Struggles with the Hypostatic Union

[CutlerB]

Hello everyone.

I’ve been pondering the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union of Christ. Of course, I believe Our Lord is True God and True Man, but I struggle to wrap my mind around it. I understand there is mystery to it, but that’s not what I’m getting at.

My question is much rather: Isn’t the Hypostatic Union illogical? Unless I have a totally wrong idea of what it is, isn’t it the equivalent of saying: “That dog over there is both true dog and true tree”?

The reason I ask this is that I remembered a conversation I had with a JW friend of mine. He asked me, well is Jesus 50% God and 50% man, or what? What’s the ratio? I just don’t understand how something/someone can have two essences/natures.

On the side: Could this be the reason Monophysitism came into existence?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Tomster]

Hello everyone.

I’ve been pondering the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union of Christ. Of course, I believe Our Lord is True God and True Man, but I struggle to wrap my mind around it. I understand there is mystery to it, but that’s not what I’m getting at.

My question is much rather: Isn’t the Hypostatic Union illogical? Unless I have a totally wrong idea of what it is, isn’t it the equivalent of saying: “That dog over there is both true dog and true tree”?

The reason I ask this is that I remembered a conversation I had with a JW friend of mine. He asked me, well is Jesus 50% God and 50% man, or what? What’s the ratio? I just don’t understand how something/someone can have two essences/natures.

On the side: Could this be the reason Monophysitism came into existence?

Thanks for your help.

Cutler,

The Hypostatic Union is the union of the human and divine natures in the One Divine Person.

Try thinking of it like this.

When we think of the Trinity, we don’t say in the name of the Father and of the Son and of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

At the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.) the Church declared that the two natures of Christ are joined in one Person and one hypostasis, where hypostasis means one substance. It was used to answer the Nestorian error of a merely accidental union of the two natures of Christ. The phrase hypostatic union was adopted a century later, at the 5th general council at Constantinople (533 A.D.). 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 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).

 

[DavidFilmer]

it is, isn’t it the equivalent of saying: “That dog over there is both true dog and true tree”?

 

[SonCatcher]

Hello everyone.

I’ve been pondering the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union of Christ. Of course, I believe Our Lord is True God and True Man, but I struggle to wrap my mind around it. I understand there is mystery to it, but that’s not what I’m getting at.

My question is much rather: Isn’t the Hypostatic Union illogical? Unless I have a totally wrong idea of what it is, isn’t it the equivalent of saying: “That dog over there is both true dog and true tree”?

The reason I ask this is that I remembered a conversation I had with a JW friend of mine. He asked me, well is Jesus 50% God and 50% man, or what? What’s the ratio? I just don’t understand how something/someone can have two essences/natures.

On the side: Could this be the reason Monophysitism came into existence?

Thanks for your help.

We cannot fully understand the Hypostatic Union. It is a mystery beyond our grasp, like the Trinity. I have heard that if it were possible to understand God, then He wouldn’t be God.

For your JW friend, the “ratio” is 100% God and 100% man. Jesus is both, whole and entire, God and man. Yet, the 2 natures are distinct, unmixed.

Monophysitism did come about as an attempt to understand the nature of the Son. IIRC, it claims that the natures were blended into a single nature. Miaphysites reject both the Chalcedonian formula and monophysitism.

 

[Anthony_V]

Hello everyone.

I’ve been pondering the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union of Christ. Of course, I believe Our Lord is True God and True Man, but I struggle to wrap my mind around it. I understand there is mystery to it, but that’s not what I’m getting at.

My question is much rather: Isn’t the Hypostatic Union illogical? Unless I have a totally wrong idea of what it is, isn’t it the equivalent of saying: “That dog over there is both true dog and true tree”?

The reason I ask this is that I remembered a conversation I had with a JW friend of mine. He asked me, well is Jesus 50% God and 50% man, or what? What’s the ratio? I just don’t understand how something/someone can have two essences/natures.

On the side: Could this be the reason Monophysitism came into existence?

Thanks for your help.

It’s not illogical. It’s theo-logical

The natural world is, in a sense, ontologically competitive. It would be invasive if you inhabited the same space in which I exist. But God is not competitive with or confused with creation. There is no ratio, because there is no competition. It’s not a score.

