{"id":6959,"date":"2019-12-25T04:04:25","date_gmt":"2019-12-25T10:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=6959"},"modified":"2019-12-24T19:11:15","modified_gmt":"2019-12-25T01:11:15","slug":"who-was-born-on-the-first-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/who-was-born-on-the-first-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Who was born on the first Christmas?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/joseph-mary-jesus-on-the-first-christmas.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6961\" width=\"553\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/joseph-mary-jesus-on-the-first-christmas.jpg 629w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/joseph-mary-jesus-on-the-first-christmas-300x206.jpg 300w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/joseph-mary-jesus-on-the-first-christmas-420x288.jpg 420w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/joseph-mary-jesus-on-the-first-christmas-460x316.jpg 460w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/joseph-mary-jesus-on-the-first-christmas-90x62.jpg 90w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 553px) 100vw, 553px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Who is this baby<\/strong>\u00a0born to Joseph and Mary on the first Christmas? Where did he come from, and what sort of being is he?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <strong>most popular Christian answers<\/strong> have been these:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>1. <strong>God<\/strong> (i.e. the one true God, Yahweh)\n<ul>\n<li>He had recently become a man, and now he enters his public career.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li><li>2. The <strong>eternal Son<\/strong> of God.\n<ul>\n<li>Actually, this&nbsp;is his <em>second<\/em> birth. His first was his inconceivable, eternal generation by God (the Father). Now, this eternal Logos (Word) has assumed a complete human nature, body and rational soul, making him &#8220;man&#8221; but not &#8220;a man.&#8221; He is one person with two natures, divine (because of his first birth) and human (because of his assuming a human nature).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li><li>3. The <strong>ancient Son<\/strong> of God.\n<ul>\n<li>Actually, this is his <em>second<\/em> birth. His first was when he was generated out of the Father before creation, so that he could be God&#8217;s agent of creation. Now, he has become a real human being, because this ancient Logos (Word) is the soul of a real human body. Having been produced not from nothing, but from God, he is divine, and now he is human as well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li><li>4. The virgin born, <strong>human Son<\/strong> of God.\n<ul>\n<li>Like other humans, he began to exist some time between conception and birth. But unlike other humans, he had a human Mother, but no human Father. Rather, by his power, God caused Mary to become pregnant with him.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Trinitarians are split between 1 and 2.<\/strong> Many smudge the difference between them, though they are contrary claims, ones that logically could both be false, but could not both be true. Many ancient catholics up until about the end of the fourth century held to 3, until it was thoroughly pilloried and finally rejected as heresy. 2 then became the official catholic view, as the so-called &#8220;Second Ecumenical Council&#8221; in 381 voted in a revised version of the Nicene creed composed in 325, which was then enforced by the Empire. <strong>Unitarian Christians<\/strong> have been split between 3 and 4 (and also something close to 2 &#8211; see below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A few observations:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Only one of 1-4 can be true.<\/strong> No two of them can be true.<\/li><li>2 &amp; 3 assume the truth of <strong>mind-body substance dualism<\/strong> &#8211; the view that a living human is an immaterial soul inhabiting a body, or else is a combination of an immaterial soul and a body, with only the soul-part being essential.\u00a04 is consistent with, but doesn&#8217;t require dualism about human beings. <strong>If you think dualism is false<\/strong>, 4 is the only of these four views you can consistently accept. (I assume you want to avoid views on which Jesus only appears to be human.) It is less clear\u00a0how 1 relates to dualism, though surely most who accept 1 accept dualism too.<\/li><li><strong>Much Christmas sermonizing these days suggests 1.<\/strong> <ul><li>1 fits the views of Oneness Pentecostals, &#8220;modalists,&#8221; and some ancient &#8220;monarchians.&#8221;<\/li><li>But 1 also fits one self trinitarians, who think there is but one self among the Trinity. In other words, they hold that Father and Son are different &#8220;Persons&#8221; (whatever that may mean) but the same self, the same who. <\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><strong>1 is denied by &#8220;social&#8221; (three self) trinitarians<\/strong>, though they tend to keep this on the down low, using &#8220;God&#8221; ambiguously for any of: the Trinity, the Father, the Son, the Spirit. So for them &#8220;God [the eternal Son] became man&#8221; yet &#8220;God [the Father] sent his Son.&#8221; This habit allows three self trinitarians to co-exist with those holding to 1; both <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"fly the flag of creedal orthodoxy (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/podcast-232-trinity-club-orientation\/\" target=\"_blank\">fly the flag of creedal orthodoxy<\/a>, and usually sound like they&#8217;re saying the same things.<\/li><li><strong>1 seems\u00a0ruled out<\/strong> by the explicit statements of all the gospels, even the ones which don&#8217;t have birth narratives. On the face of it, the one God didn&#8217;t come in person. Rather, he sent someone else, Jesus, his Son, the Messiah (aka the Son of God). For example, <ul><li>&#8220;The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, <strong>the Son of<\/strong> God.&#8221; (Mark 1:1)<\/li><li>&#8220;For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son&#8230;\u00a0Indeed, God did not <strong>send the Son into the world<\/strong> to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.