Catholic analytic philosopher Tim Pawl (University of St. Thomas, in Minnesota) argues that this is logically consistent: Jesus has both a divine and a human nature.
His answer is challenged by another talented young Catholic philosopher, Tomas Bogardus, of Pepperdine University. With their permission, I’ve reposted their dialogue from Facebook. I thought it deserved a wider audience.
From that same thread, I learned that Dr. Pawl is working on a book on the metaphysics of the Christology that comes from the “ecumenical” councils. I’ve thought and taught a good bit about those in recent years, and plan to discuss them in upcoming podcasts, so I look forward to seeing this book, and the discussion it will generate.
Which is mightier – this beard or this one?
You decide. I’ll weigh in with a comment later.
Here, unedited but for the addition of a few explanatory links (and a gratuitous picture), is their dialogue:
Tomas:
1. Christ’s divine nature is omniscient (but his human nature isn’t).
2. Anything that’s omniscient is a mind (a thinker, a knower).
3. So, Christ’s divine nature is a mind.But how’s about this?
4. Christ’s human nature is passible (capable of feeling and suffering).
5. Anything capable of feeling and suffering is a mind.
6. So, Christ’s human nature is a mind.And here’s a dilemma:
7. Either Christ’s human-nature-mind is identical with Christ’s divine-nature-mind or it isn’t.
8. If it is, then Christ’s mind has incompatible properties (from 1)
9. If they aren’t identical, then Christ has two minds.
10. One mind per person, please.
11. So, if Christ’s human-nature-mind is not identical with Christ’s divine-nature-mind, then there are two persons in Christ. (from 9, 10)
12. If there are two persons in Christ, then Nestorianism is true.
13. So, if Christ’s human-nature-mind is not identical with Christ’s divine-nature-mind, then Nestorianism is true. (from 11, 12)
12. So, either Christ’s mind has incompatible properties, or Nestorianism is true. (from 7, 8, and 13)And I think you want to avoid both of those. So where does the argument go wrong? Maybe premise 10? Is it consistent with Conciliar Christology to allow Christ to have two minds? (Or is 12 wrong and I misunderstood Nestorianism?)
Tim:
Hey Tomas! Here are some thoughts. Can I say “has” a mind rather than “is” a mind in 2 and 5? And I’d say that passibility might not require a mind, if we understand passibility to mean just casual affectability.
As for the dilemma, you are right that I would reject 10. In fact, I think the Conciliar Christologist ought to reject 10. The Councils are clear that Christ gets two of whatever comes with natures, one of whatever comes with persons. So they say explicitly that he has two wills, one divine and one human. And they say that he has two principles of action, which some folk take to mean (or include) two intellects. They don’t, so far as I know, say explicitly that he has two intellects (or minds), but I think they thought it.
So I say we replace 10 with:
10* One mind per rational nature, please.and then we all high-five, because we’ve avoided a problem for Conciliar Christology! Score!
Tomas:
Hm. Did the Councils use (the Latin for) “passibility” to mean causal affectability? I always thought it meant “able to feel and suffer.” (But I’m no part of a Church Council, so what do I know?)
One person with two minds, eh? I can probably come to terms with that. It’s easier than one God in three persons anyway.
But suppose we get rid of all talk of minds and talk instead only of knowers or thinkers. Whatever is omniscient is a thinker, a knower. So Christ’s divine nature is a thinker/knower. And whatever is capable of feeling/suffering is a thinker, a knower. So Christ’s human nature is a thinker/knower. Do we have one thinker/knower here or two? We don’t want to go the way of the one, or we’ll have that incompatible properties problem. So we have to say two: in Christ there were two thinkers, two knowers. Are we at Nestorianism yet?
And what’s this “in” business? What is it for there to be a thinker/knower “in” a person? I would have thought persons just *are* thinkers/knowers.
So, are you happy to say that in Christ there are two thinkers/knowers, just as there are two minds? If so, what’s it mean for there to be a thinker/knower IN a person, and how could one person have TWO thinkers/knowers in him?
Tim:
Hey Tomas. To the first point about passibility, I took the term to designate being on the receiving side of some (causal) activity. I was influenced by Gavrilyuk‘s book on impassibility on that score. I’ll have to look back to see how I define it in the book.
To the point about thinker/knowers, what are the truth conditions for a thing’s being a thinker/knower (tk)? Suppose that hylomorphic dualism is true, so that a human is composed of a soul, in virtue of which he thinks, and his matter, or body. In the embodied state, when I think on account of some activity of my soul, do we both (me and my soul) count as tks, or just one of us? I’m not sure what you’ll say here. I’ll consider a few options.
