“Classic” (i.e. mainstream catholic, Platonic) Christian theism holds that God is timeless, and so incapable of any change whatever.
And they add: the Word is God, and the Word became flesh.
Sounds like a change, doesn’t it? First, the Word is simply divine, and a moment later, he’s entered into a “hypostatic union” with a “complete human nature.”
Reformed philosophical theologian James Anderson takes a crack at this one. (HT: Triablogue.) I much like his set-up. I’m less keen on the solution. Short answer: it’s a mystery (apparent contradiction). You’ll have to read his post to see why I chose this pic.
A few quick comments: first, I’m with Craig. I don’t think his position implies any change in God. Rather: if God hadn’t created, he’d be timeless. But given that God has created, he’s “in time.” It seems to me that if there is time, there’s no where else to be. Our spatial metaphors (“outside” time, “above” time) are wrongheaded. So are the trapping metaphors (e.g. “bound by” time). If God freely chose to create, then he freely chose to operated “in time” and he’s not been “trapped” by anything other than logical consistency. Anderson wants there to be paradox (apparent contradiction) in Craig’s view, but I don’t see it.
Like many Christian philosophers, I agree with this crucial point by Anderson:
…the biblical statements about God not changing needn’t be taken in a way that rules out change in any sense. The focus in these texts is on God’s character and his faithfulness to his promises.
That’s right. So the “fathers” never had any good scriptural grounds for their belief in divine timelessness. It was all based on philosophical reasons, and I would say bad ones at that. But that’s another post.
The line that God only appears to change, but doesn’t really change, implies that he cannot ever genuinely respond to human beings. He does not open himself to be influenced either way by us. And arguably, that makes a real friendship with God impossible. But that such is possible, is at the very heart and soul of the whole Bible.
On to qua-stuff:
…we should say that Jesus was omniscient with respect to his divine natureand gained wisdom with respect to his human nature. On this basis, it seems natural to say that God the Son is timeless and unchangeable with respect to his divine nature but temporal and changeable with respect to his human nature.
The problem with this is that it seems that what you know-in-a-nature, you know. And what you don’t-know-in-a-nature, you don’t know. So this seems no improvement on just saying that Jesus knows and doesn’t know something, or that he knows all, and doesn’t know some. Oddly enough, I think James would agree.
Again, if some self has an essential nature which requires X, then he himself must be X. So with the two-natured Jesus, if the divine nature requires the impossibility of change, then Jesus can’t change. And if his human nature requires the possibility of change, then Jesus can change. So he can and he can’t.
But, he did. So, he can. Ergo, he was not divine and/or divinity doesn’t require the impossibility of change. Ergo, “classic” incarnation theory appears to be inconsistent with itself.
Again, I think James would agree! But maybe he’ll set me straight.
Marg
I totally agree!
Samuel Clarke came as a pleasant ‘bolt from the blue’ and I would like to know more about him.
There’s a point I forgot to make about “God the Son’ and it was this –
We generally agree that if (a) = (b) then
(b) MUST = (a)
TRINITARIANS talk about God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit-
BUT one cannot say the opposite (if you are a trinitarian).
You can’t say “Father is God’ because you define “God’ as being more than “Father’
If Samuel Clark had taken a course on “Numerical identity’ with Dale Tuggy – he would have ‘cleaned up’ Daniel Waterfield and his detractors.
Just one more thing-
If you examine the entry on ‘Trinity’ in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – and measure all of the possible theoretical models against the two points that Dale mentioned – i.e.
-God is the Father(never a substance or a nature)
-The Son is never the Father
there is NO self-consistent model which proves ‘proves’ a trinity.
I too am dying to receive Dales next episode on his spiritual ‘evolution’
Every Blessing
John
I agree with you, John. I was just wondering whether anyone knew of the SPECIFIC source.
To tell you the truth, I was surprised to see “God the Son” in the title of Dale’s article; but I assume he was talking to (and therefore in the language of) trinitarians.
By the way, I’m beginning to realize that I am not a “unitarian” at all. At least, not in the way it is being described by you and Dale. I am rather a whatever-you-call-Samuel-Clarke. I have never studied philosophy and don’t know all the labels (except for some of the pejorative ones!). I only know that what I have read of Samuel Clarke expresses what I have concluded from my own study of the Bible.
