So... what is our Christology exactly?

[Ioana]

I’m just trying to make sure I don’t accidentally believe anything that’s wrong. So to clarify, Jesus Christ is true God and true man, 100% God and 100% man. He has two persons and two wills (I’m not 100% as to what that means) but we can’t really use the analogy of the natures being mixed or something because that would be monophysitism right? So could somebody define the following terms:

person
nature
substance
essence
will

If we’re going to go with an analogy in chemistry we’d say Jesus is like a mixture and not a compound right? So two elements are put together without any of them being altered and the result is called a mixture? Is the analogy correctish? And would you replace the word “element” with the word “person” or “nature” or “substance” or all of them? Cheers.

 

[CRM_Brother]

Hello Ioana,

First off, a slight correction. Christ is only one person but has two distinct natures from those natures derive two wills. This aspect of wills is somewhat mute, for the human will of Christ ultimately bows to the divine will as seen in the Agony in the Garden.

Person - the souce of a being found in it’s soul. The Church Fathers explained this in neo-platonic and aristotelian terms as the soul is the form of the body. Christ is a divine person and has a divine soul as he existed as God before the incarnation. We are human persons as our soul is human.

Nature - this is the same thing as essence (at least according to St. Thomas Aquinas). This is the overarching quidity which joins a species. In God, the nature/essence cannot be divided from his soul as God is pure act and wholly one. Humans obtain human nature when their souls are individuated into specific human beings. The human nature is a result of the composite of body and soul. Generally natures concern the external action of the soul. Thus it is here that the will resides.

Substance - the intrinsic base material (it does not need to be physical) of a thing. It is what a thing truly is at its core.

Will - see definition of nature

As an analogy, I think I prefer one concerning light, as chemical definitions have nuances and connotations which may complecate things. There is a wide beam of white light which shines on a wall. The light is inherently white. Then a red colored filter is placed over the portion of the light, resulting in seemingly two beams from the same source. Next to the split beam of light is a beam of light which is inherently red shining on the same wall. The souces of light are the souls of Christ (white) and man (red). The spots of light shone on the wall are the divine (white) and human (red) natures. The human soul has a specific frequency and only produces the specific human nature. Red to red. Christ’s divine soul contains the frequencies of the human nature because we were created in the image and likeness of God and Christ is the perfect image of God. In the Incarnation (red filter) Christ’s unified soul and nature was limited so that he could exhibit himself in human nature on Earth. As God is infinite, Christ’s divine soul and nature could not be completely limited and so the divine person and nature coexists with the human nature of Christ.

Hope this helps.

God Bless,
Br. Ben, CRM

 

[Vico]

…

• God has one will which is actually identical with the divine essence.
• Jesus Christ has two wills because there is also human will. (The Sixth Ecumenical Council held at Constantinople, 678 A.D., Denzinger 291 “And so we proclaim two natural wills in Him, and two natural operations indivisibly, inconvertibly, inseparably, unfusedly according to the doctrine of the holy Father, and two natural wills not contrary, God forbid, according as impious heretics have asserted, but the human will following and not resisting or hesitating, but rather even submitting to His divine and omnipotent will.”)
  Denzinger - English translation, older numbering

Modern Catholic Dictionary

CIRCUMINSESSION. The mutual immanence of the three distinct persons of the Holy Trinity. The Father is entirely in the Son, likewise in the Holy Spirit; and so is the Son in the Father and the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit in the Father and the Son. Circuminsession also identifies the mutual immanence of the two distinct natures in the one Person of Jesus Christ.

PERSON. “An individual substance of a rational nature” (Boethius). Therefore every individual intellectual substance which is complete in itself, uncommunicable and existing for itself, is a person. Essential to person in theological terms are intelligence and substantiality, wholeness in oneself and especially individuality. From individuality flow such features of personhood as distinctiveness, incommunicability, and uniqueness. Among human persons there are also the elements of responsibility and possession of distinctive rights. (Etym. Latin persona, actor’s mask; character; supposition of a rational nature.)

SUBSTANCE. A being whose essence requires that it exist in itself. It is an ens per se (a being by itself) or ens in se (a being in itself). It is commonly distinguished from an accident, whose essence is to exist in another, that is, in a substance. (Etym. Latin substantia, that which stands under, principle, foundation.)

http://www.therealpresence.org/cgi-bin/getdefinition.pl

Catechism

251 In order to articulate the dogma of the Trinity, the Church had to develop her own terminology with the help of certain notions of philosophical origin: “substance”, “person” or “hypostasis”, “relation” and so on. In doing this, she did not submit the faith to human wisdom, but gave a new and unprecedented meaning to these terms, which from then on would be used to signify an ineffable mystery, “infinitely beyond all that we can humanly understand”.82

252 The Church uses

(I) the term “substance” (rendered also at times by “essence” or “nature”) to designate the divine being in its unity,
(II) the term “person” or “hypostasis” to designate the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the real distinction among them, and
(III) the term “relation” to designate the fact that their distinction lies in the relationship of each to the others.