Suppose I’m the only tk. Maybe that’s because tks have to be persons. If being a person is a necessary condition for being a tk, then there is but one tk there in Christ, and the “in” is shorthand for saying that it is in virtue of two different things that he is a tk.
Maybe my soul is the tk. Maybe that’s because it is the thing doing the work, and I am somehow derivatively a tk, or a second-class tk. In such a case, there would be two thinkers in Christ. It would be one person with two things doing the thinking work, and the “in” functions to point to the workers.
Maybe we are both tks. But that doesn’t lead the hylomorphic dualist to claim that there are two persons there. Likewise, in the case of Christ, it wouldn’t be sufficient to prove that there are two persons there. (It would if personhood were a necessary condition for being a tk, but then we are back in the first option).
Though I don’t have the texts readily available now, Leo, in his Tome, gives a long list of the things the different natures do. It belongs to one nature, for instance, to weep, and the other to raise a man from the dead. There he says it belongs to one nature to say “the Father is greater than I” and the other to say “the Father and I are one.” Is that sufficient to show that there are two tks? If so, we couldn’t have nestorianism here (I know this is contentious and that there was a large schism after the council on a closely related point). Leo’s Tome was accepted at Chalcedon, and the fathers claimed there that Peter spoke through him.
Finally, concerning the first horn of the new dilemma, what would be the incompatible predicates apt of Christ, the tk in question? Would it be omniscient and lacking in knowledge?
Thanks!
Tomas:
To the first point about passibility, I took the term to designate being on the receiving side of some (causal) activity. I was influenced by Gavrilyuk’s book on impassibility on that score. I’ll have to look back to see how I define it in the book.
Did the Councils ever use it or define it? Did this come up in their discussion of Christology? If not I suppose we could use it as we’d like (noting perhaps that Gavrilyuk’s use is a bit unconventional.).
Suppose that hylomorphic dualism is true, so that a human is composed of a soul, in virtue of which he thinks, and his matter, or body. In the embodied state, when I think on account of some activity of my soul, do we both (me and my soul) count as tks, or just one of us? I’m not sure what you’ll say here.If someone else had asked me that, I would have said “Let me ask my friend Tim Pawl and get back to you.” So now that you ask me that I’m at a loss! I hope only one of us counts as the thinker/knower. Otherwise I’d think there are too many thinkers/knowers. And I hope it’s I who is the thinker/knower! I’d be quite disappointed to learn that I can’t learn, surprised to know I can’t know, etc.
Suppose I’m the only tk. Maybe that’s because tks have to be persons. If being a person is a necessary condition for being a tk, then there is but one tk there in Christ, and the “in” is shorthand for saying that it is in virtue of two different things that he is a tk.
Yes, I’d hope that I’m the only thinker/knower among me, my soul/form, and my body. (Isn’t my soul/substantial form sometimes said to be like a capacity or a principle or a power, presumably one that *I* exercise? It’s not a thing that thinks, right? It’s what explains *my* ability to think; rational souls aren’t themselves rational, they’re what explain our rationality. Right? Again, on this Thomistic metaphysics, I totally defer to you.) And I’d hope that there’s only one thinker/knower in the neighbourhood of Christ.
But the problem is that I can’t see how your view will allow you to say that, since you’d like to have it that there’s something omniscient in the neighbourhood of Christ, but anything omniscient is a thinker/knower, and so there’s an omniscient thinker/knower in the neighbourhood of Christ: Christ’s divine nature.
And also there’s something that can feel and suffer in the neighbourhood of Christ, anything like that is a thinker/knower, and so there’s a feeling/suffering thinker/knower in the neighbourhood of Christ. This is the thinker/knower who is NOT omniscient, according to you: Christ’s human nature.
And, finally, you’d like to have it that these two thinker/knowers are distinct: one omniscient, the other not. That seems to me to require too many thinkers/knowers in the neighbourhood of Christ.
And we haven’t even gotten to Christ himself! Presumably he’s a thinker/knower as well. So now we’re up to THREE: an unwelcome and pretty mysterious trinity in our theory. And one wonders whether Christ, that third thinker/knower, is omniscient or not, passible or not. The puzzle we posited two thinkers/knowers to solve re-emerges unsolved.
Maybe my soul is the tk. Maybe that’s because it is the thing doing the work, and I am somehow derivatively a tk, or a second-class tk.
I’d recommend not going this way, since “I’m derivatively a tk” and “I’m a second-class tk” are just gentle ways of saying “I’m NOT a thinker/knower.” But I certainly am a thinker/knower, as first-class as they come.
Finally, concerning the first horn of the new dilemma, what would be the incompatible predicates apt of Christ, the tk in question? Would it be omniscient and lacking in knowledge?
