Was Jesus fully human?

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Denys Turner in his book Thomas Aquinas, A Portrait, asserts that Aquinas believed Jesus was fully human as Adam was fully human when he was created in his natural state … ie. he was innocent. What perplexes me about this view is that to be fully human, Adam had to be created with the capacity to choose between good and evil. We know that at some point he (and Eve) chose evil. But we also know that while Jesus was created innocent, it was not possible for him to sin. Lacking the freedom to sin, how can we say Jesus was fully human as Adam was fully human?

Is this a dilemma, or can the question be resolved with a satisfactory explanation?
 
God the word was fully human and possessed a human free will.
 
I read it summed up really well somewhere -

Jesus was a true Man, in whom the flesh manifested its limitations, and true God, in demonstrating the relentless force of Agape Love.

Thank you for reading
Josh
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Denys Turner in his book Thomas Aquinas, A Portrait, asserts that Aquinas believed Jesus was fully human as Adam was fully human when he was created in his natural state … ie. he was innocent. What perplexes me about this view is that to be fully human, Adam had to be created with the capacity to choose between good and evil. We know that at some point he (and Eve) chose evil. But we also know that while Jesus was created innocent, it was not possible for him to sin. Lacking the freedom to sin, how can we say Jesus was fully human as Adam was fully human?

Is this a dilemma, or can the question be resolved with a satisfactory explanation?
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Yes Jesus is fully human and fully God. God became man so that we could look into His eyes and see His compassion, hear His voice and be comforted and touch Him and be healed. He continues His priestly ministry thru His Priests forever and thru all of us who have accepted Jesus into our hearts and are witnesses to the power of the Gospel working in our lives for the salvation of all souls.

John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
 
eamonnroma said:
So therefore The Word would have been capable of sinning, but just chose not to?
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God became man to fully experience what we experienced so that He could fully identify with us. Jesus felt pain, joy, love and all the emotions we feel and when He was tempted by Satan in the desert, He taught us how we too should respond when we are tempted - pray that God will help us and have His Word written on our hearts and minds to overcome all obstacles Satan uses to cause us to stumble.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Denys Turner in his book Thomas Aquinas, A Portrait, asserts that Aquinas believed Jesus was fully human as Adam was fully human when he was created in his natural state … ie. he was innocent. What perplexes me about this view is that to be fully human, Adam had to be created with the capacity to choose between good and evil. We know that at some point he (and Eve) chose evil. But we also know that while Jesus was created innocent, it was not possible for him to sin. Lacking the freedom to sin, how can we say Jesus was fully human as Adam was fully human?

Is this a dilemma, or can the question be resolved with a satisfactory explanation?
Click to expand...
The third council of Constantinople [a.18] declared that there are two wills in Christ; his human will and his divine will. His human will is totally free, like ours is; but unlike ours, Christ’s will was perfectly conformed to the divine will so that we should say Christ willed not to sin and not that he couldn’t sin as though he did not have to power to will to sin. St Thomas also teaches this (ST III, q.18, a.5). Hence, it is proper to say that Christ shares in our nature fully, and in the nature of Adam as man without sin, and hence he is properly called the “Second Adam” (1 Cor 15:45).
 
hicetnunc said:
The third council of Constantinople [a.18] declared that there are two wills in Christ; his human will and his divine will. His human will is totally free, like ours is; but unlike ours, Christ’s will was perfectly conformed to the divine will so that we should say Christ willed not to sin and not that he couldn’t sin as though he did not have to power to will to sin. St Thomas also teaches this (ST III, q.18, a.5). Hence, it is proper to say that Christ shares in our nature fully, and in the nature of Adam as man without sin, and hence he is properly called the “Second Adam” (1 Cor 15:45).
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Is it then, under this scenario, possible that Christ could have sinned? :confused:

It would seem that Satan thought so, since he presented Christ with several temptations.
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Is it then, under this scenario, possible that Christ could have sinned? :confused:

It would seem that Satan thought so, since he presented Christ with several temptations.
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This is one of those basic Christological conundrums. My understanding is that Jesus had, so to speak, all the “equipment” for sinning–i.e., He had inclinations and desires for created goods, which could (in themselves) become inordinate. But because of His divine nature there was no possibility that he would give in to the temptation. To use contemporary philosophical terminology, He had “compatibilist freedom” to sin but not “libertarian freedom.”

I know Protestant theologians who think that this is inadequate and that He must have had libertarian freedom to sin or else He wasn’t really human. But I don’t think this is orthodox–nor does it make sense to me. What would it look like for the Second Person of the Trinity to sin?

Perhaps the best author on this is St. Maximus the Confessor, who wrote about it in the context of the 7th-century “monothelite” controversy.

Edwin
 
Contarini said:
This is one of those basic Christological conundrums. My understanding is that Jesus had, so to speak, all the “equipment” for sinning–i.e., He had inclinations and desires for created goods, which could (in themselves) become inordinate. But because of His divine nature there was no possibility that he would give in to the temptation. To use contemporary philosophical terminology, He had “compatibilist freedom” to sin but not “libertarian freedom.”

I know Protestant theologians who think that this is inadequate and that He must have had libertarian freedom to sin or else He wasn’t really human. But I don’t think this is orthodox–nor does it make sense to me. What would it look like for the Second Person of the Trinity to sin?

Perhaps the best author on this is St. Maximus the Confessor, who wrote about it in the context of the 7th-century “monothelite” controversy.

