A theological 'kaki' of mine once argued that Christ has a divine spirit and a human body. The shell is human, but the content is divine.
This Christological error was originally proposed by Apollinarius of Alexandria and was univocally condemned as heresy at the Council of Constantinople in 381 from Rome in the West all the way to the East. And before him , Arius the spiritual ancestor of the Jehovah Witnesses speculated that the Logos replaced the human soul and took on just a human body. It is a heresy with a strong Platonic accent.
If Jesus is fully human, he must be like us- having a human body and a human, rational soul capable of ignorance and weakness. In contrast, the Appolinarian heresy left us with 50% or 33.3% man depending on your view of the spirit.
Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the Cappadocian Fathers responsible for the Chalcedon Creed wisely argued, “What is not assumed by the Word is not Healed”. If the Incarnation involves only the body, the human soul remains unredeemed. Christ’s human nature must be as fully human as Adam.
This Christological error was originally proposed by Apollinarius of Alexandria and was univocally condemned as heresy at the Council of Constantinople in 381 from Rome in the West all the way to the East. And before him , Arius the spiritual ancestor of the Jehovah Witnesses speculated that the Logos replaced the human soul and took on just a human body. It is a heresy with a strong Platonic accent.
If Jesus is fully human, he must be like us- having a human body and a human, rational soul capable of ignorance and weakness. In contrast, the Appolinarian heresy left us with 50% or 33.3% man depending on your view of the spirit.
Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the Cappadocian Fathers responsible for the Chalcedon Creed wisely argued, “What is not assumed by the Word is not Healed”. If the Incarnation involves only the body, the human soul remains unredeemed. Christ’s human nature must be as fully human as Adam.
Comments
"The issue (of Apollonarinism), strictly speaking, was not about whether or not Christ has a human soul/rational mind - it's about what constitutes those aspects of humanity which need salvation which in turn depends on the assumption that Christ must assume ALL ELEMENTS of humanity in order to save it. Somehow the idea that Christ can save all of humanity just by assuming only one (or some) element of it was never really an option. But what if He can? Why not?"
We know that the entire creation will be redeemed in God's New Heaven. But nobody thinks Jesus has to assume the form of a tree to give 'new birth' to the rainforests.
I'd like to say that I personally *disagree* with Apollonarius' argument AS A WHOLE. Still, I'm not sure it's right to go so far as to put him into exile or considered him condemned.
Alwyn
Just mumble, "Why is it that we dun hear much about heresies anymore?" Hmmm...
Either somehow they are a dying breed or *we* have lost the capacity to discern? "The Word became wood" (haha!) - I like that
Now, if x = Physical(P) + 'Spiritual'(S) aspects of humanity, then does Christ NEED to assume both P and S in order to save X?
He obviously doesn't need to become a tree to save the tree (which is part of a fallen creation). This suggests He doesn't need to assume everything about a certain object in order to redeem that object, right?
Therefore, Christ can save X without becoming 'fully' X. In fact, my argument is NOT 'The Word become wood'. Rather, it's "The Word does NOT need to become wood inorder to save wood'!
Yet again, I'm tempted to suspect you've quite missed the issue altogether, prefering to cloud the issue with rhetoric. but i'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this, :)
Getting people to confess "I believe that Jesus is my Lord and Saviour" seems too hard a battle fought, to be revoked just because the person has some issues with Chalcedon. maybe not everybody is so comfy with equating Chalcedon with Scripture...
We have every right to label this or that position a heresy but I think ppl nowdays feel that this practice is, in general, futile and pointless.
E.g. what hv I really accomplished if I go around calling process theology a heresy? or if EVERYTIME i think about Mormons i think of 'heresy', 'cult', etc.? ok, so i've termed this group of thinkers as 'beyound the bounds' of my faith? excellent. now what?
hv i learnt anything from them? if my attitude is so rigid and cocksure of the absolute correctness of my worldview, then probably not. why, what does light have to do with (let alone learn from) darkness, right?
can i persuade them of my convictions and maybe highlight some error in their thinking? if they've been offended by my continuous emphasis on their heresy (and how they better repent lest they go to hell), then probably not, too.
hv i even grown in my OWN thinking? hmm, how can we even define 'growth' in orthodox thinking? isn't most of the, err, 'important' stuff already settled? God forbid we actually RECONSIDER our traditional ways of thought (lest we get issued letters of exile as well)!
In the first century, the apostles expelled people when their teaching or behaviour led to progressively deteriorating ethical traits (hate, bitterness, lust, non-fellowship, hopelessness, etc.). This is worlds apart from what happened at Chalcedon, where relationships were torn apart and church leaders condemned over philosophical speculation! (c'mon, how much does ANYBODY know about the two natures of Jesus!? is it logical to threaten someone with exile just because he happens to think there was something 'different' about jesus' humanity?).
Get real, ppl. We've got bigger fish to fry. let's not kill each other over things we can barely understand!
Feel free to remove the last post and begin with my clarification of why I think we needn't condemn anyone for thinking that perhaps it was Jesus' "divine spirit" which inhabited His "human body".
I trust the conversation will be much more productive this way, *smile*
Al
I know I can count on you for a robust debate. Putting things in perspective, I agree that we have bigger fish to fry but doesn't mean that the issue on Chalcedon does nothing in terms of whether we have the fuel to do any frying.
A Mormon or Jehovah Witness can "accept Christ as Savior and Lord" (as long as you dun define that more narrowly), you'd probably see that, right? I'm not suggesting we kill anyone who disagree, but that we shouldn't dismiss such crucial Christological issues for the sake of frying other fish... we dun need to.
Back to the main issue, both of us agree that the Word does not need to become wood to save wood, but that the Word has to become man to save man.
