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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
podcast 31 – Dr. William Hasker on the “Arian” Controversy
podcast 30 – The Council of Nicea
Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils
Pawl, The Incarnation
podcast 144 – Dr. Timothy Pawl’s In Defense of Conciliar Christology – Part 2
podcast 143 – Dr. Timothy Pawl’s In Defense of Conciliar Christology – Part 1
Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate
The Case Against the Preexistence of Christ – by Dr. Dale Tuggy
Debate – Identifying Jesus – Yusuf Ismail and William Lane Craig
Parrinder, Avatar and Incarnation
podcast 145 – ‘Tis Mystery All: the Immortal dies!
podcast 235 – The Case Against Preexistence
This week’s thinking music is “bluenotes” by airtone.
