Pro-Universal and Jesus' divinity: explanation please

[KindredSoul]

Contarini,

That is because, again, God is wholly unlimited (unknown, if you like.) But man is not wholly unlimited.

When God becomes a man, God has a height, weight, and blood pressure reading. And this is something that a God who is by nature unknowable does not have by definition, because every human quality inherent in a body is itself a limit.

…

Likewise, whether a totally unlimited being can be so radically altered as to actually be (in every sense of the word be) a fleshy being and still be unlimited.

“By nature”, God can do and be whatever He pleases, and if that means being both fully Man (with the many limits that implies) and fully God (with all the limitlessness that implies) then so be it. You see, an unlimited Being can put limits on Himself and still technically be unlimited (Christ Himself said He had all power if He chose to use it). Only in being unable to remove ones limits (as are normal human beings) is one truly limited. Christ existed before He was Incarnate…He willingly chooses to be Incarnate, and is therefore not truly limited. To say that God must fit into our human logic (coherence, as you say) is to put limits on Him just as much, if not more, than to say that He can become God Incarnate, without ceasing to be God, if He so chooses. A deity bound by merely human understanding and logic is not all that amazing, comparatively; only powerful. God, who is able to defy all human thought and logic in order to bring us salvation, is the most amazing Being ever…

“What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

 

[Contarini]

Contarini,

Again, you are not really addressing the charge I’m making. Man’s being “divinizable” does not change my argument.

My point is this:

God cannot become man and remain God at the same time.

Likewise, even if you accept that man can become God, it is not coherent to say that man remains fully man when he becomes divine.

The contradiction does not rely on the impossibility of transformation; rather, it is the idea that God becomes man and remains God.

That is because, again, God is wholly unlimited (unknown, if you like.) But man is not wholly unlimited.

When God becomes a man, God has a height, weight, and blood pressure reading. And this is something that a God who is by nature unknowable does not have by definition, because every human quality inherent in a body is itself a limit.

You keep characterizing my argument as one that claims something about human potential, but it is not. The question is whether or not a human can be so radically altered as to become God, yet remain fully human.

Likewise, whether a totally unlimited being can be so radically altered as to actually be (in every sense of the word be) a fleshy being and still be unlimited.

No one thinks that God becomes man in the sense that the substance of divinity is transformed into the substance of humanity.

No one thinks that human beings become God in the sense that they are now everything that God is.

The Incarnation involved the Second Person of the Trinity taking on human nature (complete with soul and body), not a limitation of the divine nature.

The divinization of human beings by grace involves our *partaking *in the divine nature, not our transformation into infinite beings.

The Christian view is that created nature is open to divinity and can share in it (at least human nature can), and conversely can be assumed by it. You insist on speaking of this as “God becoming man” as if God is transformed into humanity. You will only admit one possible way of speaking of this, and then you announce triumphantly that of course it’s nonsense.

I’m sorry, but I don’t see any further use to this discussion. If you insist on treating all uncongenial ideas this way, you’ll never be able to have a meaningful dialogue with anyone, because you are never willing to try to understand their categories. You just keep repeating your own categories over and over. It doesn’t do much for understanding, does it?

Edwin

 

[pro_universal]

Very well then, we’ll stick to questions with this post which I hope you’ll answer to explain the categories that I’m missing or confusing. It looks to me like you are answering charges made by someone else.

The Incarnation involved the Second Person of the Trinity taking on human nature (complete with soul and body), not a limitation of the divine nature.

In what way is it an “incarnation” if the Second Person of the Trinity did not actually become the body of Jesus? If the flesh isn’t fully Divine, then how can we say that God incarnated into the body?

And further, how does only the second person of the trinity constitute full divinity in a body? If God is by nature triune, would that not require that all three persons be exist God exists by nature?

The divinization of human beings by grace involves our *partaking *in the divine nature, not our transformation into infinite beings.

Would such a divinized being be fully Divine?

You insist on speaking of this as “God becoming man” as if God is transformed into humanity.

Very well then, in what way was Jesus not fully human? If he wasn’t fully human, how do you explain the colloquial formulation of Jesus as “100 percent man, 100 percent God”?

