Open for debate

Al Masihi wrote: I'm not exactly a Maronite I identify with them since I have not been baptized into any Church and I'm rather yet a bit skeptical of the Catholic Church but anyways. When God became a man he didn't change with respect to His Divinity, even in becoming Man He underwent no change in essence or substance. That is what we mean God does not change nor undergoes change in essence or in divine nature.

Al Masihi,

You said “When God became a man he didn't change with respect to His Divinity, even in becoming Man He underwent no change in essence or substance. That is what we mean God does not change nor undergoes change in essence or in divine nature.”

In Islam, God can not be equated with all creatures that He created (Qur'an 112:4).

"And there is none co-equal or comparable unto Him."

If your assumption that God is incarnate as a human, it will be weak because the basic properties in humans need something in their life such as eating, drinking, laughing, crying etc., while for God is the opposite from that all. God does not want His creatures to be wrong in interpreting the existence of the original form. (Qur'an 6:103)

“No vision can grasp Him, but He grasps all vision. He is Al-Latif (the Most Subtle and Courteous), Well-Acquainted with all things.”

And the Prophet Muhammad avoids to debate with Najrani Christians not because of your perception.

Al Masihi wrote: I'm not exactly a Maronite I identify with them since I have not been baptized into any Church and I'm rather yet a bit skeptical of the Catholic Church but anyways. When God became a man he didn't change with respect to His Divinity, even in becoming Man He underwent no change in essence or substance. That is what we mean God does not change nor undergoes change in essence or in divine nature.

I asked: ‘Please explain how God - pure spirit, pure actuality, with no potential for change (none whatsoever) - can become flesh (which is forever subject to change).

You replied: ‘When God became a man he didn't change with respect to His Divinity, even in becoming Man He underwent no change in essence or substance.’

Water becomes ice. Change. Youth becomes old age. Change. Day becomes night. Change. The ‘Second Person of the Trinity’ becomes flesh. No change. What???

Have a look at what Ott has to say:

‘…..it is objected that the Hypostatic Union contradicts the immutability of God. The rejoinder to this is that the act of becoming man, as an operation of God ad extra, has no more induced a change in the Divine Essence than did the creation of the world, as it is only the execution in time of an eternal unchangeable resolve of will. Neither did the event of the Incarnation result in a change of the Divine Essence; for, after the assumption of a body the Logos was no more perfect and no less perfect than before. No change for the worse took place, because the Logos remains what It was; and no change for the better, because It already possessed in sublime manner all perfections of the human nature from all eternity.’ (‘Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma - Chapter 4 - Theological-speculative Discussion on the Hypostatic Union’).

Let’s examine this statement more closely:

1. That the act by which the ‘Second Person of the Trinity’ (the ‘Logos’) became a man is no different from God’s act of creation; since both are merely ‘the execution in time of an eternal unchangeable resolve of (His) will.’

I know of no Trinitarian who believes that when God created the universe - and all that lies therein- He actually became this universe; this galaxy; this planet; this rock; this tree; or that He became ‘Adam’. On the other hand, every Trinitarian believes that the ‘Logos’ became flesh.

The act of creation and the (alleged) act of Incarnation are entirely different as to their natures. The former required no change to the essential nature of God. The latter, on the other hand, cannot be achieved without such change (assuming that the doctrine of God’s immutability is correct).

2. That after ‘the event of the Incarnation’ the ‘Logos’ was: ‘no less perfect than before (and that) no change for the worse took place, because the Logos remains what It was.’

The Nicene Creed confesses: ‘’Who for us men and for our salvation descended from heaven and was made flesh’ (Denzinger 86).   To say that the ‘Logos’ was: ‘no less perfect’ after becoming flesh is to say that God and man are equal in their perfection; in their holiness; in their very natures.

The nature of God: He is spirit…………He is immutable…….He is infinite………He is omnipotent…………He is not man!

The nature of man: He is corporeal…..He is mutable…….He is finite……..He is weak……..He is not God!

How can these two natures be the same? How can a change from the former to the latter not be a change for the worse?

3. That the ‘Logos’: ‘Already possessed in sublime manner all perfections of the human nature from all eternity.’

No need for a philosophical debate here! We are agreed, I’m sure, that humans are corporeal.

The 4th Lateran Council and the First Vatican Council taught that God is absolutely simple (Denzinger 428, 1782). This means that He is free from any kind of composition, whether physical or metaphysical. He is pure spirit; being neither a body nor a composition of body and spirit.

If this doctrine is true, then how can God possess - in any way, and to any degree - a corporeal nature?

Having made his first statement, Ott goes on to say:

‘The change lay on the side of the human nature only, which was elevated to participation in the Personal Subsistence of the Logos.’

In other words, what changed was not the ‘Logos’ but the human nature of Christ. It become divine (at the moment of conception).

This claim contradicts the Council of Basel, which decreed that it: ‘Holds, professes and teaches that one and the same Son of God and of man, our lord Jesus Christ, is perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity; true God and true man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, consubstantial with us as regards his humanity; like us in all respects except for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father, and in the last days the same born according to his humanity for us and our salvation from Mary the virgin mother of God.’ (Session 13).

Note: The Council assures us that: Christ is ‘perfect in humanity’….a ‘true man’…..‘consubstantial with us as regards his humanity’…..‘like us in all respects except for sin.’

It’s worth noting that the Council of Chalcedon also declared Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) to be ‘truly God and truly man’ (Denzinger 148).

In Chapter Two (Section 10) of his book, Ott speaks of the ‘Adamite Origin of Christ's Human Nature’.

He confirms the doctrine that ‘Christ was truly generated and born of a daughter of Adam, the Virgin Mary’; and then goes on to write:

‘The reality and integrity of Christ's human nature is especially guaranteed by the fact that Christ was truly generated and born of a human mother. Through His descent from a daughter of Adam, He was, as to His humanity, incorporated into the posterity of Adam. He had identity of essence with man and continuity of race; Christ became our Brother.’

In short….the nature of Yeshua (ʿalayhi as-salām) was that of any other human. It was in no way divine. It was not ‘elevated to participation in the Personal Subsistence of the Logos.’

John Hick writes: ‘(The Council of Chalcedon) merely asserted that Jesus was ‘truly God and truly man’ without attempting to say how such a paradox is possible…. Merely to assert that two different natures coexisted in Jesus ‘without confusion, without change, without division, without separation’ is to utter a form of words which as yet has no specific meaning.’ (‘The Metaphor of God Incarnate’; page 48).

E. P. Sanders writes: ‘It lies beyond my meagre abilities as an interpreter of dogmatic theology to explain how it is possible for one person to be 100 per cent human and 100 per cent divine, without either interfering with the other.’ (The Historical Figure of Jesus’; page 134.).

I now ask: How is it possible for that one person to be 100 per cent human and 100 per cent divine at one and the same time?’

I invite you to provide an answer.

There was the time when God wrestled with Jacob to test him and so forth. God appearing as a man is not him in his true form because no one can see the true form of God. We still have original copies of the Bible and Torah the Dead Sea Scrolls are an example and they are almost identical to the modern day Old Testament,

The doctrine of the hypostatic union is an merely an attempt to explain how Jesus could be both God and man at the same time. It is ultimately, though, a doctrine we are incapable of fully understanding. It is impossible for us to fully understand how God works. We, as human beings with finite minds, should not expect to totally comprehend an infinite God. Jesus is God’s Son in that He was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35). But that does not mean Jesus did not exist before He was conceived. Jesus has always existed (John 8:58, 10:30). When Jesus was conceived, He became a human being in addition to being God (John 1:1, 14).