Yes, that’s roughly what I had in mind. But if we’re concerned that “lacking in knowledge” doesn’t pick out any legitimate property, we could put the problem just in terms of propositions. Three incompatible propositions would have to be true at the same time on this view: that Christ’s divine nature is omniscient, and that Christ’s human nature is not omniscient, and that Christ’s divine nature is identical with his human nature.
Tim:
Hey Tomas, thanks for all this. A few thoughts on it:
The councils do employ the language of passibility. They say things such as that the divine nature is impassible, the human nature is passible, and that the person is both passible and impassible. But, so far as I know, they do not define it anywhere. I’d be skeptical of reasoning that Gavrilyuk’s definition is unconventional because it isn’t jive with a contemporary dictionary. He’s a pretty sharp historical theologian! Here’s a place where Gavrilyuk describes impassibility in a way dissimilar to the dictionary definition: “divine impassibility is primarily a metaphysical term, marking God’s unlikeness to everything in the created order, not a psychological term denoting (as modern passibilists allege) God’s emotional apathy.”
I think that for Thomas, in the case of hylomorphic dualism, there is a loose sense of “thinker” in which the intellect, in the embodied state, is a thinker, but strictly speaking, the only thinker there is the person.
You want there to be only one thinker in Christ. Why not say that the one knower there, the person, is omniscient, since that person knows everything there is to know. He is not “not omniscient,” since there is nothing the person doesn’t know, even if, by means of his human intellect, there are some things he does not know.
You give two arguments. I’ll quote them here, interleaving in [brackets] what I think someone who says “only persons are thinkers” should say in response to them.
But the problem is that I can’t see how your view will allow you to say that, since you’d like to have it that there’s something omniscient in the neighbourhood of Christ [yes, the person, Christ], but anything omniscient is a thinker/knower [yes, Christ is a thinker/knower], and so there’s an omniscient thinker/knower in the neighbourhood of Christ: Christ’s divine nature [no! not the nature, the person! (leave aside divine simplicity for the moment, so that I don’t bleed out from my nose on to my keyboard)].
And also there’s something that can feel and suffer in the neighbourhood of Christ [yes, the person, Christ], anything like that is a thinker/knower [yes, the person is a t/k], and so there’s a feeling/suffering thinker/knower in the neighbourhood of Christ. This is the thinker/knower who is NOT omniscient, according to you: Christ’s human nature [no! I want the t/k, the only t/k there is around there (on the assumption that “only persons are thinkers”), to be both passible and omniscient. the human nature is not a person, so is not a t/k]
A note: I didn’t posit two thinkers to solve the incompatible predications problem. I tweaked the definitions of the predicates in question to have them both be apt of one and the same thing. That Christ has two distinct natures and two distinct wills is explicitly stated in the councils, and the meaning seems to be that he has two distinct intellects as well. I take that as data to be accommodated by a viable theory of conciliar christology.
Finally, the final inconsistent triad has a straightforward solution for the Conciliar Christologist. Christ’s divine nature is NOT identical to his human nature. The divine nature is uncreated but the human nature is not. The human nature is “flesh enlivened by a rational soul” but the divine nature is not, etc.
Thanks!!
That, my friends, is what respectful theological argument looks like.
Does Dr. Pawl prove his case?
Personhood ( subsistence) is what we are. It is the state of someone’s being.It has a name.
Nature( substance) is what we have. It is what essentially belongs to someone.
PRIOR THE INCARNATION
The only begotten Son of God is one person( subsistence) only. — John 1:1,14;18;3:16, 10:38-39
He has one nature(substance) only which is the indivisible nature of His own Father ( John 4:24, 10:28-30).
THE INCARNATION
subsistence – only one person which has only one name which is ‘Jesus’ ( Matthew 1:21).
substance – dual nature: ‘divine’ and ‘human’ ( Luke 1:35; John 1:1, 10:28-33; Colossians 2:9, Philippians 2:7).
The crux of the matter is that the Christ is one subsistence in two unmixed but united substances.
1 plus 1 equals 2
It is crucial to understand that nature is something that points to the ‘aptitude’ (natural ability) of a person while person-hood is the property that possesses or should I say ‘ instantiates’ the nature per se.
Also, the concept of the HYPOSTATIC UNION is helpful indeed:
Jesus gets hungry just like us. It’s because he is consubstantial with us.
Jesus could transform H20 into wine. It’s because he is of same nature with God.
It is clear that the personality of Jesus is irrelevant in ascribing actions or feelings because actions are simply different from attributes. The former subsists because of the latter.
