podcast 344 – Craig’s Contradictory Christ – Part 2

In this episode I critically evaluate Dr. Craig’s “Neo-Apollinarian” christology, and I find that it is beset with many metaphysical, creedal, and biblical problems.

Topics include:

How Dr. Craig does not come close to addressing all of the apparent clashes between the kind-essences divinity and humanity.
How Craig’s christology unfortunately implies that Jesus lied in the episode reported in Mark 13:32.
His unorthodox claim that the divine Son was always human.
Dr. Craig’s suggestion in a public debate that the movie Avatar gives us a helpful model for understanding the Incarnation.
His underdeveloped and seemingly unhelpful appeal to the qua move (a.k.a. reduplicative predication), e.g. saying that as human Jesus was mortal but as divine he was immortal.
How on his account the incarnate Christ would not have the divine kind of knowledge.
How on his account the incarnate Christ will be less than fully human, as he will lack many properties essential to being human.
How Dr. Craig’s theory sides with the catholic mainstream but against the New Testament in holding that Jesus is not a human person, although he is in a unique sense “human.”

This proposed christology is so unsuccessful that it should cause the thinking Christian to revisit this inconsistent triad of claims we looked at last time:

Jesus is divine.
Anything which is divine is not also human, and anything which is human is not also divine.
Jesus is human.

Specifically, is denying 2 really defensible? Mustn’t we rather accept 2, and so, to be consistent, mustn’t we only accept one of 1 and 3? If so, which way does Scripture as a whole point?

Links for this episode:

podcast 343 – Craig’s Contradictory Christ – Part 1

Craig and Moreland, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, 2nd ed.

Mark 13:32; Matthew 24:36; Genesis 1:26-27; John 8:40.

Question of the Week #410 Incarnation and Omniscience

Question of the Week #445 Was Christ a Contingent Being?

podcast 341 – Reflections on my debate with Dr. Andrew Loke

podcast 340 – Does the New Testament teach that Jesus is truly divine? – Loke vs. Tuggy – Part 2

podcast 339 – Does the New Testament teach that Jesus is truly divine? – Loke vs. Tuggy – Part 1

“kenotic” Incarnation theories

a reading of Philippians 2:5-11

What John 1 Meant