Skip to main content

How Can Jesus Be Fully God and Fully Man At the Same Time?

Answer 1:
    A contradiction can be defined in the terms "A=not-A"; a non-contradiction, in the terms "A≠not-A".
  • The statements "Jesus is fully God" and "Jesus is fully man" don't involve such a contradiction, i.e, they don't say "Jesus is fully God," and "Jesus is not fully God" at the same time.
  • Christian theology doesn't claim to say that Jesus is not God when it says Jesus is Man; likewise, it doesn't clam to say that Jesus is not man when it says that Jesus is God.
Answer 2:
  • The divinity of Christ is eternal and immutable; therefore, in the Incarnation He was fully God. He was not created; He pre-existed. He was not born out of a man-woman relationship; but, was born of a Virgin; because He incarnated, He didn't come into being - there was not when He didn't exist.
  • In the Incarnation, God partook of human nature; He could do that because He created the world and so the world belonged to Him and He sustained it. The world didn't cut off from Him in a way that God and creation were unrelated to each other. The world had not become a "wholly other" to God. The world was not closed out to God, as if it were an infinite and absolute entity by itself. The fact was that the world was contingent on Him. The world couldn't restrict His power. In fact, it was He who held it by the word of His power (Heb 1:3). The world is not eternal; it is temporal; therefore, it is impossible for the world (including man) to become God. That would be a contradiction of terms. However, the Second Person of the Divine Trinity did become man, because His creation was not beyond His reach. The temporal exists within the eternal; and the finite within the infinite (not vice versa). "In Him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28). This is not pantheism or panentheism. It doesn't say the world contains God as its soul or the world is God; but, that the world is contingent upon God, therefore not beyond His reach. Miracles are possible, Divine intervention is possible (the universe is not closed) and the Incarnation is the greatest example of God's intervention in human history.
Further Reading:
The Humanity and Divinity of Christ
The Logic of Faith

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Placebo and the Philosophy of Mind and Matter in Drug Research

A placebo is a non-therapeutic substance administered under the camouflage of medication to deceive patients into believing that they are receiving medications; this done solely for psychological and not for physiological effects. Placebo may usually be used to compare its effects with the effects of other drugs in drug research. Let's take the case of an experiment that tries to establish whether a particular drug, say to treat weariness, is genuine or merely has the effects of a placebo. Suppose 20 candidates are chosen for this experiment. 10 are given the drug and the rest are put on a placebo while they are told that the placebo is a genuine medication. They need to make sure that the deception is well carried on for the success of the experiment. If both the groups make similar improvements after taking the treatments, the new drug seems to only function as a placebo in effect. The basic hypothesis of the placebo raises the question of mind over matter. Of course, this pushes...

What is Theology? Its Divisions with Short Descriptions

Published in REVIVE, May 2012 (Malayalam Edition) A simple and literal definition of “theology” would be “the science of divine things”. It comes from two Greek words theos meaning “God” and logia meaning “discourse or speech”. In modern times, it is the stream of knowledge that differentiates the secular pursuit of knowledge from the sacred one because of its starting point: all secular studies begin with reason and experience while theology begins with faith. The starting point for all extra-theological studies is the world (Latin: saeculum); the starting point for theology is the Word of God. So, while one may say that theology is the study of God, the factual definition would be that theology is the science that rationally pursues the understanding of the self-revelation of God in the Scriptures. It would be interesting to note that many of the universities had originally begun as seminaries and theology was once known as the Queen of Sciences. However, with the dawn of theAge of E...

Reliability, Predictability, and Paul the Octopus

Paul the Octopus has recently become very famous after his predictions for Germany and Spain during the World Cup 2010 came right. The 100% accuracy tag distinguishes him from any other diviner who had attempted a prediction during the World Cup. There were responses and reactions from various people including sportsmen, statesmen, and mathematicians. Whatever, the use of Paul has demonstrated once again that mankind's search for an extra-temporal, psychic foresight has not quelled through the historical calendar returning a decade over this millennium. The question before us is can such predictions as those of Paul be counted on as reliable (in other words, can they be seriously taken as true)? The mathematicians have plumped for chance. It's all a matter of probability, they say ( BBC News ). However, the argument of chance in itself is weak. The mathematics of chance will calculate that the probability of Paul being right seven times out of seven is 1/128. But, the conclusi...