The doctrine that Jesus has two natures (divine and human) has been traditionally spelled out to mean that the pre-existent (for “trinitarians” even “co-eternal”) divine person of the Son “assumed human nature”, meaning by that the divinity of the pre-existent (or “co-eternal”) Son-person became united to humanity, where humanity meant that “in Christ the soul was united to the body” (Summa Theologica, Third Part, Question 2)
So we have the inconsistency (or, to be kind, “paradox”) that while, on the one hand, it is proclaimed that “Jesus Christ was true man”, on the other hand the humanity of Jesus Christ apparently did not contribute anything to his personhood, because his was already fully and perfectly subsisting before the Incarnation.
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.” (Isaiah 7:14-15 ESV)
* When he ‘knows’ – At what age did he come to ‘know’? Was Jesus really a baby or another being disguised as a baby?
* Isaiah says Immanuel will be a normal baby.
The biographies/gospel records of Jesus, records his life as a human being – i.e. born as a baby, becomes a boy, then a man and then dies as a mortal.
Paul bears witness of his human life thus:
“but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:7-8 ESV)
If we take the pharse ‘being found in human form’ literally then Jesus before his exaltation was 100% human?
Now Jesus is also titled God. This can be be understood as having authority of God while on earth.
Possibilities:
* When Jesus came to earth then did he leave a spirit being of himself in heaven and brought down a human form so he could be fully God while in heaven and fully human while of earth?
* Did Jesus give up his divine status and was transformed to FULL man for 30+ years risking sin! I.e. using Trinity type formula, Jesus was Divine, became 100% mortal, regained divinity again.
* Jesus is the literal son of God through Mary, so he inherits divinity.
* But being God and Man at the same creates a new being which is neither God nor man nor angel! The blood of such a creature is also suspect that brings about salvation if the point of divine incarnation was to show mankind a lesson on holiness through a human priest.
* The purpose of Jesus as man – was it to show divinity locked in a human body or to show overcoming sin and destroying the works of the evil one by a mere human body?
* Also while Jesus was One year old, did he really know right from wrong let alone if he was divine and human?
“Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands” (Hebrews 2:7 KJV)
MADE lower than angels i.e. as human. Now God is above the angels and if Jesus was made lower than the angels he was below God and angels and was fully Human. He was not even equal to angels in his human form.
The writer to the Hebrews is further very explicit that he was indeed human:
“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:14-18 KJV)
Also according to Hebrews above, his human nature was essential to defeat sin, conquer death and bring about salvation. Also we are explicitly told that he did not inherit an angelic/heavenly nature but to be a descendant of Abraham – i.e. 100% human.
Hey Dale,
I don’t think you took anything I said uncharitably! And I look forward to you seeing the whole thing, too. Thanks again for the opportunity to discuss my views on your (really cool) blog.
Best,
Tim
Of course an incarnate Godman is possible.
In fact such a Radiant Being was born in New York on November the 3rd 1939. He then spent the next 69 years patiently explaining the all-embracing cultural significance of His Appearance here. He also knew that hardly anyone in our be-nighted times would recognize and thus respond to His all-pervasive Radiant Presence here (including those who presume to be serious about what is usually promoted as religion and Spirituality)
This auto-biographical reference describes His Life and Teaching.
http://www.kneeoflistening.com
This reference introduces the summation of His Revelation
http://www.adidam.org/teaching/aletheon
These two references provide His Iluminated Understanding of the life and teaching of Saint Jesus of Galilee
http://www.dabase.org/up-5-3.htm
http://www.aboutadidam.org/articles/secret_identity
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Thank you, Tim, for talking with us. Sorry if I took anything you said uncharitably. It is indeed hard to express much philosophical theology in three minutes! I look forward to seeing the whole version at some point.
Dear Mark,
Thank you for these responses. I will consider them in order:
To the first, you give two contexts in which to understand the claims I made in my earlier response. In the first context, you claim that (i) there seems to be no real union with the human nature. But I don’t see why that follows from the stuff you said before that. And I don’t see why (ii) the incarnation stops at the level of person. What are the arguments that (i) and (ii) follow from the previous claims about modes of subsistence? I’m not claiming that the reasoning isn’t there; I’m just claiming that I don’t see it.
Concerning the second context of the first reply, I would not think that the Conciliar Christologist would claim that a person is a real mind and an intellectual being. For the human nature assumed by Christ (call it CHN) both possessed a real mind and was aptly called an intellectual being. Also, you say that if Jesus is homoousios with you, then he must be a human person. But I took homoousios to mean that he has specifically the same type of nature as you do. And he does on this view; his CHN is the same type of thing as your nature is.
