Christology - Impact of the Incarnation on Godhead

[DavidFilmer]

OK, I'm a computer programmer, so I understand logic, but this question is more philosophy than anything else... so I hope I can even express the question properly. First, let me set the stage (with a bit of philosophy)...

God IS.

When Moses asked His name, He replied, "I Am." When I was younger, I thought God was being evasive. But now I understand that that is exactly who God is - "I Am who Am."

God is pure existence. We are created creatures - we HAVE existence (in some measure), but God IS existence. We HAVE love (though not enough), but God IS love. We HAVE truth (though not enough), but God IS Truth. God does not HAVE anything - God IS everything that He is (and He is nothing that He is not), and there has never been a "time" when God was anything other than what He is.

We develop over time. But God is eternal - He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

God is pure existence. He can NEVER change.

Atheists sometimes try to trick Christians with the question, "Can God make a rock so heavy that He can't lift it?" It seems that, no matter which answer the Christian chooses, he is trapped. If God CAN make such a rock, then He is not all powerful (because he cannot lift it). If God CANNOT make such a rock then He is not all powerful (because He cannot make it). Either way, God is not omnipotent.

The question is a trick. To expose the trick, ask this question: "Can God draw a square circle?" It is very obvious that there can be no such a thing as a square circle - the two conditions are exclusive. A square circle cannot possibly exist. So God cannot draw it. That doesn't mean that God is not omnipotent, because "omnipotent" doesn't mean that God can do "anything," but that God can do anything which can possibly be done (the familiar phrase, "With God, all things are possible" has probably led to great confusion in this matter).

God CANNOT draw a square circle (because such a shape cannot possibly exist) and He CANNOT make a rock too heavy for Him to lift (because such a rock could not possibly exist). And there are lots of other things that God cannot do: He cannot make a bright light that is totally dark, or speak a pure truth that is totally false... you get the idea.

And God CANNOT ever change. Not even if He wanted to! (because it is not possible for a pure existence to change - change implies potential, and God has no potential extience, only actual existence).

OK, the stage is set. That's a bunch of philosophy, and I'm not a philosopher, and I probably didn't express it very well. Norman L. Greisler (who is a philosopher, though not a Catholic) did a much better (and more throuogh job) in his book, "Christian Apologetics." If someone wants to argue that God can change, fine, but let's do that in a different thread. This question/thread will be predicated on the assumption that the nature of God is immutalbe.

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So what happened in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago?

Gaudium et Spes says, "Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed, in [Christ], has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. For, by his incarnation, he, the son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man. He worked with human hands, and acted with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin." [GS 22]

OK, I'm a devout Catholic, so I accept this with the assent of faith, but I have a hard time understanding (assent of mind) how this works given the immutable nature of God. It seems that God was somehow different on the first Christmas Day than He was on the first Christmas Eve, but I'm having trouble with that...

God CANNOT change His nature, not even if He wanted to. But, 2000 years ago, something happened that seemed to have some effect on the nature of God. When God spoke to Moses, was He the same (in nature) as when He spoke to Paul? He MUST have been, but it seems He was not...

How does that work?

[Seeker]

I hope someone has a good answer.  I wonder about this myself.  

[Rev. Eric]

Hey David,

Talk about some philosophical hardball!  Ok, I'll take a stab at this.  

Everyone please note: everything I am about to say comes under the heading of my opinion (based on my studies) for the sake of discussing the topic at hand.  Ultimately God (and His nature) are a mystery and I do not presume to have figured this all out.  So when I describe below who God is and what He is all about, I am speaking hypothetically and it is not my desire or intention to sound pretentious.  Ok, on to the topic:

1)  The nature of God does not change.  He is, as the bible says, the same yesterday, today and forever.  God is eternal.

2)  God created billions of people and put us in a world governed by temporal reality.  Because we are created beings, we are not eternal, and therefore we are subject to change.  As time goes on, we change in terms of our emotions (sad today, happy tomorrow, etc), our intellect (we can forget some things, grow in knowledge of others, etc.) as well as with other aspects of our humanity.

3)  God created us to be in an intimate loving relationship with Him.  This relationship is two-way, God reaches down to us and we reach up to Him.  

4)  For the sake of this relationship, God does things that seem to contradict His eternal nature.  For example, the prophets describe God as having emotions, being wrathful with people's evil actions and happy with people's righteous actions.  If God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, then why is He described as being wrathful one day and happy the next?  Some say that God does not really show these emotions, that this is all personification on behalf of the prophets and the writers of Scripture.  But it may actually go deeper than this.  

