A flash of what may be a heretical thought has dawned on me! (Ok to cut my gleeful delight some of it's joy, I've had many a heretical belief and most recently, ahem, flirtations with purgatory. Guys, let's do a call back to indulgences righhhhht?) But hey, it's always fun to unravel a little bit of heresy and do some theological straightening and unearthing.
Anyways, the thought occurred to me as I was reading Pastor Mark Jone's article A Summary of Orthodox Christology's section on the hypostatic union as defined by the Chalcedonian Creed. In which the doctrine that Christ is both God and man, both fully divine and fully human, is affirmed. Here's some of my questions that may or may not lead to heresy! 1) Was the Son, as part of the eternal Trinity, eternally divine and human in nature? 2) If the Son is eternal in the fullness of nature, meaning that he has always been man, how is it that at one point man is created? 3) If the Son is not eternal in the fullness of nature, meaning that in one point he gained the fullness of humanity to his nature through the incarnation, how can his human nature be part of the Trinity which can only be eternal? 4) If his human nature is at one point added as part of the Trinity, the lack of constancy for someone who claims to be 'I am', seems rather worrying. What bars Christ from picking up the fullness of other natures? The salvation of Angelic beings through the picking up of the fullness of Angels? (OK getting worryingly close to JWs) 5) Can the Son in eternity future, drop his fullness of humanity (in the implication that he picked it up half way?) 6) How will the Son in eternity future relate to us in the fullness of humanity in his new resurrected state? I'm sure, though beautiful and perfect, it falls short of his divine nature! How can he share a lesser glory with us whilst still enjoying a divine glory with the Father? So my thoughts are: Christ is eternal in a very specific way, in that only his divine nature includes both eternity past and eternity future. His humanity on the other hand, does not partake in eternity past. The preeminience of Christ means that in his human nature, Christ was firstborn of all creation (Col 1:15). Firstborn implying that there was a time where he did not have a human nature. It was only at the point of incarnation does he puts on and plays out his Father's will in the fullness of human nature. Also this brings to mind questions of the Son's role in the OT, as no one has seen the Father (John 1:18), was it Christ in his humanity or divinity that appeared to the prophets? So heresy or not? I probably could figure that out in an hour with some digging since I bet these questions have also been asked and resolved by many other people, but for now I'll let it swirl around my mind. Or debate me! I shall defend my cause (even if it may be heresy). En garde!
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AuthorHi I'm Danielle. Archives
September 2021
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