My preferred understanding of “person” is that a person is a hypostasis with a rational nature. And a hypostasis is a complete being that is not apt to inhere in something and is not sustained by another thing by means of assumption. On such a view (which I think we find in Aquinas, and Adams and Freddoso claim to be Ockham’s view) there are not two persons in Christ, since the human nature does not fulfill the conditions required to be a hypostasis, and so does not fulfill the conditions required to be a person.
Finally, to your second post, you claim there that the people you cite concede that the doctrine is not revealed in scripture. But earlier you said that they said that they knew the doctrine was against the Bible. I’m more comfortable with them saying something like, “the doctrine, as fleshed out by the church in all its robust glory, is not found explicitly in scripture” than I am with their saying “this doctrine, as fleshed out by the church it all its robust glory, is against the Bible.” If they say something more like the former than like the latter, I’m content.
Thanks again for the discussion.
Best,
Tim
Dr. Pawl,
You have asked me about my sources for Bellarmine and Petavius.
I have studied some of Bellarmine’s writing against the Protestant reformation and their interpretation of the Apocalypse many years ago.
I came to the knowledge of Erasmus’s antitrinitarian commentary through Peter Beitenholz’s Radical Erasmus. He basically interpreted all major Trinitarian texts in an Unitarian manner if you will. See Op. tom ix. p. 1034, & 1173. Many other texts are quoted by Beitenholz in his book.
See Bellarmine’s De Christo, lib. ii. c. 6
Masenius: Medit. Concord. opud Sandium p. 7,8 9-11
Petavius: De Trinitate, lib. iii. cap. xi. 9
Cardinal Hosius: Cont. Cathol. Fidei. Christ. c. 27
The concession is that this doctrine is not revealed in the Scripture, but taught by the church tradition, and Protestants are being inconsistent in their fight against the antitrinitarians pests.
John Locke had listed more such concession from Roman scholars of the greatest caliber in his loci.
Thanks,
Mark
Dr. Pawl,
Thanks for your kind explanation. Your description is exactly the difficult that I have, you nailed it.
But I also find your solution not satisfying, your solution, namely, Christ is a person, (the second person of the Trinity), and he is also a human (a body with rational faculty), thus this is sufficient to solve the “eis anthropos difficulty”.
Firstly, if I approach your solution in the clear Western context (by it I mean, the Roman teachers as well as Reformed Scholastic, they teach the same thing on this matter). A person is a mode of subsistence of the one God, which is an absolutely simple essence, suffers no distinction and absolutely out of the category of human language. So Christ is an eternal mode of subsistence of the one divine essence, while the Father is an eternal mode of subsistence of that one and self same divine essence, the only distinction is their mode of subsistence, yet the same numerical essence or being, with an internal dialectic, with the Holy Spirit as the consubstantial love between the F and the S, as the Synthesis of Hegel uniting the F (thesis) and the S (antithesis), and start again the new circle, within the one self same being . There seems to be no real union with the human nature, as the divine essence is totally, beyond any predication, so the incarnation really stops at the level of person (which is a mode), and touches not the essence (which is the substance).
Secondly, if I approach it in a different context, If I take person to be a real mind and an intelligent being, then I solve the difficulty of the Western numerical essence view (which I think is Sabellienism), but I fall into the original difficulty that I have, namely, a divine person who transform himself into a union with a human body, is in no wise a human person (if I am a human person, and Jesus is homoousios with me, he must be a human person), but a divine being in the form of a human or a human body animated by a divine spirit.
What do you think?
Thanks,
Mark
Dear Mark,
Thanks for your reply.
It sounds to me like the problem you see is as follows: According to the scriptures, Christ is a human person (eis anthropos). But, if Christ is a human person and also a divine person, then nestorianism is true. And Nestorianism is false. So Christ is not both a human person and a divine person. And Scripture makes it clear that he is a human person. So he is not a divine person.
Is that the difficulty?
Here’s a potential response a proponent of Conciliar Christology might give. While Christ is not a human person, he is a person (the Second Person of the Trinity) and he is a human. Consider whatever aptness conditions you take the predicate “is a human” to have (e.g., having a certain type of soul animating flesh, etc.). The Second Person fulfills those conditions on account of his union with the human nature. And so Christ is called “human” in a way entirely univocal to the way in which you are called human. And he is a person. Isn’t this sufficient to capture the meaning of the biblical passages you have in mind? If not, which passages are they, and why is it insufficient for their interpretation that Christ be both (i) human and (ii) a person? Why must he also be, in addition, a human person (where “human person” requires for its aptness conditions something more than (i) and (ii) above)?
Concerning the biblical witness about Christ and the Conciliar texts, I find Leo’s Tome to be an amazing text (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3604028.htm). There he argues for what came to be the Chalcedonian formula from scriptural evidence. You might look there to see how (or if) he interprets the texts you find problematic. The version I linked above has the scriptural passages cited and linked.