Edwin
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Doesn’t it say that Jesus was “like us in all ways except sin” or not?

If He wasn’t than He wasn’t human, are you implying that God became almost a human but not quite?

If Jesus wasn’t “able” to sin, wouldn’t that mean that Jesus did NOT avoid sin since one can NOT avoid something that they can NOT do.

If Jesus wasn’t fully capable of sinning and yet did not sin, as opposed to not sinning because He was NOT capable of sinning, than the Incarnation did NOT happen since the Incarnation is God becoming One of us, it is NOT God becoming almost One of us.
 
Tom_Baum said:
Doesn’t it say that Jesus was “like us in all ways except sin” or not?

If He wasn’t than He wasn’t human, are you implying that God became almost a human but not quite?

If Jesus wasn’t “able” to sin, wouldn’t that mean that Jesus did NOT avoid sin since one can NOT avoid something that they can NOT do.

If Jesus wasn’t fully capable of sinning and yet did not sin, as opposed to not sinning because He was NOT capable of sinning, than the Incarnation did NOT happen since the Incarnation is God becoming One of us, it is NOT God becoming almost One of us.
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No, I’m saying that Jesus did become human in all ways except sin. I think that the question of what it means for a person to be “able” to do something is a lot more complex than most people realize. That’s one reason why Augustinian/Thomist/Calvinist understandings of predestination have such staying power in spite of their repellent features. When you start thinking seriously about free will, it gets weirder and weirder.

Jesus was “capable” of sinning, as I said above, in that He had all the psychological “equipment.” He just was never going to do it, because as God Incarnate He wouldn’t want to.

I know that many people today (particularly Protestants) think that this is a form of Docetism. But I have never heard a satisfactory answer to the question of just what kind of universe it would be in which God sinned. I think that the view that Jesus really “could have” sinned (in philosophical terms, that there is a “possible world in which Jesus sinned”) is intrinsically Nestorian. The only way it would work is to say that if Jesus had sinned He would have ceased to be divine (or that if God had foreseen this he wouldn’t have united His Second Person with Jesus in the first place). That’s not orthodox Christology.

Edwin
 
Contarini said:
Jesus was “capable” of sinning, as I said above, in that He had all the psychological “equipment.” He just was never going to do it, because as God Incarnate He wouldn’t want to.
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Because he wouldn’t want to or because he couldn’t want to? :confused:
 
Charlemagne_III said:
Because he wouldn’t want to or because he couldn’t want to? :confused:
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I don’t think, in this case, there’s any difference, since we’re talking about the will rather than any kind of natural ability/inability.

But it’s a very tricky issue (not just the specific issue of Jesus sinning but the bigger question of what it means to “be able to will” something).

Edwin
 
There is no doubt that Jesus was sorely tempted on several occasions but He knew His mission was to liberate us from evil by showing us that we can overcome our weakness by following His example and asking the Father to give us the strength to do what is right. He could not have done this if He was not fully human because God in heaven is perfect in every respect and is not subject to weakness whereas Jesus was understandably attracted by the possibility of avoiding suffering and crucifixion. His power of self-control couldn’t have been exercised if His faith, courage and fortitude hadn’t been challenged by a possible means of escape. He wouldn’t have been tempted if His knowledge of the future hadn’t been limited to some extent:

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Mark 13:32
 
peace2u2 said:
God became man to fully experience what we experienced so that He could fully identify with us. Jesus felt pain, joy, love and all the emotions we feel and when He was tempted by Satan in the desert, He taught us how we too should respond when we are tempted - pray that God will help us and have His Word written on our hearts and minds to overcome all obstacles Satan uses to cause us to stumble.
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So therefore he was capable of sin?
 
eamonnroma said:
So therefore he was capable of sin?
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It doesn’t follow that Jesus was capable of sin simply because He was tempted. Even we don’t always give way if we reflect long enough on the consequences. His love is far too powerful to be overcome by selfishness but it didn’t prevent Him from suffering at the prospect of being scourged and nailed to the Cross.
 
tonyrey said:
It doesn’t follow that Jesus was capable of sin simply because He was tempted. Even we don’t always give way if we reflect long enough on the consequences. His love is far too powerful to be overcome by selfishness but it didn’t prevent Him from suffering at the prospect of being scourged and nailed to the Cross.
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Even to have a strong desire to avoid suffering and death is a form of temptation. No sane person would want to be tortured and executed like a criminal:
39 Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. 40 On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” 41 He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.
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Can there be more convincing evidence that Jesus was fully human?
 
We are tempted and we tempt ourselves.
Christ was tempted and acted as we should in such situations.
In Him we find a refuge and a source of strength in our moments of suffering and temptation.
Could He, should He, would He? He, fully human, did what we must do.
 
Does one have to sin to be fully human, was The Blessed Mother fully human? It seems that the fact that Jesus had a human nature which incorporated a free will He had the freedom of choice, that in itself added to His complete humanity even though He could not sin. Jesus allowed himself to be tempted, to ensnare Satan in his own pride. Satan tried to determine whether Jesus was God according to Mary’s revelation to St.Mary of Agreda. Jesus was fully human inspite of apparent contradictions. Mary was the New Eve and Jesus the New Adam. Mary was conceived without original sin. Did she like Eve have the knowledge of good and evil? Jesus was born to Mary, did this give Him some exemption in His human nature that He could not sin, even though human? We are born to humans with fallen nature, we are born into sin. Jesus wasn’t. He was free from sin yet like us in every way but sin
 
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