But I will wait until I read Dale’s last autobiographical article before I stick my neck out too far.
Hi Marg
The short answer is that “God the Son” is a product of human rationalisation.
You may be interested to consult a Greek Interlinear Bible regarding the words you encounter.
“Son of Man’ is interesting, in that it is literally reflected as ‘son of the human’
One has to exercise caution with the Interlinear bibles, since they often reflect only texts which are favourable to a specific doctrinal viewpoint. I have discovered that on many occasions there are alternative texts available.
Best Wishes
John
I just read through this – rather quickly, I admit – but I can find no source for the title “God the Son”. Where did that come from?
I see Samuel Clarke mentioned again. That’s a man I wish I could have met.
Hi Katie
I agree that there is often a lack of precision with the way certain scriptures are crafted and I guess that this is due to the ‘humanity’ of the authors.
Until quite recentlyI was perplexed by certain words and word groupings.
For example, if “Mike” was with “Jim” – how can Mike possibly be Jim?
Of course if “Mike’ was not a person it can make sense.
The concept of Christ as ‘Creator’ is ‘interesting’ and to be sure certain scriptures seem to assert just that.
In the OT numerous verses testify the God who created the heavens and the earth.
A few NT verses refer to Christ as creator – but Unitareians believe that He IS the new Adam, the author of a new covenant between God and man, and ‘creator of all things new’
The idea of ‘pre-existent Christ as creator ‘ requires a great deal of explanation – and I am pleased to see that Dale has promised to tackle the issue in a future post.
You mention Revelation 19 v13 and my quick answer to the rider being stiled ‘the Word of God’ – refers to the fact that Christ is the fulfilment of Gods great plan.
While in that immediate context, Dale has dealt with the issue of the ‘name that no-one knows’ in an earlier post (see discourse on Daniel Waterworth). “Domain’ is critical in analysing this verse.
I find Revelation intriguing, and I have not found anyone brave enought to state that he/she fully understands the book.
Consider
In Chapter 4 we see a being on the throne -who is surrounded by the whole of creation.
The Kings and the creatures sing
“Our Lord and God
You are worthy to receive glory and honour and power
For YOU created all things and by your will
They were given existence and life”
Note that there was a Lamb among the assembled throng who was JUDGED worthy to open the scroll.
Later on we see the Wedding of ‘Lamb’ with his Church, and the final battle between good and evil. In the end of Revelation God becomes ‘all in all’ forever and ever.
Can any serious person really tell me that ‘the Lamb’ who was exalted – becomes the Lord God Almighty.
The fact that the prologue to Revelation states that the revelation was GIVEN to Christ by God indicates that even in his ‘exalted’ state, Christ is not omniscient.
My view would be re-inforced by 1 Corithians 15 v 28 – Christ is placed under God -so that God can become ‘all in all’.
Sorry to ramble on- and hope this helps!
Every Blessing
John
Hi Katie,
Some trinitarian translators translate: And the Word was divine, or and the Word was what God was. In my view, the point could be that it’s not someone else; let’s not think this is another agent helping Yahweh – it’s just Yahweh.
Yes, Jesus can be called by the title, “Word of God”. But note that this doesn’t occur anywhere later in John’s gospel.
About the alleged Jesus-created-the-cosmos texts – the one you cite I take to actually be about the new creation. This takes some time to properly address, though – I hope to do it in a future post, maybe the last in my autobiographical series.
John & Dale,
I follow you, but why “the Word WAS God”? Why not the Word was God’s or was of God? It just seems a bit sloppy if it wasn’t intended to mean what it seems to say (and there seems to be an awful lot of verses like it).
John, I largely agree with your analysis of John 1/Genesis 1. However, I dispute the interpretation that the messiah was just foreseen by or the fulfillment of God’s Word (or Wisdom or Plan or whatever). The text seems to say that Christ IS the Word. Also Rev 19:13 “and the name by which he is called is The Word of God” and Col. 1:16 “in him [the Son] all things were created…”
If Dale’s analogy is applicable here, then why would creation be attributed to Jesus?
Hi Katie – yes, I substantially agree with John here. Comparison: Jefferson’s dream became a house. This is true, but there is no thing which first a dream or idea, later a house in Virginia.
