So does the Creed, and the Fathers. It’s why in some ancient liturgies the priest kneels at the phrase “and was made man” and the recitation of the Creed pauses for a moment.
It arises right from second-Temple Judaism, which had the “Two Powers” concept and was beginning to understand it as Three.
But Christ is the True Human. In becoming like Christ we are becoming human.
I think not. Humanity was never meant to be perfect. If it were there would be no need for Christ on earth.
Richard
As my user name suggests, I have tended to find spiritual inspiration from the Franciscan tradition, with Duns Scotus and Bonaventure in particular, with the view that the Incarnation of the Word was always the divine intent and not just a consequence of our sin. A view held by some of the Church Fathers. Also in the Franciscan view is that Jesus does represent us at our best, and although we will not be perfect , except by grace, we are to see in Him our way to be divinely human in participation in the divine love of the Trinity.
In that vein , I see all of evolution and our evolved existence to be for His Incarnation to take place in the Cosmos, so He may lead all life to the End and its remaking. We may become willing participants in that divine desire and purpose. We may become as close as we can to what He intends we should be, but we have to choose to do so. The Cross and divine forgiveness is the first part that opens up the way to enable us to grow towards that End.
That humanity was meant to be ‘perfect’ is exactly why we need Christ on earth.
Absolutely. I argued this in a brief paper from the idea that if making material things as Creator is an aspect of Trinity then becoming incarnate in matter is a necessary corollary to having a material Creation.
The brokenness of Creation requires divine brokenness if the first is to be remedied.
Show me one verse of Scripture that claims humanity was made to be perfect.
Perfection is a human value and goal.
You can strive for it if you wish… that is your right, but you may not criticise me or anyone else for not sharing that goal.
Richard
“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
It does not say that we were made to be perfect.
It says to strive to be perfect. (If you want to follow Christ) Hyperbola accepted
So, go ahead, try it! Good luck.
(If we were made to be perfect then there would be no need to try at all. we would be perfect. Unless you think that humanity is stronger than God’s creating power and can corrupt it AKA Adam & Eve!)
Scripture says God was pleased with what He made. It does not say He made perfection.
I know your views of Scripture and you ae quite capable of convincing yourself that it is God who wants perfection. But that is how you read it.
Fine. But, as I said, do not criticise me for not following your view.
Richard
Ah – so God wants us to be something we weren’t meant to be.
BTW, there’s no “strive” there, it’s not the right verb form.
Literal to the last.
Use whatever verb you want, the intention is the same.
Richard
perfect can also mean “complete’ rather than flawless, among other variations of definitions. Any indication of how it is defined as used in that verse?
More importantly, they all do this because as I pointed out, it comes from the imagery in Scripture and Jesus emptying himself. In the modern world many Christians get this image of Jesus giving up His omniscience and omnipotence. But this just cannot be. As Aquinas suggested, Jesus emptied himself not by losing what He had (divinity), but by taking on what He did not have (humanity). It is more like a King choosing to dress in rags.
Scripture also images God as speaking, listening, seeing, walking, talking etc. despite being pure spirit and having no mouth, eyes, ears, legs and so on. We accept this anthropomorphizing because we can only understand God from our own framework based on knowledge of our physical world and what is revealed. We also can say God died for us because of:
Communicatio idiomatum is a Latin theological term meaning the communication of attributes or properties. It is a foundational Christian doctrine concerning Jesus Christ. It states that because Jesus has both a divine nature and a human nature united in one single person, the properties and experiences of both natures can be truly ascribed to that one person.
We can thus truly say “the Son of God died on the cross” or “Mary is the mother of God” while realizing the Divine Nature is unchanging and cannot suffer. Because of the dual nature of Christ (two natures in one person), these are not just figures of speech. The problems arise when you think the divine nature is not impassible or immutable. It is very important to me that Catholic (and Christian) theology preserves both 1) the true suffering of Christ and 2) the unchangeable perfection of God.
If Jesus truly gave up His divinity then He was no longer God and was a mere man that could hardly save us and the worship of whom is blasphemy.
Vinnie
I am one of those who thinks Jesus emptying himself out means he was not omnipotent or omniscient. Several scriptures tend to support that view, though admittedly others make it problematic. One problem to me, is how could Jesus’ victory over sin and death have meaning to us as humans, if he were still all powerful and knowing in his time on earth. It would just be a sham. It is a difficult topic.
We can proof-text hunt verses on both sides. The hypostatic union is a bridge between them as opposed to picking a side. I’d also say it’s a difficult topic but to me it’s not for the reasons you mentioned. I think those of us who find penal substitution and blood sacrifice problematic have difficulty in understanding exactly what Jesus’s saving act did or was. Some of us move to solidarity models of atonement but if we are being honest, I think those of us with high views of scripture know that solidarity alone does not adequately account for what we see in scripture. That is going in another direction so back on topic and I think this is the key question:
Do you accept that Jesus is one person with two distinct natures? If you do not then I think your difficulty is insolvable.
Chalcedonian creed (451):
Following, then, the holy Fathers, we all unanimously teach that our Lord Jesus Christ is to us One and the same Son, the Self-same Perfect in Godhead, the Self-same Perfect in Manhood; truly God and truly Man; the Self-same of a rational soul and body; co-essential with the Father according to the Godhead, the Self-same co-essential with us according to the Manhood; like us in all things, sin apart; before the ages begotten of the Father as to the Godhead, but in the last days, the Self-same, for us and for our salvation (born) of Mary the Virgin Theotokos as to the Manhood; One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He was parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ; even as from the beginning the prophets have taught concerning Him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself hath taught us, and as the Symbol of the Fathers hath handed down to us.
