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In this nicely done short piece in Christianity Today, analytic theologian Dr. Oliver Crisp discusses a “paradox” (i.e. an apparent contradiction) involving Jesus and temptation. This apparent contradiction is generated by an argument or chain of reasoning like this. (These are my formulations, but I think they roughly capture what he’s thinking.)
- Jesus is human.
- Jesus is divine.
- Anyone who is human is for that reason in principle temptable.
- Anyone who is divine is for that reason not in principle temptable.
- In principle, Jesus could be tempted. (1,3)
- It is false that in principle, Jesus could be tempted. (2,4)
But this contradiction (the conjunction of 5 and 6) shows that something is wrong with 1-4: they can’t all be true, as they imply a falsehood (the conjunction of 5 and 6). At least one of 1-4 must be false, not true.
Another way to see the problem is by formulating an inconsistent triad. This is not an argument with premises and conclusion, but rather a list of three claims which we know can’t all be true. It looks like we must deny at least one. But which?
- Jesus is divine.
- No one who is divine can be tempted.
- Jesus was tempted.
In his insightful discussion Dr. Crisp briefly grapples with this problem, and if you listen closely you’ll hear which premise of the above argument he denies, and which member of the inconsistent triad he denies.
Do you agree? Why or why not?
In this episode I go through his piece and explain why I think that on a closer look, it reveals some serious scriptural problems for theories on which Jesus has “a divine nature” and “a human nature.”
Links for this episode:
- “Was Christ Tempted in Every Way?”
- Dr. Oliver Crisp @ University of St. Andrews
- podcast 81 – Dr. Oliver Crisp on the breadth of Reformed tradition
- podcast 82 – Dr. Oliver Crisp on libertarian Calvinism and universalism
- Divinity and Humanity
- God Incarnate: Explorations in Christology
- The Word Enfleshed: Exploring the Person and Work of Christ
- podcast 145 – ‘Tis Mystery All: the Immortal dies!
- podcast 146 – Jesus as an Exemplar of Faith in the New Testament
- Clarifying catholic christologies
- Tuggy vs. Date debate: “Is Jesus human and not divine?”
- Hurtado on the early worship of Jesus
- a reading of Philippians 2:5-11
- Hebrews 4:15; James 1:13; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13; Habakkuk 1:13; Philippians 2:5-11; Revelation 5:9-11.
- This week’s thinking music is “Stage 1 Level 24” by Monplaisir.
Great post Dale! I wanted to expand on your point that Jesus’ human rationality is an indication of personhood. Conciliar Christology distinguishes the purported Concrete human nature of Christ into 3 components, Body, intellectual/rational soul, and Natural will (not a determinative will though, long story). They make these distinctions necessary based on the axiom introduced by the Cappadocians who claimed that what is not assumed [in the incarnation] is not healed. Hence Conciliar Christology attributed mental faculties and intellect to the human Christ since IF it did not contain them, human reasoning and determination could not be healed by the incarnation according to the Cappadocians.
Your point, that Jesus Christ has the identifying marks for being a human person, is really strong for thinking Christians, but unfortunately denied by Trinitarian theology because to accept the human Christ as a human person would, by Trinitarian assumptions, be claiming that Christ is 2 persons, one divine and one human and this is considered heretical (Nestorianism. Remember, the idea that Christ just is one human person instantiating human nature cannot be considered even for a moment by Trinitarians, even though some scholars dealing with this subject acknowledge that a human person is a rational instantiated human nature).
Thus to deny personhood to the human nature of Christ, the medieval philosophers Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham constructed rationals for denying human personhood to Jesus. Pawl, on pages 31-32 of his 1st book on conciliar Christology, goes into details of their arguments. Some of these arguments are framed from the standpoint of assuming as foundational what has yet to be proved, not from an objective standpoint without a-priori assumptions, which needs first to build a case for Jesus to have 2 natures. Hence these arguments do nothing for denying Jesus is just a human person. For some of their arguments, the problem is that if you applied the same negating arguments toward the individual members of the Trinity they also would not qualify as persons or they would be determined to be 3 separate beings, 3 Gods!
The following also apparently escaped the notice of those applying the Cappadocian’s axiom (the 2nd ecumenical council), If what is not assumed is not healed, Then HUMAN personhood is not healed by the incarnation since a human person was not assumed. Since personhood is contrasted and denied of the human nature of Christ, personhood does not appear automatically transferable to it from a trinitarian perspective, and the only type transferable would be divine personhood, not human, hence human personhood remains unhealed since it was not assumed (doctrinal collapse). Further according to Trinitarian theology, at least conciliar and evangelical notions, within the Trinity, each Divine person does NOT have their own individualized will, only a collective (WE are The BORG) will. It appears that human persons or angelic beings best qualify for PERSONHOOD since only they have individualized wills, but entities in the triunity, not so much; perhaps Divine modes of one person is a better description for these entities who share only 1 will. However, for Christ, the components of personhood as a human person can be accounted for.