Did Bellermine and Petavius really say that they believed the doctrine of the Trinity to be *against the Bible*? Where did they say it? I haven’t read as much of either author as I ought to have, but I’d be shocked if either said that the doctrine of the trinity is inconsistent with the teachings of Holy Scripture.
Best,
Tim
Dr. Pawl,
I am seriously struggling myself, I am most part a subordinationist, like in my study most of the ante-Nicene church fathers, Dale categorize this as a form of Unitarianism, I think he is quite right, as I believe God is one single person, and Jesus is God’s son (either another divine being eternally caused, as weird as it may to some, but now I myself find difficulty to this view) .
My problem is that Jesus is man in a generic sense, but he cannot be eis anthropos or a human person, for that is straight Nestorianism. Besides Nestorianism, the only solutions seems to be Unitarianism of Socinus that Jesus is a human being born of Mary, that indeed solves a lots of troubles.
In this point, I found the great Catholic scholars St. Bellarmine and Petavius alike are more honest than the Protestants, because Bellarmine and Petavius accepted the Trinity due to the church authority, they know it is against the Bible. But the Protestants are not sincere, they claim to Bible only, but they believe in this particular Western doctrine that has no support in the Bible. Due respect for the honesty of Bellarmine and Petavius.
Thanks to you all for your comments, and to you especially, Dale, for posting this exchange. I’d like to respond a bit to a few claims here, but first I think it would be good for me to present my view here, since it seems that it might not have come across as I intended it to.
The view I presented in the video (and defend in much greater detail and length in Chapter 6 of the book I’m working on, which I am happy to share; email me for a copy) is as follows. Christ is aptly and truly called both passible and impassible. So say the Conciliar texts, and so I accept in my discussion of the coherence of those texts. But those terms go undefined. Here are the truth conditions I claim that “passible” and “impassible” could have, and, if they had these truth conditions, then this particular charge of incoherence can be avoided.
Passible – “x is passible” is true just in case x has a nature such that it (that nature) can be causally affected by other things.
Impassible – “x is impassible” is true just in case x has a nature such that it (that nature) cannot be causally affected by other things.
These natures I point to, as Dale points out, are not properties or modes. As I mention in the video, I take the human nature to be, as the conciliar texts say, “flesh enliven with a rational soul.”
With these terms defined as I have defined them above, we can say aptly and truthfully of Christ, the person, (and not merely of any particular nature) that HE is impassible and that HE is passible – for he, the person, has a nature that can be casually affected and also a different nature that cannot be casually affected. The predicates here are applied to the person, and no contradiction follows, given the definitions of the terms, and given that Christ has two natures (I have a long section working out the logic of this view in the aforementioned chapter).
Ok, with the view restated, on to the comments.
To Malachicanuck’s first comment: thanks for it. I think it is nicely put. Suppose for a moment that you think in virtue of some work some part of you does, and further that there is more to you than just that part. Maybe the part is your brain, or your soul, and you are a whole organism composed of more than merely the brain or merely the soul. Now suppose you think “I am an organism.” To do so, on this view, your part must do the work of forming this thought. When the part forms that belief, does the “I” refer to just the part, or to the whole person? If the “I” refers to the part, then it is false – the part is not its own organism. If it refers to the whole of which it is a part, then it is true.
Now in the Christ case, the human intellect’s self-identifying thoughts refer to the whole person, or just the intellect, or to the human nature as a whole. Depending on what the “I” refers to, we can avoid the charges of Nestorianism or self-contradiction. If the “I” refers to the human nature, then it is true that there are two exclusive thoughts of self-identity. In such a case, the “I” refers to “this nature,” and it is true that “this divine nature is not identical to that human nature.” But that doesn’t lead to nestorianism, so far as I can tell. If the “I” refers to the whole person, then we do not get two mutually exclusive thoughts of self-identity. In such a case, the Logos would be thinking “I am the Logos” and both intellects could truthfully think that, given that the “I” refers to the Person, and the person is the Logos!
To Mark: It should be clearer now that I do not believe that the predicates are apt of the nature-but-not-the-person. They are apt of the person, as I have defined them. Which theory is it that you cannot find satisfaction to? If you spell it out for me, maybe I could try to give you some satisfaction. 🙂 Or maybe it would provide me another objection to consider in my manuscript.
To Dale: Thanks for the extended and careful comments, Dale! I’ll try to say a bit in response to most of your points below (I’m sorry this is getting long).