Two citations of this:

1. The Incarnation was not God becoming weak, but an ultimate expression of his power.
2. Our becoming like God in salvation through grace is not a lessening of our own identity, by a magnifying of it.

There is a theological maxim from the ressourcement movement in the 20th century which says “grace makes nature more natural”. I think that is very applicable here.

It’s actually rather fitting that we can’t p(name removed by moderator)oint the “mechanics” of the hypostatic union, because that would mean there is one, and the hypostatic union would be a mechanical union rather than a union of grace. Furthermore, if I could completely understand how God manifests himself in the world, but somehow still manages to be God, then he wouldn’t be God, now would he? He would be only as great as my mind could conjecture, which is limited.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Hello everyone.

I’ve been pondering the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union of Christ. Of course, I believe Our Lord is True God and True Man, but I struggle to wrap my mind around it. I understand there is mystery to it, but that’s not what I’m getting at.

My question is much rather: Isn’t the Hypostatic Union illogical? Unless I have a totally wrong idea of what it is, isn’t it the equivalent of saying: “That dog over there is both true dog and true tree”?

The reason I ask this is that I remembered a conversation I had with a JW friend of mine. He asked me, well is Jesus 50% God and 50% man, or what? What’s the ratio? I just don’t understand how something/someone can have two essences/natures.

On the side: Could this be the reason Monophysitism came into existence?

Thanks for your help.

I am 100% a male. I am 100% an American. Yet within me there are not 2 different 100%'s.

Granted, God and Man is much more fundamental, but it remains: there is no contradiction unless the natures conflict. And in this case it appears that they don’t.

But yeah, the fact that this is hard to grasp is probably the reason for a couple heresies.

 

[CutlerB]

CutlerB;10722692:

It’s not the same, because the nature of dogs and trees are mutually exclusive - you cannot be both at the same time.

Jesus’ divine and human nature share no common attributes, so they are perfectly compatible. It’s like someone can be an American and a philatist (a stamp collector) and a doctor and a musician and a father and a Christian and an uncle and an artist and many other things all at the same time.

If a doctor takes up painting, he’s not half-doctor and half-artist.

I am 100% a male. I am 100% an American. Yet within me there are not 2 different 100%'s.

Granted, God and Man is much more fundamental, but it remains: there is no contradiction unless the natures conflict. And in this case it appears that they don’t.

But yeah, the fact that this is hard to grasp is probably the reason for a couple heresies.

If they aren’t contradictory, how could Jesus then suffer or not know everything? It sounds contradictory, or to some extent schizophrenic? No offence intended.

 

[Robyn_p]

CutlerB:

If they aren’t contradictory, how could Jesus then suffer or not know everything? It sounds contradictory, or to some extent schizophrenic? No offence intended.

No offense taken, it’s good to ask questions! The way I heard it explained once is based on Phillipians 2:5-9 the famous passage.

Christ Jesus, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped, but rather, He EMPTIED himself, taking the form of a slave.

The key word there is emptied, Jesus was God. And as God, you’re right, He could not suffer and knew everything. But He didn’t always choose to grasp his equality with God, He emptied himself and denied himself at times those powers and rights that belong only to God.

A good analogy Fulton Sheen used helped me a lot. Imagine a strong man, the strongest man on earth, submits to being put in prison. He’s so strong he could easily take out the guards, but he chooses not to. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the power to, or he is schizophrenic, but he chooses not to. He chooses to be limited by the guards and the prison. There’s no contradiction in him.

That’s what Jesus did. He had the power, He was God, and sometimes He showed it. But other times he emptied himself and let himself be limited by his human nature that he freely took on, let himself be hungry, be abused. He even said it Himself, “No one takes my life from me, I lay it down on my own accord.” (Jn 10:18)

Also, since God and man are two completely different beings and in two completely different categories, Creator and created, it’s not actually quite the same as saying that dog over there is true dog and true tree, since tree and dog belong to the same category of material created thing. A better more accurate analogy IMO is a red circle. (All analogies fail when trying to talk about God, but this one comes close) the circle is 100% red, and 100% circle. Not fifty-fifty. But that introduces no conflict or contradiction because there are two different categories, color and shape, joined together.

I hope that made sense a little. Great topic!