Needless to say, all this fooling around with concepts that received numerous changes by the whim of popular philosophy left the “Christian” church with things to argue about up to our day.
“Your point, that Jesus Christ has the identifying marks for being a human person, is really strong for thinking Christians, but unfortunately denied by Trinitarian theology because to accept the human Christ as a human person would, by Trinitarian assumptions, be claiming that Christ is 2 persons, one divine and one human and this is considered heretical (Nestorianism. Remember, the idea that Christ just is one human person instantiating human nature cannot be considered even for a moment by Trinitarians, even though some scholars dealing with this subject acknowledge that a human person is a rational instantiated human nature).”
are they saying that inside the divine person exists the human consciousness?
The short answer is yes. a slightly longer answer would be: For most Trinitarian theologians, the Divine person (God the Son) has, in virtue of (qua) his concrete human nature, a human soul which empowers his human mind, consciousness and natural human will. However, not all trinitarian theologians would consider Jesus human “nature” to be a concrete object since the resulting tangible object with a body, rational soul and Will sure appears to be what you, I and everyone else recognize as a person, or as Dale would say, a Self. This 2nd group believes a ‘nature’ is a conceptual set of essential attributes that describe a tangible class of objects, a universal. You and I both have human nature, a conceptual blueprint of the type of being we are. IMHO the closest my human nature comes to being a concrete object would be the DNA blueprint that each of my cells contains. For many, an example of a concrete instance of any type of nature (dog, cat, stone, word, etc.) is an object itself. So, an example of concrete human nature is just a human person. This won’t work for Trinitarianism though on pain of Nestorian heresy. Although I am not Trinitarian, IMHO, the 2nd minority view (Jesus Human nature being abstract instead of concrete) would appear less heretical to mainstream trinitarianism – but guess what, the Catholic church and many protestant churches believe in the concrete nature view, Go figure.
please, further clarification required in layman’s terms
i will identify x as invisible with invisible divine attributes
i will identify y as created and physical with human attributes and invisible consciousness
is y or PART of y existing IN x ?
lets say ANY bit is existing in x and x has experience of any bit, isn’t that a mixture ?
“is y or PART of y existing IN x ?”
by this, I believe you are asking if any part of Jesus’ “Human Nature” is existing INSIDE of his “Divine Nature”. According to Trinitarian Theology, short answer NO, but YES. Long answer- The council of Chalcedon in 451 CE. Answered the question with the following It said of the Son that he is:
“to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly [not confused or mixed], unchangeably [not changed], indivisibly [not divided], inseparably [not separated]; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son”. [the bracketed words are my understanding of the text]
This would appear to show that both natures are not incompatible but are “concurring” IN one Person. So the way I read this is that there are 2 different separated natures which are NOT one inside of the other but both are “in” the Son’s person, IMHO. If this is the correct understanding of the Chalcedonian creed, there seems to be a big problem though, per Trinitarian theology the Divine persons are the Divine Nature-so the Son is an individualized mode of its entirety. (Don’t believe me? MUST-READ: Shedd’s DOGMATIC THEOLOGY chapter 4 on TRINITY IN UNITY) So it appears from that perspective, the Son’s human nature is within the Divine Nature in its mode as the “Son”. Mr. Kebab, It appears you are not the only one confused, we are not alone.
hello sir
mr kebab again
so if we are to understand “divine nature,” what do we mean?
is it a list of attributes(power, knowledge, hearing, seeing)? is it attributes plus unknown properties ?
more confusion
does each person have the nature inherently ?
i have attributes
vs i am attributes.
It’s telling that the Evangelists are totally uninterested in the supposed paradox innate to Jesus’ temptation.
Dr. Crisp’s confusion about the rather odd and specific temptations faced by Christ in the wilderness in comparison to our temptations today in his opening paragraphs is also revealing. The early Christians were mostly interested in Jesus’ example in as much as he refused to give up his confession in the face of persecution. He was tested “in every way” in the sense that he suffered alienation, trial, torture, and ultimately execution for his message; not in the sense that he was tempted to sin in every conceivable way. It was this temptation to assimilate to paganism under threat of persecution that the early churches were primarily concerned with.
The problem is, for you, jesus is mere human.
While for dale, jesus is a special human, mere human like us.
I mean, “not mere human like us”.
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