so often and we don’t hear it repeated often enough.

Yes, Jesus was a man, but he was a Divine Person, he was God in the flesh, as the Catechism says and as Defined by the Councils of the Church…

Pax
Linus2nd

You have to include question 12 from the Third Part, which shows all I stated. Yes, Jesus had “infused knowledge”, but he did not know how to use a fork and spoon, and he had to learn to say “mama” and how to use a hammer. And he did learn what the human symbols “I Am” mean in his comparing and contrasting. By his infused knowledge in his Active Intellect he did recognize “This is Truth, that I am what my mother says about me being the Son of God, this is my Person” without having to conclude that from his reasoning about the proposition. You are throwing the term “Nestorian” around too easily.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You have to include question 12 from the Third Part, which shows all I stated. Yes, Jesus had “infused knowledge”, but he did not know how to use a fork and spoon, and he had to learn to say “mama” and how to use a hammer. And he did learn what the human symbols “I Am” mean in his comparing and contrasting. By his infused knowledge in his Active Intellect he did recognize “This is Truth, that I am what my mother says about me being the Son of God, this is my Person” without having to conclude that from his reasoning about the proposition. You are throwing the term “Nestorian” around too easily.

I was objecting to your statement that Jesus Christ was a human person. That is not true, there was only one person in Jesus Christ, the Personhood of the Second Person of the Trinity.

At one time or another many of us are material heretics because we just haven’t kept up with Catholic teaching. For a long time most of us relied on the Baltimore Catechism, a fine course so long as someone fills in what is missing. But that never happened for a lot of us. And so we walk around for years not thinking deeply about things and not knowing that our own reasoning is deficient. I am just as guilty as anyone in this, as I found out in this discussion. You notice that I had to back track on one or two things I said myself.

Here is what the Catechism says about the Nestorian heresy : 466 The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God’s Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed "that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man."89 Christ’s humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: "Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh."90

Pax
Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Aner, here you go for the page links to the specific paras:
470-477: vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1J.HTM
626-627: vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1P.HTM#-RT

Linus,
The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God’s Son (that’s two persons). I don’t think I can be slotted into this particular heresy because as I said before, I do not recognise the terms “human person” and “divine person”. I’m comfortable with saying that the earthly Jesus and God the Son were two independent beings who were simultaneously one and the same person (or who claimed a common personhood). Can you tell me which specific teaching I contradict?

It doesn’t matter whether or not you recognize or acknowledge these terms. The fact is that the Chruch as condemend the proposition that in Christ there were two persons. That was the heresy of Nestorian. The Church teaches that Jesus Christ is One Person, that of the Second Person of the Trinity. You can’t finesse the issue by saying there are two independent beings in one person. A being is an independently existing thing. If we are speaking of existing natures we are saying that there are two independently existing persons. But in Christ there are not two independently existing natures. Christ’s human nature exists only by reason of its assumption into the Being of the Second Person. Thus there is only one Being or One Substance or One Person in Jesus Christ. Read Thomas Aquinas’ S.T., Part 3, ques 2-6. It explains what I have said here.

Your error here is to say that there can be two beings in one Person. That is a metaphysical error that leads to a Theological heresy.

But be consoled, I already had to back track on something I said, because it was a material heresy. These are complicated matters and care must be taken and perhaps we should not be too quick to post. This leads to errors. We need to study and think more before posting. If necessary we will just have to tell Aner or whoever that we will get back with them when we have the correct answer - and be careful about manufacturing examples.

Aside:
Para 627 of the CCC (linked above) states: Christ’s death was a real death in that it put an end to his earthly human existence. But because of the union his body retained with the person of the Son, his was not a mortal corpse like others, for “divine power preserved Christ’s body from corruption.”

With due respect, I don’t see why the union of the divine person to the dead body was necessary to prevent corruption/decay. All that God needed to do was to revive the heart-lung function of the body without reinfusing the soul. That would be a pure physical miracle without need to bring the Hypostatic Union into play. Medical science has advanced to the extent that today even we humans have achieved that capability viz. the heart-lung machine keeping the body fresh in a brain dead person.

