Posted by A2 on 4/18/2001, 5:17 pm

Posted by Steve B. on 3/29/2001, 3:51 pm , in reply to "A repost of " A2, You write There needs to be further qualification from established orthodoxy that the 2nd personage of God is both human and divine. Do you mean by this that you want a verbatim quote from an early creed that says "The second personage of God is both human and divine"? I ask because your phrase "2nd personage of God" (or even the more usual "2nd person of God") does not itself come from the early creeds. According to your own use of terminology, it would be called “commentary on established orthodoxy” You've said you don't accept that sort of thing in my postings, so I find it odd when I find you sticking on this point here. "Orthodox" trinitarian doctrine as you define it (that is, if I understand you correctly in meaning by this phrase only the early creeds) would not include wording like "the 2nd person of God." That's only one way of describing him, and it came a little later. For example, the Athanasian Creed contains this section: Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting Salvation, that he also believe rightly 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 of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the substance of His mother, born into 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 be God and Man, yet He is not two, but One Christ. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into Flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by Unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one Man, so God and Man is one Christ. You also write ...these two statements are incompatible descriptions. Two united natures does not suggest a split personality. So as I understand it so far, this is where our disagreement stands in the present thread: 1. “Jesus unites in himself the two natures” = “In Jesus, two natures are united.” This is your characterization of the Definition of Chalcedon, a statement you say you accept as an accurate representation of orthodox trinitarian doctrine. 2. “Jesus is both a human and divine person” = “Jesus has a ‘split personality’” This is your characterization of my position, a position with which you not only disagree, but also one which you say strays from “orthodox” trinitarian teaching, by which you apparently mean the early creeds. My comments: I accept your characterization of the Definition of Chalcedon. It does not of course address everything in the Definition, but I know it is probably not meant to. It does address the central point in the christological issue we are debating. (But I do not accept your claim that the modern sources I cited do not accurately reflect the meaning of the Definition of Chalcedon in particular or the early creeds in general. You merely asserted that they did so without showing how.) Your characterization of my own position is, however, not accurate. For one thing of course, I meant it to be simply synonymous with Jesus having two natures, and I maintain that in a friendlier exchange there would have been no further need to spell things out like this. But you say it is synonymous with Jesus having a ‘split personality’. This does not reflect my meaning at all. First, why use “personality” in the characterization my position, anyway? The word I used was “person.” Is this yet another synonym for “person,” or do you mean by its use that there is something in the word “person” that I have missed? For the present, I will have to assume you mean it to be synonymous with “person” since you do not say otherwise. Secondly, the phrase ‘split personality’ is used for schizophrenia and therefore has a pejorative connotation that is entirely inaccurate in this context. Finally, it is unclear. Do you mean you think I am saying that one personality is split into two personalities, or that the one personality is split into two “half personalities,” or something? In actual fact I of course mean neither. When I say "Jesus is both a human and divine person," I mean simply that he has both a human and a divine nature united in his own person. But I am still unable to tell from your postings either how my original statement failed to convey this, how it is different in substance from orthodox trinitarianism, or even how it is different from “commentary on established trinitarianism.” The only thing I can really see is that it would be of course be possible to force it to mean something different if one was determined to ignore the context and intent of my accompanying remarks. But then, that's true of almost everything, isn't it? Sincerely, Steve Born Email: srborn@seanet.com Home page: http://www.seanet.com/~srborn/