Tom, no one here is saying Jesus is not True God and True Man; but Jesus is a Divine person. You seem to be pushing away Docetism and embracing Nestorianism, another heresy.
I am saying very simply that the Incarnation is God becoming One of us in the humanity of Jesus and before Mary said YES, the humanity of Jesus did NOT exist.
The Incarnation either did or did not happen at a very specific point in time and space in the history of creation.
Before the Incarnation, God was NOT Incarnate therefore God-Incarnate did not exist but He Who would become God-Incarnate did exist as Who is referred to as the Second Person of the Trinity.
Mary’s YES was when God became Incarnate, if you or anyone else disagrees with this are you saying that Mary had no say in the Incarnation?
I looked up your “theological words”
Nes·to·ri·an: one of a sect of followers of Nestorius who denied the hypostatic union and were represented as maintaining the existence of two distinct persons in Christ.
and
Do·ce·tism:
- an early Christian doctrine that the sufferings of Christ were apparent and not real and that after the crucifixion he appeared in a spiritual body.
- Roman Catholic Church . an ancient heresy asserting that Jesus lacked full humanity.
Question, simple I might add, was God always Incarnate or did God become Incarnate?
I am NOT a theologian, not even close, and as far as “hypostatic union”, all that means to me is that some people come up with a fancy word to make it look like they know something more than the fancy word that they have come up with.
Just as I am 100% from my Dad and 100% from my Mom which makes me 100% me, this is how I look at Jesus in that Jesus the human being, True Man, that was born of Mary was 100% from His Dad and 100% from His Mom which makes Him 100% Him, this is how I “simply” look at it rather than hiding behind fancy sounding theological words that even the theologians don’t know how it came to be but they have come up with a fancy-dancy phrase for it.
I look at Jesus’s birth as being like most other human births, it is Jesus’s conception that I look at differently than any other human conception.
I don’t try to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes and pretend that I understand how this happened and I also don’t use fancy words to make it look like I know more than I do.
Using words like “hypostatic union” to me pretty much tells me that they know no more about how God “achieved” this than me so they hide behind fancy theologically sounding sounds.
And as far as what “Docetism” means, sure seems to me that some on here adhere to what this means or I am misunderstanding what they write.
Was Mary’s YES needed or was Mary just forced into what she did?
I happen to believe that Mary’s YES was indeed needed and without her YES, there would have been no Incarnation, any thoughts concerning Mary’s use of her God-given free will in this matter?