The Divine nature took on a human nature and this human nature suffered and died for us. Since the human nature and the divine nature constitute one person (hypostatic union) that one person suffered and died for us. It comes down to who Jesus is versus what Jesus is. The Who is one person, the second member of the Trinity. The what is two distinct natures, one human and one divine. So we have a what and a who but definitely don’t ask how. That is the divine ineffable mystery.
Athanasian Creed (ca 500)
Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation; that he also believe faithfully the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess; that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Substance [Essence] of the Father; begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Substance [Essence] of his mother, born in the world. Perfect God; and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood. Who although he is God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by assumption of the Manhood into God. One altogether; not by confusion of Substance [Essence]; but by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man; so God and Man is one Christ; Who suffered for our salvation; descended into hell; rose again the third day from the dead.He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from whence he will come to judge the living and the dead. At whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies; And shall give account for their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire. This is the catholic faith; which except a man believe truly and firmly, he cannot be saved.
Since God cannot suffer and change, the incarnation, the adding of a human nature that could suffer was the only way for our salvation to not be a sham in my opinion. As I said, if Jesus were purely or only a man,even if he just became one for a time— during his earthly life—He could not save the human race anymore than I could. The divine nature did not serve as morphine or an anesthetic when the nails were being driven in. The person of Christ which consists of two distinct natures truly felt them. Your sham problem doesn’t go away. If Jesus limited His divinity for a split second of earthly existence knowing full well He will be fully divine again for all eternity, is that also not a sham? If I jump on a grenade to save you knowing full well I’ll be healed and resurrected right after, surely my sacrifice —though still good— may seem to lose some
of its punch? I don’t find this convincing.
Our human nature is what we are but human nature doesn’t eat, suffer or pay taxes. Persons do those things. So the divine nature could not suffer or change but the person of Christ could and did experience those things because the divine and human nature are perfectly united in one person or who.
This again is the communication of idioms. We can truly say “God bled” and “God died on the cross.” The divine nature didn’t bleed, but the Divine Person—the Second Person of the Trinity—bled through the added human nature He took on and made His own.
So it is a complicated subject but for me it’s this how of the hypostatic union that is the difficulty. The who and what have been mapped out for us by the early Chruch.
Vinnie
Well, that’s just it. There is scriptural evidence that he was not omniscient. He was obviously not omnipresent. So which “Greek categories of deity” apply?
That’s actually not a given.
But it is certainly metaphysically true/demonstrable as the backbone of classical theism which sees God as actus purus. A number of classical arguments all lead to those same divine attributes. It is also scriptural and part of the language of the Chalcedonian creed. For me this isn’t a dispute within theism but rather a discussion of whether atheism or theism is true. Neo-theistic personalism is tough to defend and really boils down to blind faith in my view. A “God” who is not impassible or immutable is just a marvel superhero or primitive Mesopotamian deity to me. I’d adopt atheism sooner than something like William Lane Craig’s neo-theistic personalism.
Vinnie
Yes. We try to put Jesus (and God/Trinity) into a neat, logical explanation, although God is beyond our comprehension. Even the definitions of the old creeds are just imperfect human attempts to tell what is largely a mystery to us humans because we only have the experience of living as humans.
How we explain the text telling to us that Jesus emptied himself when he incarnated are also imperfect interpretations - possibly close to truth but still just human interpretations. Also the imperfect language limits what can be said. We are on a stronger basis when we speak about what the NT tells about the life of Jesus.
For those who lived with Jesus it was obvious that he was a human - born, lived and died as a human. It became also known that there was something more in Jesus, based on what he did (miraculous things) and what he spoke. The acts he did made his authoritative words credible.
He had more authority than ordinary humans, as he could have ordered angels (based on his words) or commanded things to happen (as shown by the miracles that went beyond anybody else had done). Yet, he lived and suffered from the position of a human, with much of the limitations of ordinary humans.
Saying that God died on the cross or that his mother Mary was Theotokos may accord with later doctrinal conclusions but give a false impression of what happened. Mary gave birth to a human child that lived as a human. Jesus died on the cross as a human who had taken the burden of humanity on himself, obeying the will of the heavenly Father. That was the only way how he could represent humanity.
If we only look at the human side of Jesus, we end up with ‘Isa ibn Maryam’, as the Muslims tell. A human that may have been a holy prophet but could not have saved humanity.
If we stress the divine nature of Jesus, we easily miss that he had emptied himself when he incarnated and represented humanity by being and living as a human, with much of the limitations of ordinary humans.
I think it is more to do with the context. It was at the end of a long instruction on understanding the laws. It is the difference between the Letter and the Spirit of a law or instruction. I recently quipped on this forum about the literal meaning of a common swearing retort involving the f word.
I think Jesus was trying to get across that there is an all or nothing about purity and holiness. You either are, or are not holy, there is no halfway house.
I do not think He expected us to be perfectly holy, but to understand that we are not, and therefor cannot rest on our laurels (or criticise others)
Richard
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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