Hi Katie
Dale recently stated that he was ‘dragged’ to the Unitarian position by
(i) The scriptures
(ii) The desparate problems faced by every Trinitarian theory ‘out there’
I find myself in the same position
Being a relative newcomer , I’m probably not the right person to respond to the issues you raised- but here goes !
I believe that the “Word’ is NOT a person but God’s creative wisdom , or God’s plan for a creation.
In other words, God planned everything -and even provided for a Messiah because he foresaw man’s ‘fall’
So when I see verses like Revelation 13v8 I ask ‘was the Lamb really slain before the foundations of the World”? -or was this just the outworking of God’s great plan?
You interpreted the words ‘the Word became flesh’ as raising the possibility that ‘the Word’ changed. In my understanding ‘the Word’ never changed-it merely became fulfilled in a man.
John Chapter 1 causes a great deal of confusion -but much of this is resolved when one understands that John Chapter 1 is a mirror image of Genesis Chapter 1.
In the latter verses 3, 6,9,11, 14, 20, 24 and 26 begin with the words “And God SAID’
So it is by his ‘Word’ that God created the heavens and the Earth as part of His mighty plan.
You may be perplexed by the use of the words ‘him’ in John 1 verses 2 &3. Protestant Bibles up to the Douis Rheims Bible of 1582 used the word ‘it’; thereafter the Catholic interpretation was adopted.
Refer to Tyndale Bible 1534 Great Bible 1539
Geneva Bible 1560 Bishops Bible 1568
Some people say that verses 2&3 were written to refute Gnostic thinking that God required an ‘intermediary’ through which ‘matter’ could be created. Whatever the truth of it, God had a PLAN and executed it.!
John 1 verse 14 does not give Unitarians a problem – God’s PLAN included a Messiah and became manifest in a man , Jesus.
In case one misinterprets verse 1 – 17, verse 18 makes it clear that no man has ever seen God!
And in case one still misinterprets Johns gospel as a whole , John finally summarises his mission in Chapter 20 verse 31 ” and these are written that you may come to know that Jesus is Messiah , the Son of God…”
Dale Tuggy recently quoted something from Rev Samuel Clarkes book of 1712- I havn’t got the exact words handy- but they are to the effect that if you examine any of the Trinitarian ‘proof-texts’ which seem to say “Jesus = God” you will find that in the immediate context that the author assumes them to be TWO (persons)”
Hope this helps
Every Blessing
John
““Classic” (i.e. mainstream catholic, Platonic) Christian theism holds that God is timeless, and so incapable of any change whatever.
And they add: the Word is God, and the Word became flesh.
Sounds like a change, doesn’t it?”
Information transfer. When I type a sentence, the sentence (the meaning; the identity) is unchanging, even though electrical impulses turn into pixels on a screen. When the Word became flesh he took on a new medium. The Word itself does not change.
As far as time goes, I don’t claim to understand it well, but it’s clearly a dimension of the physical universe, not some absolute principle. I fail to see how God (the Father), being creator of spacetime, could be subject to one of its dimensions.
This is a bit off topic, but I am curious how you (Dale, or any other unitarians) interpret “the Word was God.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen it discussed by a non-trinitarian. I’d probably be a convinced unitarian right now if it wasn’t for John 1…idk if that’s a good or a bad thing! 🙂
I suppose Craig’s view is that God was originally atemporal and then both atemporal and temporal after he created time. I fall somewhere along these lines while, unlike Craig, I strongly lean toward open futurism. So God is originally atemporal; for example, an infinite past arrow of time could never have passed. And since the creation of time, the essential properties of God by definition have remained unchanged and unmoved. I also, like Craig, carry this view into the Incarnation of the Son.
James Goetz wrote:
I just looked into Wikipedia in order to know what is Apollinarianism and Nestorianism.
First, my christology is very uncertain: My supposition about incarnation of Christ ranges from man Jesus being just a radio-controlled robot, to body of the man Jesus completely representing properties of Christ. These supposition seem to contradict to each other, and I don’t know what side to choose.
In the end of my writing http://endofgospel.org/online/whatis.xhtml is said that people indeed think with brain and this does not contradict to Christian doctrine of soul and spirit. No doubt Jesus had a brain. I suspect that this brain was fulfilling the function to exactly accomplish what God was delivering to him with radio-waves.