&#8221; (John 3:16-17) <ul><li>Some treat <strong>1 as a shorthand for 2<\/strong>. But 1 is a lousy shorthand for 2. Given the New Testament and latter-day usages of &#8220;God,&#8221; 1 seems to say either that the Trinity or the Father or the one self who is Father, Son, and Spirit was born on Christmas. But 2 doesn&#8217;t say any of those.  <\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><strong>2 is officially on the books<\/strong> in trinitarian churches, although the statement usually elides some of the points stated above. And many elements of 2 are not much understood by the laity, especially groups which intend to base their views directly on the Bible.<\/li><li><strong>1-3 involve Incarnation<\/strong>, traditionally understood &#8211; a divine being in some sense becoming human. <ul><li>4 would involve, one might say, non-literal &#8220;incarnation,&#8221; in that the man Jesus is the unique and best expression of God&#8217;s eternal message, plan, or wisdom (<em>logos<\/em>). In 4, what\u00a0is incarnated isn&#8217;t the same self as Jesus, since it&#8217;s not a self. In contrast, in 1-3 what is incarnated is the pre-human Jesus. Option 4 has no pre-human Jesus. <\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>The so-called <strong>&#8220;Arians&#8221;<\/strong> affirmed 3. But they did not originate that sort of view. It was held by a number of mainstream catholic theologians long before them, such as Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and all the logos theorists before Origen. It is, frankly, merely propaganda that portrays 3 as a wholly new invention of Arius, and which falsely asserts that the catholic mainstream always taught 2. <\/li><li>The Jehovah&#8217;s Witnesses too hold to their own version of 3. <\/li><li><strong>1 &amp; 3 &amp; 4 affirm, but 2 denies that Jesus is <em>a<\/em> human being,<\/strong> a human self. <ul><li>This is because theorists who came up with\u00a0<strong>2 didn&#8217;t want there to be <em>two\u00a0<\/em>selves<\/strong> in Jesus (the Word, <em>and<\/em> the human self which consists of a human body and a human-type soul). They theorized that because of the &#8220;hypostatic union&#8221; which was the result of the Word &#8220;assuming&#8221; a complete human nature, the elements of that particular human nature <em>don&#8217;t<\/em> constitute a human self, as they do in a human being like you or me. If the Word hadn&#8217;t assumed them, they would have composed a human.<\/li><li><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\"><strong>3 gets rid of the human soul<\/strong>, leaving the ancient, divine Logos to take the place of a soul in the man Jesus. This avoids the difficult theory\u00a0just described, but calls into question whether the resulting Jesus is <strong>really a man<\/strong> &#8220;like us in all things except sin.&#8221;<\/span><\/li><li>4 has Jesus consisting of <strong>whatever parts<\/strong>\u00a0or components any human has; what&#8217;s different\u00a0are his origin, his role in God&#8217;s plan, and his unique post-exaltation status as the one Lord under God. <\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>4 is the view of the early modern <strong>Socinians<\/strong>\u00a0and many other unitarian Christians since then.  It is unclear just how popular this view was in the first three centuries of Christianity. It is known that Ebionites, and some holding what came to be\u00a0derided as &#8220;mere man&#8221; christology held to this view, and probably some of the so-called &#8220;monarchians&#8221; too. Thus, in the second and early third centuries\u00a0it existed with within and outside of the catholic mainstream. It was sidelined when the Platonic\u00a0&#8220;logos christology&#8221; became dominant, through the course of the third century. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pensive-female-580611_640.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-42088\" width=\"466\" height=\"372\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pensive-female-580611_640.jpg 640w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/pensive-female-580611_640-450x360.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 466px) 100vw, 466px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As you return to the stories of the first Christmas in<strong><a title=\"Matthew's birth narrative\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew+1%3A18-2%3A23&amp;version=NRSV\" target=\"_blank\"> Matthew 1:18-2:23<\/a> and <a title=\"Luke's birth narrative\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Luke+1%3A1-2%3A40&amp;version=NRSV\" target=\"_blank\">Luke 1:1-2:40<\/a><\/strong>, ask yourself: <strong>which of 1-4 best fits those stories? <\/strong>Are these stories of (1) God becoming one of us and moving into our neighborhood, (2) of the eternally generated, divine Word, now with a human soul and body too, so now &#8220;human,&#8221; (3) of the ancient Word, a divine\u00a0soul now in a human body, or (4)  of a miraculously-conceived man, destined to be God&#8217;s Messiah? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One place to start is by asking:<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"do these accounts state, imply, or assume that Jesus, in Mary, went from non-human to human (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/podcast-280-have-yourself-an-incarnation-free-christmas\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Do these accounts state, imply, or assume that Jesus, in Mary, went from non-human to human<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Which best fits these birth narratives, and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For more on different historical Christian views about Jesus, see my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=s6wK-lRZP-k\">Clarifying Catholic Christologies<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What sort of baby was born to Joseph and Mary on the first Christmas? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,15,58,4,14,33,5,65,3,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-christology","category-creeds","category-heresy-orthodoxy","category-history","category-incarnation","category-modalism","category-repost","category-theories","category-unitarianism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6959"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42092,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6959\/revisions\/42092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}