From: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Christology 101
Date: 12 Sep 92 20:29:01 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

A very interesting discussion of Nestorianism.  I don't doubt that
there was more commonality than the folks at the time recognized.
However I do think Nestorius said some things that it would be hard to
accept as orthodox, whatever his philosopical categories.  It's less
clear whether Theodore is implicated, but I see at least a suggestion
that he is.

The basic problem I have with Nestorius is that he was unwilling to
accept that God was fully involved in Jesus' life.  God was not born,
and God did not die.  Now in fact I accept most of his philosophical
comments -- his distinction between natures is correct, and was
accepted by Chalcedon.  Obviously God did not die in a completely
direct sense.  But orthodox Christians generally want to see Jesus'
death as God's self-sacrifice.  Without this, the basic explanation of
the atonement, which goes back to Irenaeus, doesn't work.  Christ
broke down the wall between God and man because he was both.  Only God
could *save* us, only a man could save *us*.  I don't think
Nestorious' problem was with his Christological theory, but rather
with his idea of God.  He had the same concern that many on the other
side had: God is impassible, and incapable of change.  Thus it is
wrong to say that God suffered (which would violate impassibility) or
died (which would involve a change).  Now I agree that God did not
suffer or die a direct way.  However I claim that the identification
between the Logos and the human was close enough that God really
experienced suffering and death through Christ.  If our philosophy
says that this is impossible, we need to change our philosophy.
Because the whole point of Jesus as God incarnate is that he shows us
what God is like.  Suffering is basic to Jesus' mission: he dealt with
our sin by suffering the penalty.  If we deny that he was representing
God in this most central of his acts, then we've made the incarnation
meaningless.

"The incarnate God did not die; he raised up the one in whom he was
incarnate.  He stooped down to raise up what had collapsed, but he did
not fall. ... Nor, because he stooped to lift up the guilty who had
fallen, may he be disparaged as if he himself had sunk to the ground.
God saw the ruined nature, and the power of the Godhead took hold of
it in its shattered state.  God held on to it while himself remaining
what he had been, and lifted it up high.  For the sake of an
illustration...: If you want to lift up someone who is lying down, do
you not touch body with body and, by joining yourself to the other
person, lift up the hurt one while you, joined to him in this fashion,
remain what you were?"

His philosophy did not force him to take this view.  He could have
said, while God did not die in his immortal form, the incarnate God
did die.  His Christology would allow him to make just such a
distinction.  The previous passage has much of God as the unmoved
mover, but I see it as a denial of Christianity.  I might lift someone
by staying standing myself.  But God broke down the wall between us by
taking on our own condition.

I have some problem in this area even with Athanasius.  Consider: "It
was appropriate for the Lord, when he was clothed in human flesh, to
put it on in its totality, together with all the passions proper to
it, so that just as we say the body was properly his, so also the
passions of the body might be said to belong to him alone, even though
they did not touch him in his deity.  So if the body had belonged to
someone else, its passions would be predicated of that subject.  If
however, the flesh belonged to the Logos ... it is necessary to
predicate the fleshly passions of him whose flesh it is.  And the one
of whom the passions are predicated -- condemnation, for example ...
is also the one to whom the triumph and the grace are attributed.  So
it is logical and fitting that passions of this sort be predicated not
of another but of the Lord. ... Rather, let people see that the Logos
himself is impassible by nature and that he nevertheless has these
passions predicated of him in virtue of the flesh which he took on,
since they are proper to the flesh and the body itself is proper to
the Savior.  Furthermore, he himself remains as he is -- impassible in
nature.  He takes no hurt from these passions, but on the contrary
destroys them and brings them to nothing."

This is far more satisfactory than Nestorius: he at least admits that
the Logos is involved in suffering.  However it still does not really
touch the Logos.  The passions happen only to the flesh that he has
taken on.  Now I do agree that there's some level of indirection.  In
a physical sense, the divine Logos cannot be hurt.  But I object to
the idea that ultimately he is unaffected by what happened to Jesus.
(Note also that Athanasius' christological model is basically
Apollinarian.  He avoids being an out and out heretic because he never
comes out and says that Jesus had no human soul.  But he certainly
implies it.  The Logos took on a body, but one gets a clear impression
that there was no actual human life.)
Xref: sparky talk.religion.misc:16078 alt.atheism:17037