Why is Audianism's anthropomorphising of God considered heresy if Jesus is both fully God and Fully man?

[The_Other_Michael]

So in my own religious discovery I came to a conclusion (whether erroneously, or otherwise) that God is a man. This earned me the ire of my mother who says I am flatly wrong, but when I tried to explain she kept repeating that I am in error. So for a bit of background to my theory, I had reckoned that God, being infinite and omnipresent would exist in perpetuity across all reality. As the Creed says, “…born of the Father before all ages”, leads me to think that Jesus, The Only Begotten Son Of God is identifiable as such prior to the creation. Jesus, as we know is both fully God, and fully man and is consubstantial and coequal with the other persons of the Holy Trinity. So having both a devine nature and a human nature, and in perpetual existence across all times, ("…as it was in the beginning, it is now and ever shall be…") Does that not suggest that God is a man? I am familiar with some of the 5th century heretical teachings of Audius, but I think I came to this from a different direction as he. I don’t believe that I read too literally the scriptures that God says, “We shall create him in Our own image and likeness…”, nor do I believe that God’s human nature is somehow just one form that he took, and somehow flawed. I just recognize that Jesus is both human and devine, and if he existed that way “before all ages”, only entering our timeline at a point of His choosing, would it not stand to reason that we as humans ARE created in His image and likeness both spiritually and physically? Am I way off the reservation on this?

 

[StJosephPrayForUs]

God is Man and Man is God in Jesus. The only weirdness of your theory I can see, unless I am reading you erroneously, is that you somehow think Jesus’ human nature is eternal. It is IN eternity right now, but it was created at a point in time. The imago dei mostly has to do with the role and abilities of humans, and with the incarnation only prophetically. God made humans knowing He would become one, so in a sense it is also literal. The divine nature of Christ is eternal, His human nature is not.

Audianism also involved more than this.

 

[The_Other_Michael]

I guess that is where I’m confused. How is that the human nature of God, in the person of Jesus somehow limited? In this case in a temporal sense. If God is perfection, and Jesus is perfection personified, how does it happen that his human nature is not part of his eternal nature. Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, and revealed to the angelic hosts in the beatific vision, thus the envy and disdain of Satan toward humankind. It just seems like Jesus would have been there at the earliest moment.

 

[StJosephPrayForUs]

If you hold to the tradition of the incarnation being why Satan rebelled, it was because he saw Gods plan and hated that God would “degrade” Himself to become a human. How the nature is limited is part of the mystery. Jesus was not a superhuman, He was limited, mortal, ignorant, culturally bound, and utterly finite. At the same time, this limited being is utterly united to, and is the person of the infinite, all knowing, timeless deity. The creator became a creature, Mary cared for and nursed her God, etc. The Church celebrates this mystery. The human nature is utterly distinct from the divine, this is the dogma. Yet it is the same person. Meditate on the Athanasian creed, especially this part:

It is also necessary for eternal salvation that he believes steadfastly in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and man. As God, He was begotten of the substance of the Father before time; as man, He was born in time of the substance of His Mother. He is perfect God; and He is perfect man, with a rational soul and human flesh. He is equal to the Father in His divinity, but inferior to the Father in His humanity. Although He is God and man, He is not two, but one Christ. And He is one, not because His divinity was changed into flesh, but because His humanity was assumed unto God. He is one, not by a mingling of substances, but by unity of person. As a rational soul and flesh are one man: so God and man are one Christ. He died for our salvation, descended into Hell, and rose from the dead on the third day. He ascended into Heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there He shall come to judge the living and the dead. At His coming, all men are to arise with their own bodies; and they are to give an account of their own deeds. Those who have done good deeds will go into eternal life; those who have done evil will go into the everlasting fire.

This creed is what we believe, it is a perfect Christological formula.

 

[Gorgias]

Am I way off the reservation on this?

Yeah. Kinda. Sorry.

Jesus – the Second Person of the Trinity – has always existed. However, His human nature came into existence at the Incarnation, which took place inside the universe and the context of our timeline, 2000 years ago.

So, the “human nature” didn’t exist from all time; it came into being in 1st century Palestine. Jesus is now “human and divine”, but He wasn’t, prior to the incarnation.

If God is perfection, and Jesus is perfection personified, how does it happen that his human nature is not part of his eternal nature.

As the Catechism teaches:

467 The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God’s Son assumed it. Faced with this heresy, the fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451, confessed:

Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; “like us in all things but sin”. He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God.
We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.

468 After the Council of Chalcedon, some made of Christ’s human nature a kind of personal subject. Against them, the fifth ecumenical council, at Constantinople in 553, confessed that “there is but one hypostasis [or person], which is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity.” Thus everything in Christ’s human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject, not only his miracles but also his sufferings and even his death.

It just seems like Jesus would have been there at the earliest moment.

In His divine nature? Yep. In His human nature? Nope.

 

[The_Other_Michael]

That is very insightful. Thank you for that!