It doesn’t do much for understanding, does it?

Edwin

It certainly would if we could get the discussion to a point where we’re both speaking the same language. Perhaps this time instead of saying what you don’t believe, you could elaborate the on the doctrines to explain the substance of the teaching.

 

[confuzed]

Everything is God. What isn’t? You’re some separate thing from God? Another reality? From where? From whom?

Just because we die doesn’t mean we are ‘limited’ it just means we don’t see everything at once … as Paul says, we see through a glass darkly. Eventually we will see face to face.

Another thing Paul said … if Jesus was not raised from the dead then we are of all men most miserable. Paul didn’t call on Socrates or Plato or anyone to ‘prove’ Jesus was alive. He didn’t need the science or logic of the day because he had personal experience.

 

[pro_universal]

Everything is God. What isn’t? You’re some separate thing from God? Another reality? From where? From whom?

Certainly there has to be some separation, or else there is no justification for saying that the Eucharist is God’s flesh anymore than the altar is God’s flesh.

Another thing Paul said … if Jesus was not raised from the dead then we are of all men most miserable. Paul didn’t call on Socrates or Plato or anyone to ‘prove’ Jesus was alive. He didn’t need the science or logic of the day because he had personal experience.

True, you can’t argue with personal experience. But it doesn’t really answer the questions you’d want to answer in a rational examination of the religion.

 

[confuzed]

Pro -
Can religion really be rationally examined?
Can it be put under the microscope? Can its little organs be laid out and categorized?
Can it be located in a specific area of the brain? Can it’s course be followed by an MRI?
Aren’t we leaving the realm of faith when we wax scientific and overly logical about religion?
Or maybe religion can be categorized.
But can God?
I’m not saying faith has to be all mystery.
I am saying that scientific method is made to study the material world. It cannot explain what is outside it’s purview. It cannot explain, encapsulate, reduce and quantify what is bigger than itself.

 

[pro_universal]

confuzed,

maybe religion shouldn’t be rationally examined, and maybe God really does reveal contradictions.

But do you really believe that God would make salvation dependent on believing in things that do not make sense from a rational perspective?

 

[Ella]

confuzed,

maybe religion shouldn’t be rationally examined, and maybe God really does reveal contradictions.

But do you really believe that God would make salvation dependent on believing in things that do not make sense from a rational perspective?

Belief in God doesn’t make sense from a rational perspective either. That’s why so many people I know are atheist/agnostic, and I once was, too.

Belief in a god that would leave a book of instructions for people to follow is bizarre, but the three religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have books they follow. It doesn’t seem plausible, does it? A divine being writes/inspires/dictates a book for the humans it created to follow, and goes on back to heaven where it can watch.

Belief that there is one uncreated thing that has existed outside of time, with nothing that originated it, and no other thing like it, and that this thing in itself has the ultimate power to create the universe and everything in it, is irrational, too. Then this ultimate thing, this god, not only creates humanity, it communicates with humanity. See the book paragraph above.
Then it: chooses one tribe/clan of humans as The Chosen People, apart from all the other humans it created.
Or: it comes to earth as a man, suffers and dies for the sins of the world, resurrects and ascends, and is eaten in a wafer form at church services for 2000 years thereafter
Or: it tells one of its other creatures, an angel, to dictate a book to a traveling salesman in Arabia. The book contains instructions for how to live down to the nth degree.

I’m wondering if you aren’t going to have to walk the athiest/agnostic path Pro. I’ve done it and I still appreciate the reasons for it. Faith doesn’t make sense, but I have it.

 

[confuzed]

PRO said " … do you really believe that God would make salvation dependent on believing in things that do not make sense from a rational perspective?"

No.

But what do you believe God wants us to believe?
There is a big difference between Christianity and churchianity.
The former is rare, in my experience, while the latter dominates most debates and teaching about Christ.

I spent over 20 years in a Protestant denomination, gagging over the word Lord every time I said it. It took me a long time (I’m slow!) to realize that I did not like Jesus. I finally gave up the pretense, went against family and spouse, and started looking for the answers to ‘the meaning of life’ elsewhere.