Why? Because man has sinned, not trees of Fangorn.
Nature didn't fall, it was affected by the effects of the fall. See the diff?
Your argument wud work only if you qualify that man's physical body sinned, but his spirit didn't. The spirit was affected by the effects of sin like the trees and cats were. Are you?
So granted the Word must assume X to redeem X, X constitutes a wholistic (not truncated) view of man.
Argumentative differences of a non-essential kind can be tolerated and respected in the spirit of diversity.
But the issue of "Who is Jesus?" is not of that nature, bro. You have just assumed that it's inconsequential in the same category as 'how many angels can dance on the point of a needle?"
The last time I check people in in a charismatic and emotive culture sense a REAL problem with having communion with a Mormon and Jehovah Witness in the name of the love and grace, bro. Are we living on the same planet?
And I pointed out in a bible study with frens from Anglican, charismatic, pentecostal, independent, Brethren churches - On what basis do we unite today?
Jesus, yes. But more than that, it's also the same understanding of who He is. Fully God, Fully man. Do we equate that as a Scriptural teaching? Of course! I also mentioned by scripture alone and by faith alone as two unifying doctrines... despite all our diffs, essential doctrines UNITE us...
Essential Truth unites and heresies divide.
I think atheism is 'beyound the bounds' of my faith, I hope you do too. Does that mean i can't learnt anything from them? Sure i do.
The relativistic notion that "I MUST accept every 'isms as OK in order to start listening to them" is in itself rigid and smells of exclusivism.
If Alwyn is 'not cocksure of the absolute correctness of his worldview', why does he take the trouble of 'correcting' me?? Heheh...
I'm all for cordial dialogue (have been personally involved in that, by the way) and learning/growing in our understanding of God and His Word.
But it's simply nonsensical to suppose that we can only do so by assuming that every single idea is as harmless as the next.
Let's assume that the issue under debate was whether God could save us without becoming us. Could He do it? Yes or No? Granted that the Bible says that the Word became Flesh to save us, but it doesn't say the Word HAD to become flesh to save us.
Likewise, I find it hard to consider someone a heretic who feels that God could've redeemed humanity by only taking on our body and not our spirits. This person could just retort, "Are you suggesting that God is LIMITED by the nature of His creation? Are you saying that God CANNOT save our spirits/souls WITHOUT taking on our spirits/souls? Merely saying that 'Man's spirit sinned' doesn't address the question, it begs it."
Do you see? My own theological convictions isn't the point here. It's the views of those the Church has condemned and exiled in the past. Whilst I'm far from saying that the Church should not have hereticized ANYONE, I also feel strongly that she could've condemned LESS people.
And whilst I grant the Church should have 'boundaries' I also believe that a 'boundary-creating' attitude is unBiblical, against the will of God and ultimately detrimental to our spiritual health as well as that of the community's.
Ok, gotta go. Hope this finds you well.
Thanks for the irenic tone. And while I do agree that the Church should/could have anathemized less people, I don't think the Church was wrong to anathemize Christological heretics, which crop up from Nicene till Chalcedon Councils (the ecumenical councils, right?)
That's precisely the issue we’re talking about... It’s not whether the Church could have anathemized more or less people. It's about 'who is Christ?', that's no storm in a teacup.
I'm glad that you give allowance for the possibility of heresies (in fact, we must! Christ and Paul seem to know about them) but you don't 'draw the line' when it comes to "Christ is fully God, and fully man" right? He could be a divine spirit occupying a man's body, and that is still 'within the bounds' of orthodoxy. Or He could give up some divine attributes (ala kenosis) and that’s still OK…
That is what I don’t grant, bro.
It's fine to indulge in sloganeering i.e. “the Church should have 'boundaries' but a 'boundary-creating' attitude is unbiblical” but ultimately it doesn’t help to clear up these issues. For example, does it help very much if I say “the Church should have leaders but a leader-creating attitude is unbiblical”?
That’s a nice slogan but does it clarify what sort of leaders that we should ‘create’ or what sort of leaders that is detrimental to the Church? Nope, it doesn’t. It’s all sound-bytes and no content. Very postmodern, heheh…
Maybe I'd put the issue in this way:
Granted that the Bible says that the Word became man to save us, should we teach that the Word became anything less than man?
Frankly, I find it hard to consider someone a heretic who feels that God could've redeemed humanity by sending an angel called Jesus. But does that mean that this teaching is not heretical? Is that faithful to the revelation of Scripture?
If that is not orthodox, why should we not also do the unenviable task of standing firm against similar teachings that Christ is only a truncated human?
When I said 'it was man who sinned, not the trees of Fangorn' – humanity as body and soul- I was not addressing whether God could have saved us by sending angels, a lamb, bull, or snapping his finger etc, but specifically to your question about “Why doesn’t Christ need to become a tree”, remember? So I was not begging any 'new' question you inserted.
Turning to your NEW question:
Well, I don’t think God is limited by creation… He could have snapped His finger and cancelled out our debts, or send Bambi to die on the altar for humanity IF He wanted to.
But God’s own character does dictate what He could or could not do. Again, I find good company in the theologians of the past like Anselm…
God doesn’t want to do any of those options not because He was limited by creation but because it was against His holiness to let sin go unpunished or to let a substitute of lesser value to atone for fallen humanity. He could only become fully man because He must represent fallen man. Trees do not need representation or atonement. He can’t represent man if He’s incarnate as a robot for only man was made in His image. He is the three-dimensional Cube for which man is the two-dimensional square.
Given that overall picture, well, I can safely answer that nope, God cannot save our spirits by sending angel, snapping fingers, incarnating as robot or substitute us with a Bambi…