Because God loves us and wants to be in an initimate loving relationship with us, the eternal unchanging God breaks into our temporal realm and allows Himself to be effected by the things we do.  He allows Himself to experience the various things that characterize human relationships, such as changing emotions.  Because we are humans and not divine beings, we initially can only love God in a human way.  For His part, God, in His love and mercy, gives us a "humanistic love" in addition to His divine love.  If He did not, then we would have trouble recognizing and experiencing a loving relationship with Him, for it is our nature to engage in "humanistic love."  Therefore, God's love displays human emotion.

5)  The question is, how far will God go to allow himself to be effected by the things we do?  How far will He go to give us divine love and humanistic love?  The answer is the Incarnation.  Here, in the person of Christ, we find the highest and ultimate expression of the length that God is willing to take to commit himself to a loving relationship with humanity.  As I mentioned above, the prophets described a God who "breaks into" time and human history with a display of human characteristics.  But 2000 years ago in Bethlehem He took this to the farthest extreme.  He broke into time and human history and became man (as opposed to a simple display of human characteristics).  As Jesus Christ, God loves humanity as God and human.  And this perfect divine/human union also allows us to participate in the love that eternally existed between the Father and the Son.  As I said above, we initially can only love God in a human way.  But by being one with Christ, Christ now empowers us to love God in a divine way as well.

6)  With the Incarnation we are talking about what theologians call the "hypostatic union."  God, a divine person with a divine nature, takes on a second nature (a human one).  Because humans exist in time and space, this human nature existed in time and space.  Hence, as far as the chronology of our world is concerned, the hypostatic union had not happened yet when God spoke to Moses in the burning bush, but had happened by the time God spoke to Paul.

7)  Technically speaking, the nature of God did not "change," because His divine nature is eternal.  But we can speak of a "difference" in that the God Moses encountered during the Exodus event was not yet endowed with a second (human) nature, but when this same God revealed Himself to Paul He did have a second (human) nature.

Well, I guess my explanation is about as clear as mud.  But it's about the best I can do on such short notice.  Nevertheless, I would be surprised if Aquinas did not address this idea somewhere in his "Summa."

God bless,
-Rev. Eric

[tklein1014]

I'm not an expert, and this is just my opinion, but this is the way it helps to clarify for me.  Correct me if I'm wrong, and I could be wrong, but this is the way it makes sense to me.

God CANNOT change His nature, not even if He wanted to. But, 2000 years ago, something happened that seemed to have some effect on the nature of God. When God spoke to Moses, was He the same (in nature) as when He spoke to Paul? He MUST have been, but it seems He was not...

I know God exists outside of time, so the way I see it, the fact that (for us mortals) Jesus was born about 2000 years ago doesn't matter for God, because for Him, it's happening right now.  Does that make sense, at least abstractly?  It was happening when He spoke to Moses (for God, but not for Moses), etc.  So God is now, is BC, and is AD all the same, never changing.  We humans can't understand how this is possible, but somehow for God, since He IS and exists outside of time, it is.

It seems that God was somehow different on the first Christmas Day than He was on the first Christmas Eve,

In other words, to US mere mortals God seemed to change on that first Christmas, but to God, He didn't change at all.  It's all relative.

HTH to illustrate...

Tina

[DavidFilmer]

Hi, Tina and RevEric - thanks for your input. I'm still looking into one of the points raised by RevEric (and I'm retreating to Ludwig Ott - heavy stuff).

Tina raised some interesting points, which I have considered. Her reasoning sounds very, um, resonable. Except for one thing:

God has existed for all of eternity; He is uncreated. Out of an abundance of Love, He chose to create beings. First, the angels. Then humanity (made in His own likeness and image).

God was not compelled to create humanity. Though God cannot change His nature, He can change his "mind." He can make choices, just as we (created in His image) can make choices. God chose to create humanity, but He could have chosen otherwise.

Therefore, humanity's existence is "possible." There are three "modes" of existence:

• Impossible (square circles, dark light)
• Possible (humanity, dragons, unicorns)
• Necessary (God alone)

We fall into the second category. Our own existence is possible. We sometimes get confused by the fact that our existence is ACTUAL, but don't get confused... simply because you DO exist does not mean you MUST exist. Only God MUST exist. God COULD have created other possible existences, such as dragons or unicorns, but He chose not to. He could have chosen not to create humanity either.

The Hypostatic Union that RevEric referred to is the union of the Divine and the Human natures. But the Divine Nature is Necessary, while Human Nature is Possible (and thus might exist or might not exist).