Firstly, this is the long standing teaching of the Church. But here is what Thomas Aquinas says in S.T., part 3, ques 52, ans 1-2:

I answer that, It was not fitting for Christ’s body to putrefy, or in any way be reduced to dust, since the putrefaction of any body comes of that body’s infirmity of nature, which can no longer hold the body together. But as was said above (50, 1, ad 2), Christ’s death ought not to come from weakness of nature, lest it might not be believed to be voluntary: and therefore He willed to die, not from sickness, but from suffering inflicted on Him, to which He gave Himself up willingly. And therefore, lest His death might be ascribed to infirmity of nature, Christ did not wish His body to putrefy in any way or dissolve no matter how; but for the manifestation of His Divine power He willed that His body should continue incorrupt. Hence Chrysostom says (Cont. Jud. et Gent. quod ‘Christus sit Deus’) that “with other men, especially with such as have wrought strenuously, their deeds shine forth in their lifetime; but as soon as they die, their deeds go with them. But it is quite the contrary with Christ: because previous to the cross all is sadness and weakness, but as soon as He is crucified, everything comes to light, in order that you may learn it was not an ordinary man that was crucified.”

Reply to Objection 1. Since Christ was not subject to sin, neither was He prone to die or to return to dust. Yet of His own will He endured death for our salvation, for the reasons alleged above (Question 51, Article 1). But had His body putrefied or dissolved, this fact would have been detrimental to man’s salvation, for it would not have seemed credible that the Divine power was in Him. Hence it is on His behalf that it is written (Psalm 29:10): “What profit is there in my blood, whilst I go down to corruption?” as if He were to say: “If My body corrupt, the profit of the blood shed will be lost.”

Reply to Objection 2. Christ’s body was a subject of corruption according to the condition of its passible nature, but not as to the deserving cause of putrefaction, which is sin: but the Divine power preserved Christ’s body from putrefying, just as it raised it up from death.

I don’t think medical science has succeeded in bringing a man back to life from a real death ( one not nuanced by medical definitions of death), and certainly not after two full days. Futher, Christ’s death was a real death which cannot be contradicted by the nuanced definitions of medicine. God said he was dead and God know better than any science. We can take God at his word.

Pax
Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Linusthe2nd
The human soul is the form of the man. It is the spiritual, intellectual, source of life that is the source of all of man’s activities. The only non-human souls are those of plants and non-human animals.

Soul = Form of the Man. What does that mean? Is that really in the catechism like that?

You are apparently including the Intellect in the Soul - is that right? Let’s get that term down and then we will come back to “spiritual” (not sure what you mean by that) and “source of life” (completely lost on that one).

Yes, the Catechism says that the soul is the form of a man. II. “BODY AND SOUL BUT TRULY ONE”

362 The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. the biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."229 Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.

363 In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person.230 But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.

364 The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:232

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honour since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day 233

365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body:234 i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235

" Person " is not ideational. It means a particular, living man. It is the real subject composed of a body and a rational soul. Yes a human person is a substantial being.

OK - so you mean substantial because it is composed of two substances - and we call the sum of the conjoining of two substances “Person”. I can see that. My point of clarification was that Person is not a separate substance from either the body and soul - but in fact is their substantial summation.

No. The human nature of Christ exists only because it was assumed by the substance of the Second Person, it had no independent existence, it was not a substance in its own right. Both the body and the soul of Christ were assumed into the substance of the Second Person.

Now, let’s see how well I am tracking. If Jesus is NOT a human person - as you have affirmed - he must NOT have a either a human body or a human soul. Because otherwise, per your defintion of Person as the sum of a body and soul, a human person would result.

No. A person is a single existing entity. In Christ the only single exising entity is the Second Person of the Trinity. The body and soul of Christ exist only because they have been assumed by the single entity or substance of the Second Person. If on the other hand we are considering a mere human person, not Jesus Christ, it would be true that the composit of the body and the soul would be a person. But that is not what we are considering, we are considering the personhood of the Second Person of the Trinity.

Well, I am pretty sure Jesus has a human body.

Yes.

Then according to your logic He must NOT have/be a human soul.'QUOTE]

But we are not talking about human logic here, we are talking about a miracle produced by the power of the Almighty. God’s power trumphs human logic.

However, I am pretty sure the vatican teaches that Jesus is a human soul - in fact, I am pretty sure that you have said that here.

Yes.

OK - I trust you can unravel the knot and clarify for me at what point I have gotten off.

One can only hope .

Linus
Jesus is a genuine man but his human nature has been assumed by the Divine Person.
So he is a Divine Person, not a human person. Yet he is a human, a real man, but on account the assumption of his nature by the Divine Person, he is no human person…

On what basis is Jesus a “genuine man” - other than simply saying so because it fits a Bible text - all the while stripping the most fundamental characteristic of a genuine man - the human person - right out of Him…

You forget the Bible is the Word of God, it says Jesus was both a man and God. But as the Church explains, the Divine Person assumed the humanity of Christ into the Divine Person. What do you think, that God was two persons walking around? What kind of sense does that make, speaking of human logic? So much for human logic. God’s logic trumphs.

To be continued. Linus2nd