I do not take the councils to be more authoritative than the Bible. But I do take them to speak nothing but truth when it comes to the incarnation. If there were a contradiction in there, that’s a game-ender for Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy, too, I think.
In answer to your last point in comment 5, I think that the human nature REALLY is aptly characterized by the predicate “passible.” I’d rather not talk about properties, if properties are understood as the things in virtue of which at least some predicates are apt. So far as I can tell, different ontologies of properties will say different things about how the properties work with Christ (e.g., does both the human nature and the divine person instantiate the platonic form of passibility?; are there two tropes of impassibility or one?, etc.). But every conciliar christologist will need to assert as true the predications “Christ is passible” and “Christ is impassible.”
In comment 6, you note that my first response is to ask whether I could say “has” rather than “is.” That wasn’t meant as a response to the problem (though I can see how you read it that way), but as a clarification. And I don’t think it crazy to ask whether we could say “anything omniscient HAS a mind” rather than “anything omniscient IS a mind.” I didn’t mean “has” a thinker. I did not take the parenthetical to be providing predicates in addition to “a mind,” though I see now that I should have.
Now the mysterious trinity: to the question of “how many thinkers?” in the incarnation, I think it is important to know what the truth conditions are for being aptly predicated by “a thinker.” As I’ve pointed out before, given different theories of the truth conditions, different answers will apply. From my point of view, the solutions to the problem of too many thinkers in the personal identity literature will provide solutions (or potential solutions) here, too.
As for divine simplicity – I left it to one side because I was claiming that the divine nature is not the knower, the person is, and we were discussing the divine intellect as well. But if simplicity is true, then at least the nature and the intellect collapse into one being. But I didn’t (and don’t) want to get into that, since the incarnation was (and is) the topic of discussion. I wasn’t worried about Christ having parts or something analogous to parts. The old dogma manuals have sections called “the composite Christ.” So far as I can tell, composition (or something analogous with standard composition) is taken for granted in the incarnation by Catholic dogmatists.
You are right that I say that the one Christ is the thinker there. But recall that I was trying to go along with Tomas’s view that only he is the thinker in the hylomorphism case (and not his soul). I wasn’t taking a stand, but trying to answer the objection from the objector’s standpoint.
Your final point concerns whether the objection arises again on my view. For, you claim, on my view the whole person of Christ is incapable of being causally affected. It should be clear from my earlier presentation of my view that this is not what I think. Yes, the whole person is impassible. But the truth conditions for “is impassible” as I defined it in the video and here do not entail that the person is incapable of being affected in any way.
And you are right: the claim I made in the video was not developed at length. I was given 3 minutes to answer the question, and I couldn’t get the view entirely developed in that time. That fact makes me all the more appreciative that you have hosted this conversation, where the view can get aired more fully, and where it can get good objections and responses from you and your learned readers.
Best!
Tim
Bogardus above puts his finger on a problem for the theory. If the human nature is really what has, say, limited knowledge, or limited ability to intentionally act, then it looks like that human nature must be a self, a human being. But (1) the councils deny that – they assert Christ to be “human” but not “a human”, (2) looking at the whole NT, that seems one too many selves in that particular body, and (3) the tradition rejects this as the heresy of “Nestorianism”, Nestorius being a theologian who thought the eternal Logos mysteriously united with a human being – not merely with a rational soul and body, but with a man.
Pawl’s initial response is: “Can I say “has” a mind rather than “is” a mind in 2 and 5 [of Bogardus’s argument above]?”
It would seem not. To be omniscient, or limited in knowledge, one must be a thinker, a subject of thought. Just “having” a thinker… what does that mean? Having a thinker as a part? That would not obviously make an object itself a thinker. But what isn’t conscious, can’t be omniscient.
Seeing as how it’s the first day of class, I’ll have to not reopen the can of worms about Thomistic-style dualism.
But Bogardus presses the worry about how many thinkers are in this Christology. It would two (the divine nature, and the human nature) but also there’s this third thing, Christ – seemingly, the whole which the first two compose. Surely, he’s a thinker. So, “an unwelcome and pretty mysterious trinity”. And not the one you’ve heard of!
Pawl, in his response, wants to “leave aside divine simplicity for the moment” – presumably because Christ is God, but (on this theory) he has parts, and so divine simplicity would be false. But with Bogardus pressing him, he seems to say that it is REALLY the whole Christ, possessor of the natures, which is the one thinker her. So it is the whole Christ who is omniscient *because* he has a divine nature, and who is knowing but less than omniscient *because* he has a human nature. And it is the whole Christ who is incapable of being causally affected (because of his divine nature) and that same Christ, at the same time or eternally, is capable of being causally affected (because of his human nature).