One day I suddenly met Jesus. And at that moment 2 things became excruciatingly clear to me; 1st, I had never known him. 2nd, he was not what I had been taught about him.

Knowing Christ is a participatory experience, not an intellectual head trip. Books can’t know for you, your parents can’t know for you, the Pope can’t know for you. You have to meet him yourself and it’s an experience, not an explanation.

And also, what is logical or rational about atheism?
Is it rational, as a rational being, to logically conclude that we live in an irrational universe?
Doesn’t the notion of a random accidental existence cancel out any meaning in it?

 

[pro_universal]

Belief in God doesn’t make sense from a rational perspective either. That’s why so many people I know are atheist/agnostic, and I once was, too.

I disagree. I think it is perfectly rational to believe in God for a number of reasons, none of which force you to accept contradictions.

Belief in a god that would leave a book of instructions for people to follow is bizarre, but the three religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have books they follow. It doesn’t seem plausible, does it? A divine being writes/inspires/dictates a book for the humans it created to follow, and goes on back to heaven where it can watch.

Plausible is not the same thing as logical.

Belief that there is one uncreated thing that has existed outside of time, with nothing that originated it, and no other thing like it, and that this thing in itself has the ultimate power to create the universe and everything in it, is irrational, too.

No, it’s not irrational in the same way that believing in an immortal God who dies is. God is immortal and mortal, to me, makes no sense. God is unknowable may be mysterious, but it’s not contrary to reason.

I’m wondering if you aren’t going to have to walk the athiest/agnostic path Pro. I’ve done it and I still appreciate the reasons for it. Faith doesn’t make sense, but I have it.

I don’t think I will. I actually believe that faith makes more sense than atheism. Can you really stare this world in the face and say it’s accidental?

I can’t.

 

[KindredSoul]

confuzed,

maybe religion shouldn’t be rationally examined, and maybe God really does reveal contradictions.

But do you really believe that God would make salvation dependent on believing in things that do not make sense from a rational perspective?

Who decides what’s too irrational to believe in? You? Islam? Judaism? Atheism? Christianity? Science independent from faith? Aristotle? Who? Many people would consider even the belief in eternal post-mortem punishment irrational, and yet that would automatically exclude both of the great Missionary faiths, Christianity and Islam, from truth altogether.

If God based salvation on something that everyone agreed was a rational perspective, then only complete Relativism would be the grounds for salvation…not everyone is going to agree. Whether you like it or not, Pro, you can’t stamp your own perspective of what’s rational/logical/possible or not on God’s agenda and reasoning. Christians throughout the ages have seen no problem with the Incarnation…is God to specially cater to those who do have a problem with it? Then what becomes of those who actually come to believe because of the miracle–hard as it may be to understand–of the Incarnation? The former group values logic and rationalism over all else, and claim they can only believe what fits with that. The latter group values a miracle that seems to defy logic precisely because (among other things) it proves God can do anything.

You see, your “Why would God do something that I’d have a hard time accepting or believing” is flawed reasoning, because someone somewhere will have a problem believing about anything, even something you personally may be amazed that they’d have trouble believing it seems so “rational”. Just because something must be your definitition of “rational” in order for you to accept it doesn’t mean all feel the same way…a great many may, in fact, feel quite differently.

The question in the end is, and only needs to be, “Is it true?” and not “Does it make perfect sense?” If, after all, the Incarnation is true (and I personally believe so fully) it doesn’t matter what anyone believes about the rationality of it, especially given that 1/3 of the world’s population has no problem with believing it (so much for thinking God wasn’t giving people a realistic chance to believe it, huh? More people believe it than believe in any other one belief system!). If everyone found this too irrational to believe in, maybe it’d be a different story…but clearly, that’s not the case.

Our prayers (at least I think I can speak for others too) are with you…you may have a harder time seeing the truth, but that just sets you up for a potentially greater blessing…for many of us believe and have seen (in this case, those who see the plausibility and no problem with the Incarnation) but blessed are they who believe who have not seen (in this case, people who have faith in spite of a lack of understanding).

God bless you!