 

[CutlerB]

No offense taken, it’s good to ask questions! The way I heard it explained once is based on Phillipians 2:5-9 the famous passage.

The key word there is emptied, Jesus was God. And as God, you’re right, He could not suffer and knew everything. But He didn’t always choose to grasp his equality with God, He emptied himself and denied himself at times those powers and rights that belong only to God.

A good analogy Fulton Sheen used helped me a lot. Imagine a strong man, the strongest man on earth, submits to being put in prison. He’s so strong he could easily take out the guards, but he chooses not to. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the power to, or he is schizophrenic, but he chooses not to. He chooses to be limited by the guards and the prison. There’s no contradiction in him.

That’s what Jesus did. He had the power, He was God, and sometimes He showed it. But other times he emptied himself and let himself be limited by his human nature that he freely took on, let himself be hungry, be abused. He even said it Himself, “No one takes my life from me, I lay it down on my own accord.” (Jn 10:18)

Also, since God and man are two completely different beings and in two completely different categories, Creator and created, it’s not actually quite the same as saying that dog over there is true dog and true tree, since tree and dog belong to the same category of material created thing. A better more accurate analogy IMO is a red circle. (All analogies fail when trying to talk about God, but this one comes close) the circle is 100% red, and 100% circle. Not fifty-fifty. But that introduces no conflict or contradiction because there are two different categories, color and shape, joined together.

I hope that made sense a little. Great topic!

It’s getting there, although I would disagree with the red circle. If I understand St Thomas Aquinas correctly, red is not part of the circle’s essence, therefore making it inapplicable to Jesus?

 

[CutlerB]

OK, I’ve just read the section on this in the Catechism (464-470) and now I think I have more of a grasp on the matter, though it of course remains a Mystery.

Correct me if I’m wrong, in fact it may be heretical, but can the Hypostatic Union be understood as the Person of God the Son taking flesh, and in His omniscience adopting at times human ways of thought and so forth? I’m unsure about this way of seeing it, since it doesn’t quite seem to be actual human nature.

 

[Zekariya]

Essence (Greek: ousia, Latin: substantia) is what we are. Essence is shared by all of the same kind. We people all share one essence: Man. The Trinity shares one essence: God. Dogs all share one essence: Canine.

Jesus Christ has two essences: God and Man. There is no percentage like filling a cup with water and milk. You either have the essence or you do not. Jesus is of one essence with the Father (Divine) and he is of one essence with us (human). Jesus is fully God and fully man. To be less than fully man is to not be man at all (the same with being God).

 

[Nita]

OK, I’ve just read the section on this in the Catechism (464-470) and now I think I have more of a grasp on the matter, though it of course remains a Mystery.

Correct me if I’m wrong, in fact it may be heretical, but can the Hypostatic Union be understood as the Person of God the Son taking flesh, and in His omniscience adopting at times human ways of thought and so forth? I’m unsure about this way of seeing it, since it doesn’t quite seem to be actual human nature.

That is similar to my way of looking at it, especially the passage in Mt. 24:36 where Jesus says: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. I take the word “Son” here to mean the Son in His human nature.
In the passage Jesus mentions 3 – angels, the Son, and the Father. The only one who “knows” is the Father ------ God un-united to anything created.
The other 2 are the angels who are created beings, and the Son who has united Himself to a human nature which is a created nature. I take it that such knowledge is something God has chosen not to make known ahead of time to the intellects of created minds. The knowledge would have been present in the Son’s (Jesus’) Divine intellect.

Jesus’ human nature included a human mind/intellect and human will as well as a human body. When the Person of Jesus (2nd Person of the Trinity) was manifesting Himself as He was in His human nature, then He would be exercising and expressing only His human knowledge, not His Divine knowledge. (Found it difficult to find the right words. Hope it’s understandable.)

 

[Zekariya]

That is similar to my way of looking at it, especially the passage in Mt. 24:36 where Jesus says: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.
Jesus’ human nature included a human mind/intellect and human will as well as a human body. When the Person of Jesus (2nd Person of the Trinity) was manifesting Himself as He was in His human nature, then He would be exercising and expressing only His human knowledge, not His Divine knowledge. (Found it difficult to find the right words. Hope it’s understandable.)