I don't see how God could have existed from all eternity in a condition compatible with the idea of Hypostatic Union. If that were true, then humanity would be a Necessary existence (because the Divine Nature is dependent upon it).

Now, it's philosophically impossible to have more than one Necessary extience, and it's impossible for a Necessary existence to depend on ANYTHING at all. But I won't get into that now... instead, let me say...

If humanity were Necessary then humanity must be eternal (because a Necessary estience cannot "not" exist - it's necessary). But we know that humanity is not Necessary (because it came into existence by the Word of God, so there was a "time" that humanity did not exist).

So I cannot accept the idea that the Hypostatic Union has existed from all eternity.

But I'm still working on RevEric's posting (which looks at the question from another direction that I had not considered)....

[tklein1014]

Ok, this is getting a little complicated for me...  LOL  Maybe your questions would be better answered by someone with more expertise.  I'm more a right-brained person than left-brained, so I don't usually do well with technicalities & complicated terms, etc.  Anyhow, I'll try to clarify my position nonetheless, but will probably wind up causing more confusion...    LOL  I didn't mean to suggest that humans have been around for all eternity, because we certainly haven't - both the Bible & science agree on this.  But I don't believe that time, as we know it, exists for God.  So I don't think the idea that humans were created by God at some point in time in the past for us, matters for God.  To us it matters, but not to God.  In other words, there is no eternity for God - To us, He is eternal, but to Him, He simply IS.  Getting back to your topic title, I don't believe there was any impact of the incarnation on Godhead, because Father, Son, & Holy Spirit have existed from before creation, after creation, and all through our time, but were only revealed to us at certain points in time, but it doesn't matter to God, because time doesn't exist for Him.  Again, it's all relative.  He has always been the same Father, Son, & Holy Spirit.  It's a good mystery to ponder...  Again, not an expert, but just throwing some of my thoughts out there.

Tina

[Seeker]

Hi David,

The way I understand it is that there is a difference between "nature" and "person".  

"Nature" answers the question of  what.   "Person" answers the question of who.  Nature determines what a person can do, but the person does it.
-paraphrased from Theology for Beginners by F.J. Sheed

The way I see it, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, the Word of God has the nature of God.  However, he also has the nature of humanity.  To take on the nature of humanity, He was conceived at a point in time.  He did this so He could suffer since God cannot suffer due to His divine nature.  With human nature, he can suffer.  The natures are united "hypostatically" as the good Rev Eric put it, yet are two separate natures.  Therefore, the Son could "become flesh" without changing His divine nature (or the nature of the Godhead) because taking on human nature did not change the Person of the Son.

I am bad at explaining such things.  I hope it helps.

[tklein1014]

I am bad at explaining such things.

Me too, but I think you did a better job than I did at explaining the technical/logical side.  I had a really hard time putting my thoughts into technical/logical terms, but what you said is basically what I was trying to say regarding nature vs. person.  Thanks.

Tina

[Seeker]

Your reply Tina is actually what sparked me to go back and reread that section in F.J Sheed's book.  Sometimes I know the answer in my "gut," but I have a problem articulating it.  I sure don't have all the terminology down myself, so I depend on good books written by gifted folks like Sheed (or written by well-trained and gifted clerics like Rev Eric).  

I'm really glad David started this post.  Lots of heavy thinking.  

David sure makes a strong and logical philosophical argument.  Must be all that computer programming.  

[Rev. Eric]

I'm typing this on the Solemnity of the Annunciation and the breviary readings for today contained some great material written by Pope St. Leo the Great (from his letter "The Mystery of Man's Reconciliation With God").  In this letter St. Leo said some things that have bearing on the topic of this thread (concerning the mystery of the incarnation and the hypostatic union) so I thought I would post some quotes.  As you can see, like in my above post, St. Leo is addressing the issue of an unchanging God taking on a second nature (a human one) as an act of love to be in a relationship with humans and to allow our salvation.

"He who is true God was therefore born in the complete and perfect nature of a true man."

"He took the nature of a servant without stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself; though invisible he made himself invisible, though Creator and Lord of all things he chose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence. So he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant, man himself."

"Existing before time began, he began to exist at a moment in time. Lord of the universe, he hid his infinite glory and took the nature of a servant. Incapable of suffering as God, he did not refuse to be a man, capable of suffering. Immortal, he chose to be subject to the laws of death."

-Pope St. Leo the Great

If you would like to read the full text used in the breviary you may do so here:
http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=147

God bless,
-Rev. Eric