In the comment 14 (about Luk. 2:40) I wrote that Christ probably has not only God’s wisdom but also human wisdom. I suspect human wisdom of Jesus was developed in order for him to be able to exactly follow the will of God for him, just like Mars rover “Spirit” was accomplishing the commands of people.
That is, I don’t know what incarnation of Christ means. I have several conjectures but not a certain theory.
The most appealing view for me is that Jesus was artificially made conforming to the standards to which a man should conform and thus was in a sense a man, despite of really being God. This was to fulfill the warranty or insurance which is soul of people (see the URL above for this my theory) in order to save them. I will think more about this.
Hi Victor, Do you agree that your Christology incorporates elements from both Apollinarianism and Nestorianism?
One problem is that if he can do it by a certain power, he can do it. So, we’re back to, he knows and doesn’t know something. Suppose I can’t locomote with my legs, but I can with my arms and hands. Then, you can say that I can locomote as strong-armed, but not locomote as paraplegic. But at bottom, I just can locomote.
So if Jesus knows that P because of his divine powers… he knows that P, right? That he doesn’t know that P by his human powers… well, that’s interesting, but still, he knows it. So then, why all thing feigning ignorance, and how can he assert that he doesn’t know the day or the hour?
I’d have to go back and look at Chalcedon’s documents to see how much attention they paid to omniscience…
In my view, you suggested account, though ingenious, fails for another reason. My colleague Andy Cullison published a piece in Phil Christi urging this line, but I’ve never bought it, for the simple reason that the kind of knowledge we should think a greatest possible being has, is perfectly perspicuous, direct, conscious awareness of all that was, is, and will be. This is what we think God has – not just the ability to become aware of anything. It’s not like omnipotence. He doesn’t have to hunt, e.g. to remember things, or perform some task in order to know something.
Imagine that God gives me access to his computer (a very fancy Apple, no doubt). I can write any query, and it’ll give me the answer. This doesn’t make be omniscient, we’ll agree. Now move it into my brain or soul – God’ll just let me tap into his mind, and whatever I ask in some way, the truth pops into my mind. This doesn’t make me omniscient, does it? I would say not, even the all truths are accessible to me.
Perhaps your suggested strategy would better be taken as a form of kenosis theory, where omniscience just isn’t essential to divinity, but rather the ability to know all (we don’t really have a word for that). But then, would omniscience just be an implication of omnipotence? But that too, in kenosis, isn’t essential to divinity. (Rather, something like omnipotent-unless-freely-incarnated-to-save-humanity.) So if you’ve taken that line on omnipotence, there would be no way to make omniscience essential to a divine being. Of course, what would be essential could be something like omniscient-unless-freely-incarnated-for-salvation-of-humans.
The problem with kenosis, though, is that we’re going hard against both scripture and Anselmian intuitions about what divinity implies…
Per Comment 8, I suppose that Victor proposes Apollinarian-Nestorian Christology.
Does (Luk. 2:40) “The child was growing, and was becoming strong in spirit, being filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.” imply that wisdom of Jesus was increasing in his childhood? (This is a hard Greek grammar exercise.)
If indeed we should believe that the wisdom of Jesus was increasing (while He is God and wisdom of God is already maximal), then I have a possible explanation whose essence is that Jesus had two different wisdoms: God wisdom and human wisdom.
If it will turn out that Luk. 2:40 demands that the wisdom of Jesus was increased not given at once, then I will write a blog post with my theory explained two different wisdoms of Jesus (provided that we need that theory of two wisdoms at all, not just stating that Luk. 2:40 does not demand that the wisdom of Jesus was increasing).
Victor, basically all Christians reject the idea of two selves, the man Jesus vs. the spirit Christ. The main reason is that it is obvious from the NT that those terms co-refer – they are two words for one being, like “Victor” and “Mr. Porton.” Also, if you accept catholic tradition, they rejected this Jesus vs. Christ distinction when dealing with the gnostics, and in the whole Nestorian episode.
So the radio controlled robot theory is not remotely plausible, really to any sort of Christian, trinitarian or unitarian.
That’s right. And this is across the board when it comes to people’s positions on the Trinity and Incarnation.