But, we’re back to the problem we started with – one and the same being, being and not being the same way at the same time. It matters not why, it seems to me. If you say that Dale likes cheese and doesn’t like cheese (in the same way, at the same time) – it doesn’t matter what supposedly explains each side of the contradiction.
I think this exchange brings out that Pawl’s claim in the video is not developed enough. It’s not enough to point at relativizing predicates or properties to natures. Bogardus and I assumed that he meant that it was really, or primarily the natures which had the properties in question. But if it is instead Christ… well, as I said, the contradiction remains.
Now a few substantial comments. Note that Pawl explicitly bases everything on the “ecumenical” councils. He makes no claim that this is wholly founded on, or best explains the scriptures. As Catholic, I assume that he holds the authority of the Church to me more basic than that of the Bible. So his starting point, roughly speaking, is this: http://www.creeds.net/ancient/chalcedon.htm
The key move is that any predicate which applies to Christ does so because of at least one of his natures. The sources require, e.g. that he’s both mutable and not – so it must be that he has one nature which is mutable (the human one) and another which is not (the divine one).
It seems to me that this requires treating natures not merely as properties or modes, but as parts of the owner. This is a common way we get rid of contradictions. “I was hot and cold.” This appears contradictory, but may not be. I’m shovelling snow with fur hat one. Some parts – hands, feet, face – are quite cold. But my head is quite hot, because of my super-warm rabbit fur hat. (Sadly, this is not a mere thought experiment.) There is nothing here which is at one time hot and not hot. Rather, these are distinct parts of my body, and some are hot while others are not.
Do the councils allow the “natures” of Christ to be parts, or like parts of him?
I don’t know.
Also, though Pawl clearly wants to relativize properties or predicates to natures, I’m not entirely sure what he’s doing. Does the human nature REALLY have the property of passibility, and the whole person Christ is, because of this, merely SAID to be “passible”? Or does the human nature somehow literally share or pass on that property to Christ?
This exchange illustrates why I love philosophers doing theology. Pawl doesn’t wave his hands and intone “mystery” – he makes a suggestion about how the tradition might be understood, one which, he hopes, will get rid of any contradictions. e.g. that one and the same thing is, at the same time, omniscient and not omniscient. Is he a “rationalist”? No! He wants to show there is no contradiction because he thinks it is true (that Christ is one person with two natures, one human, the other divine).
And Bogardus – unlike many a theologian, he doesn’t muse about whether this “savors of Nestorianism.” He provides an argument that Pawl’s solution logically entails it, and then, politely, says, show us where this goes wrong. Not because he’s a “skeptic”, but because he wants a solution which seems true.
AND Pawl makes a good faith effort to answer his concerns.
“According to Drake, Jesus’s mind is divine, the human mind is only speaking of a rational faculty, but the human mind does not have any personal use of this rational faculty,”
Lets look at mark 13:32 and see how it works with these theories,
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the passive intellectual unused faculty of the Son, but only the Father.
Dr. Pawl believe it is consistent to be both infinite and finite, all knowing and not all knowing, because these predicates speak of each nature, but not person. So since Jesus has two natures, he can be both all knowing and not all knowing. The root problem is that he treats God as a nature an essence, but not a person, which is the standard for Roman Catholic and Reformed Presbyterian alike.
The thing that Sir Anthony raised, namely Jesus in the traditional teaching is a human speaking of a generic nature, but he is not a human person, for a human person and a divine person are two persons (Nestorianism). I have searched all able teachers, commentators and scholars I can find and I have found no satisfaction to this theory. It simply just won’t work with the Bible, who calls Jesus, eis anthropos, and o anthropos.
According to Drake, Jesus’s mind is divine, the human mind is only speaking of a rational faculty, but the human mind does not have any personal use of this rational faculty, thus Jesus has two wills (but only one gnomie, or hypostastic use of the faculty of will), but only one person. I tried very hard, but I don’t think that makes any sense at all.
I’m no philosopher, but it seems one has to delve into semantic gymnastics and ambigious metaphysics to try to avoid the contradiction or nestorianism of the incarnation.
In fact, I’ve talked to many trinitarians who adopt Apollinarism to avoid the implications of Christ having two minds without knowing it’s a heresy to avoid being nestorian…lol
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the human mind of christ, could not be an athiest, not could it be crazy, it has to be perfect and truthful. Since the human mind of christ must be truthful and perfect, then, necessarily it would have to rightfully believe it’s human in identity, as is the perimeters of a truthful human mind, the same goes with the divine mind. The issue is, is that you would have two mutually exclusive thoughts of self identity, leading to nestorianism, or a self contradiction. In fact, you would have two minds, and both minds would know about each other, and know they are not the same as each other.
Thoughts?
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