St Athanasius speaks on this:

[Mark 13:32*But of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father.]

Now why it was that, though He knew, He did not tell His disciples plainly at that time, no one may be curious where He has been silent; for ‘Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor?’ but why, though He knew, He said, ‘no, not the Son knows,’ this I think none of the faithful is ignorant, viz. that He made this as those other declarations as man by reason of the flesh. For this as before is not the Word’s deficiency, but of that human nature whose property it is to be ignorant. And this again will be well seen by honestly examining into the occasion, when and to whom the Saviour spoke thus. Not then when the heaven was made by Him, nor when He was with the Father Himself, the Word ‘disposing all things,’ nor before He became man did He say it, but when ‘the Word became flesh.’ On this account it is reasonable to ascribe to His manhood everything which, after He became man, He speaks humanly. For it is proper to the Word to know what was made, nor be ignorant either of the beginning or of the end of these (for the works are His), and He knows how many things He wrought, and the limit of their consistence. And knowing of each the beginning and the end, He knows surely the general and common end of all. Certainly when He says in the Gospel concerning Himself in His human character, ‘Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son,’ it is plain that He knows also the hour of the end of all things, as the Word, though as man He is ignorant of it, for ignorance is proper to man, and especially ignorance of these things. Moreover this is proper to the Saviour’s love of man; for since He was made man, He is not ashamed, because of the flesh which is ignorant, to say ‘I know not,’ that He may shew that knowing as God, He is but ignorant according to the flesh. And therefore He said not, ‘no, not the Son of God knows,’ lest the Godhead should seem ignorant, but simply, ‘no, not the Son,’ that the ignorance might be the Son’s as born from among men.

• St Athanasius of Alexandria, Against the Arians, Ch*28:43

Source:*ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxi.ii.iv.vi.html

 

[Nita]

St Athanasius speaks on this:

[Mark 13:32*But of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father.]

Now why it was that, though He knew, He did not tell His disciples plainly at that time, no one may be curious where He has been silent; for ‘Who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been His counsellor?’ but why, though He knew, He said, ‘no, not the Son knows,’ this I think none of the faithful is ignorant, viz. that He made this as those other declarations as man by reason of the flesh. For this as before is not the Word’s deficiency, but of that human nature whose property it is to be ignorant. And this again will be well seen by honestly examining into the occasion, when and to whom the Saviour spoke thus. Not then when the heaven was made by Him, nor when He was with the Father Himself, the Word ‘disposing all things,’ nor before He became man did He say it, but when ‘the Word became flesh.’ On this account it is reasonable to ascribe to His manhood everything which, after He became man, He speaks humanly. For it is proper to the Word to know what was made, nor be ignorant either of the beginning or of the end of these (for the works are His), and He knows how many things He wrought, and the limit of their consistence. And knowing of each the beginning and the end, He knows surely the general and common end of all. Certainly when He says in the Gospel concerning Himself in His human character, ‘Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son,’ it is plain that He knows also the hour of the end of all things, as the Word, though as man He is ignorant of it, for ignorance is proper to man, and especially ignorance of these things. Moreover this is proper to the Saviour’s love of man; for since He was made man, He is not ashamed, because of the flesh which is ignorant, to say ‘I know not,’ that He may shew that knowing as God, He is but ignorant according to the flesh. And therefore He said not, ‘no, not the Son of God knows,’ lest the Godhead should seem ignorant, but simply, ‘no, not the Son,’ that the ignorance might be the Son’s as born from among men.

• St Athanasius of Alexandria, Against the Arians, Ch*28:43

Source:*ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxi.ii.iv.vi.html

Thanks. As always, the Church fathers say it so much better.

 

[Robyn_p]

It’s getting there, although I would disagree with the red circle. If I understand St Thomas Aquinas correctly, red is not part of the circle’s essence, therefore making it inapplicable to Jesus?

Hmmm. Yes you’re right. I was thinking of how one thing could have two different natures, color and shape, yet still be one and not contradictory. But I see now how it doesn’t quite apply to Jesus, since color and shape aren’t really two natures. The shape would be the nature, the color would be accidental to it. Thanks for pointing that out, hadn’t noticed that before.

I guess I should really start studying Aquinas more before I think of analogies for Christ.