I’d be careful about charges that modern trinitarians “don’t worship the same God” just because, e.g. they reject timelessness. They can say it is indeed the same God, just understood better. Also, keep in mind that for a good bit of Christian history, a lot of unitarians also accepted those claims, or some of them, the so-called “Arians” being the most obvious case.
On the face of it, it is amazing that Christians would divide over something like that.
No! Being 3 ft tall is an intrinsic property (if there are properties). Perhaps you mean, do I agree that his essential properties never changed?
Sure, but the point is trivial. If some feature is essential, the thing must have it so long as it exists. In other words, it is a contradiction to say that something either gained or lost an essential property, without coming into or going out of existence.
Interesting post Dale. There has been immense discussion about the incommunicable attributes which classical theism found necessary to ascribe to God. Along with Immutability and Timelessness there was the attribute of Simplicity. However all three are under major attack by religious scholars and philosophers. One begins to wonders whether the modern defenders of Trinitarian doctrine who reject some of these attributes assigned to God by their doctrines formulators can still call themselves orthodox if they reject the very precepts about God that the formers of the Trinitarian creeds accepted as necessary. The God of some modern Trinitarians who claim orthodoxy is not the same God as that worshipped by the first Trinitarians and medieval doctors. Yet, as you know too well, Dale, it’s the Unitarians who are called heretics – go figure.
For example, the anathema attached to the Nicene Creed of 325 AD anathematized those who would claim that the Son was mutable or changeable. Yet more modern systematic theologians have no problem allowing for change in the Son but not for change in the essence. How ad-hoc can you get?
A good example of something which does not change but external manifestation of what changes, is a CD disk. The CD disk does not change over time but music it plays changes over time.
Christ is that CD disk and man Jesus is a music in this example.
I suspect that the man Jesus was just like a radio-controlled robot where the one who controls is Christ. That the controlled man does change does not imply that Christ changes.
Well, that my theory of radio-controlled robot may contradict to (Col 2:9) “For in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily”. That verse makes to think that Christ was really in the body not an external controller.
Anyway the man Jesus was an external manifestation of Christ who does not change as clearly said in Heb. 1:12, but his external manifestation may change.
Dale said,
But Dale, do you agree that the intrinsic properties of Christ never changed? 🙂
“Christ does not change”
He changed from being a boy, to being a man, for starters…
Dale – Don’t you think we can solve the problem about knowing by taking a nature to be a bundle of powers, as many classical thinkers on the subject did? To know dispositionally is just to have the power to know occurrently under appropriate circumstances. Now, the incarnate Christ could, at any time, occurrrently know absolutely anything by the exercise of divine power, and in that sense he was always omniscient with respect to his divinity. However, which things he could occurrently know by exercise of mere human powers changed over time. Likewise, the human dispositional knowledge was acquired (at least in part) by the ordinary exercise of human powers. This sounds like a pretty comprehensible account of Christ, according to his humanity, learning, and I take it to be more or less what Chalcedon had in mind.
Hi Victor
I don’t know what you think the following verses mean?
Romans 6 v 9
For we know that Christ has been raised from death and will never die again-death will no longer rule over him
1 Corinthians 15 v 28
“then cometh the end when all things will be subdued unto Jesus, THEN SHALL THE SON HIMSELF be subject to God, who put all things under him”
With respect, may I suggest that you get ‘up to speed’ with some of the blogs on this site -particularly those relating to ‘identity’.
You quote Hebrews 1 – whose author ‘ cut and pasted’ a series of OT verses which are alleged to be prophetic. If you examine these scriptures you will find that they relate to contemporary events – and are only prophetic if viewed as foreshadowing typology. i.e. NOT literally.
I suggest that you find a better analogy for “the number three’ above.
A number is a concept – but a written number is merely a representation of that concept.
Blessings
John
Correction: “the number 3 is times” -> “the number 3 is timeless” in my previous comment.
As a simple example somehow (but not entirely) similar to incarnation of Christ: the number 3 is times (does not exist in time), but a number 3 written in a desk exists in physical laws including time.
Dale, how you may be an Unitarian, when it is clearly said that Christ does not change and obviously consequently cannot be just a man?
(He. 1:12) “As a mantle you will roll them up, And they will be changed; But you are the same. Your years will not fail.””
By the way there are no contradiction in Christ being a timeless image of God and not changing with his incarnation changing. The properties of Christ himself and his incarnation are different.
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