From: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Christology 101 [was: There are two years left!]
Date: 11 Sep 92 08:17:01 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes:

I'm changing the order of the original slightly, to bring together
things that I think involve the same issue.

As several others have commented, Christology is notoriously hard to
get right.  There are land mines on every side, and a slip of one
letter (e.g., the letter iota) can cause one to explode.  I'm trying
my best to exhibit an orthodox position, but if you hear explosions in
the background, I hope I will be forgiven.  (Note that I say "an
orthodox position", not "the orthodox position".  Both Nicea and
Chalcedon are compromises.  In both cases there were two major
approaches to the issue.  The decisions allow both approaches to
continue, but ruled out the extreme versions of each.  Thus neither
statement is intended to define a position in full detail.  Rather,
they are intended to set up some groundrules that any orthodox
position must follow.)

>This says that "Jesus Christ" is "true God from true God." It says that
>"Jesus Christ" is "of one substance with the father," "suffered, rose the
>the third day, etc."   

>In fact, it DOES say that "Jesus Christ" is of the same substance as the
>Father.

>See the Creed, above. Your views do not coincide with the Creed. I guess
>you're a heretic! :)

I commented in my previous posting that in Christ there are two
separate things: a human life and the presence of the eternal Logos.
I was speaking mostly of the human life, because I was responding to a
posting that challenged its reality.  The Creed is, of course,
speaking of both.  In speaking of Jesus Christ, it starts with a
description of the eternal Logos.  The Logos is true God from true
God.  But that's not the end of the story.  It then proceeds to talk
about the Logos becoming incarnate of the Virgin Mary, made man, and
suffering.  My posting was talking about the incarnation, particularly
about those who did not take seriously the "and was made man".

I should note that Nicea did not settle the question of what the
incarnation meant.  It began about a century of discussions, which
culminated in Chalcedon.  It's really there that you need to look for
details on the incarnation.

>In other words, Jesus was not just an ordinary guy with the power of God
>working through him. He was "true God from true God." 

>Your view smacks of the Apollinarian heresy, actually, which, according
>to Latourette "held that the _Logos_ dwelt in Jesus much as God dwells in
>a temple."   Latourette adds that "Emphatic decisions against the views
>of Apollinaris were pronounced by various synods...and in 381 by the Council
>of Constantinople which condemned the Arians."

>You are emphasizing only one half of the equation. There are two natures,
>but in Jesus of Nazareth these two natures were One substance.
>This emphasis you make would have got you excommunicated as an
>Apollinarian in the fifth century.

>Jesus was certainly NOT a normal human being, with God "present in
>and through Jesus" as you say below. Not according to these two creeds.

As others have pointed out, you're probably confusing your heresies.
You're also confusing the technical language.  It is not said that two
natures are combined in one substance, but rather that one person has
two natures.

I follow roughly the position of Theodore of Mopsuestia.  Whatever
else he may be, it is *not* Apollinarian.  The Apollinarians
effectively denied Jesus' humanity.  For them, Jesus did not have a
complete human existence.  The logos took the place that in a normal
human would be taken by the soul.  Ultimately, he was simply God
wearing a body like a suit.  If I am guilty of any heresy, it would be
the reverse, as your other comments note.

The critical issues seems to be the sense in which Jesus was "normal",
and what I mean by "present in and through Jesus."  It's not just that
God was present with Jesus, as he could be with any of us, or even
that Jesus worked miracles with God's power, which is also possible
for anyone.  Rather, I think God identified himself with Jesus in such
a way that everything Jesus did is also God's act, and that Jesus is
the human form of God.  God was in Christ reconciling the world to
himself. (2 Cor 5:19) Christ's death is to be seen as God's own
action.  This is not because there is anything physically or
metaphysically different about Jesus, but because God chose to
identify himself with Jesus in this way.  Many novelists have
characters in their novel that represent their presence in the world
they have created.  If we were a character in the novel, we wouldn't
see anything physically different in such a character.  They are
different simply because of a decision of the author to make their
actions and character represent him.  In my view Jesus is God's
presence with us because God decided to use him in this way, and saw
to it that Jesus' character and actions were appropriate for this
role.  So Jesus is normal when evaluated simply as a human being.  He
did nothing that is impossible for a human, except through God's power
-- and Jesus assures us that it is available to us as well if we have
faith.  It's only when evaluated from the point of view of God's
intent that he is different.  From that point of view, Jesus is God's
way of being present in his own novel.

I hope this makes it clear both that I see his role as unique, and
that I see it as still leaving him a normal human being.  One problem
I have with some readings of Chalcedon is their tendency to make Jesus
schizophrenic.  The tendency is for there to be two natures that
conflict with each other and appear alternately (depending upon
whether Jesus is suffering or doing a miracle).  Rather, I think every
act that Jesus does involves both natures.  Everything he is and does
must be seen both as something done by a human being, and as something
done by God.  And Jesus' character must be seen as both the character
of a human being, and as the visible image of the invisible God (Col
1:15).

>Strictly speaking, NOT con-fusing (putting together) Christ's humanity
>and divinity is the mark of heresy. The Apollinarians stressed Jesus'
>humanity, saying that God/Logos was present in him. The Monophysites
>stressed his Divinity.  Both points of view were condemned as heretical.

Chalcedon condemns confusing the divinity and humanity.  Of course
they are both present in a single person.  What I think they meant by
confusing was coming up with a compromise.  A proper treatment of
Christology must see Christ as doing justice both to God and man.  A
confusion involves producing an image that compromises one or the
other.  E.g. the Arians, who believed in a Jesus who was supernatural,
but not fully God.  This fails on both sides.  It fails in humanity,
because their Jesus was not subject to human limitations.  It fails in
divinity, because in Jesus we were confronting not the true God, but
someone less.
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