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Christology and Heresy 4 – Nestorianism Proper (JT)

Don't let my flowing white locks fool you. I have sound ideas.

In the last post, I explained that an individual human nature is indiscernible from an individual human person.

The Nestorianism takes this point very seriously. As she sees it, if the Word (= the second person of the Trinity) assumes a complete individual human nature, then the Word assumes a discrete human person too, for a complete individual human nature is completely indiscernible from a discrete human person. But the Word is already a discrete person, namely a divine person, so the question is this: is the divine person identical to the assumed human person?

It would seem that the answer is no. For instance, one could point out that if x and y are the very same thing, then they must share all the same properties. But the divine person and the human person in Christ do not share all the same properties. For example, the divine person does not grow or take in nutrients, while the human person does. So the divine person must not be the same as the human person.

But that means there are two distinct persons in Christ: a divine person and a human person. And that is precisely what Nestorianism claims: there are two natures, and two persons in Christ.

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