The doctrine of the Incarnation, that Jesus Christ was both truly God and truly human, is the foundation and cornerstone of traditional Christian theism. And yet this traditional teaching appears to verge on incoherence. How can one person be both God, having all the perfections of divinity, and human, having all the limitations of humanity? This is the fundamental philosophical problem of the Incarnation. Perhaps a solution is found in an analysis of what the traditional teaching meant by (...) person, divinity, and humanity, or in understanding how divinity and humanity were united in a single person. This Element presents that traditional teaching, then returns to the incoherence problem to showcase various solutions offered to it. (shrink)

IN "THE INCARNATION AS A CONTINUING REALITY," RELIGIOUS STUDIES 6,303-27 (DECEMBER 1970), DAVID PAILIN CLAIMS THAT THE INCARNATION REVEALS THE NECESSARY, EMPIRICALLY NON-FALSIFIABLE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD’S "ACTIVE ACTUALITY". GOD’S "PASSIVE ACTUALITY," THE WAY HE EXPERIENCES THE WORLD, IS METAPHYSICALLY KNOWN, BUT NOT HIS "ACTIVE ACTUALITY," THE WAY IN WHICH HE RESPONDS TO THE WORLD, FOR HE COULD HAVE RESPONDED OTHERWISE. NEVERTHELESS GOD’S CONCRETE RESPONSE IS EMPIRICALLY NON-FALSIFIABLE, FOR EVERYTHING THAT CAN POSSIBLY HAPPEN IN THE ACTUAL WORLD WILL REFLECT (...) THAT RESPONSE. I REPLY THAT THE METAPHYSICAL PRINCIPLES AS WELL COULD CONCEIVABLY BE OTHERWISE, BUT GOD’S PRIMORDIAL DECISION DETERMINES WHICH MUST BE EXEMPLIFIED BY ALL POSSIBLE ACTUALITIES WHATSOEVER. THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF GOD’S RESPONSE TO THE WORLD IS THEREBY METAPHYSICALLY KNOWABLE. THE INCARNATION OF THE CHRIST REVEALS TO US THE CONTINGENT CHARACTER OF GOD’S RESPONSE TO THE PARTICULARITIES OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, AND THIS. (shrink)

The Incarnate Ground of Christian Faith is addressed precisely to the epistemological questions posed by postmodernity. It begins by issuing an extended critique of one of the major approaches to pastoral theology and Christian education--Thomas Groome's Shared Praxis Approach. Martin's incisive analysis of shared praxis concludes that its implicit subjectivism and pedagogical narrowness cannot lend intellectual plausibility to the Christian faith among a postmodern generation. For an alternative vision of a holistic and plausible faith, Martin points in a different direction, (...) to an incarnational epistemology in which science and theology discover deep resonance in each other. The main features of this epistemological framework are developed by integrating the perspectives of scientist/philosopher Michael Polanyi and theologian Thomas F. Torrance. The resulting synthesis preserves the integrity of science and theology as distinct yet inherently related ways of making sense of the world, the purpose of which is to participate more fully in the world. The main thrust of the book is that a vibrant faith incarnationally grounded in experience and clarified theologically intensifies personal and social expressions of ecclesial life. In the midst of widespread confusion, conflict, and oppression in contemporary societies, Christians' faith in and commitment to the church's sacramental ministry of love and reconciliation could not be in greater demand. (shrink)

The Incarnation, traditionally understood as the metaphysical union between true divinity and true humanity in the one person of Jesus Christ, is one of the central doctrines for Christians over the centuries. Nevertheless, many scholars have objected that the Scriptural account of the Incarnation is incoherent. Being divine seems to entail being omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, but the New Testament portrays Jesus as having human properties such as being apparently limited in knowledge, power, and presence. It seems logically (...) impossible that any single individual could possess such mutually exclusive sets of properties, and this leads to scepticism concerning the occurrence of the Incarnation in history. A Kryptic Model of the Incarnation aims to provide a critical reflection of various attempts to answer these challenges and to offer a compelling response integrating aspects from analytic philosophy of religion, systematic theology, and historical-critical studies. Loke develops a new Kryptic model of the Incarnation, drawing from the Greek word Krypsis meaning ’hiding’, and proposing that in a certain sense Christ’s supernatural properties were concealed during the Incarnation. (shrink)

While the incarnation is often invoked as part of a response to the problem of evil (as by the early Kenneth Surin), affirming something like an orthodox view of the incarnation also seems to accentuate the problem of evil by incorporating belief in miraculous divine action. I suggest a possible line of response that allows for the incarnation to be understood as historically particular but non-miraculous.

This interdisciplinary study follows an international and ecumenical meeting of twenty-four scholars held in New York at Easter 2000: the Incarnation Summit. After an opening chapter, which summarizes and evaluates twelve major questions concerning the Incarnation, five chapters are dedicated to the biblical roots of this central Christian doctrine. A patristic and medieval section corrects misinterpretations and retrieves for today the significance of the Council of Chalcedon and its aftermath, as well as clarifying Aquinas' enduring metaphysical interpretation of (...) the Incarnation. The volume then moves to theological and philosophical debates: three scholars take up such systematic issues as belief in the Incarnation, the self-emptying that it involves, and its compatibility with divine timelessness. The remaining four essays consider the place of the doctrine of the Incarnation in literature, ethics, art, and preaching. There is a fruitful dialogue between experts in a wide range of areas and the international reputation of the participants reflects and guarantees the high quality of this joint work. The result is a well researched, skilfully argued, and, at times, provocative volume on the central Christian belief: the Incarnation of the Son of God. (shrink)

The Christian doctrine of the Incarnation maintains that the second person of the Trinity became a human being, retaining all attributes necessary for being divine and gaining all attributes necessary for being human. As usually understood, the doctrine involves the claim that the second person of the Trinity is the subject of the attributes of Jesus Christ, the first-century Jew whose deeds are reported in various ways in the New Testament. The fundamental philosophical problem specific to the doctrine is (...) this: how is it that one and the same thing could be both divine and human. Most of the philosophical effort devoted to the specifics of the doctrine has centered on this issue, which is the focus of this article. (shrink)

The period from Thomas Aquinas to Duns Scotus is one of the richest in the history of Christian theology. The Metaphysics of the Incarnation aims to provide a thorough examination of the doctrine in this era, making explicit its philosophical and theological foundations. Medieval theologians believed that there were good reasons for supposing that Christ's human nature was an individual. In the light of this, Part 1 discusses how the various thinkers held that an individual nature could be united (...) to a divine person. Part 2 shows how one divine person could be incarnate without any other. Part 3 deals with questions of Christological predication, and Part 4 shows how an individual nature is to be distinguished from a person. The work begins with a full account of the metaphysics presupposed in the medieval accounts, and concludes with observations relating medieval accounts to modern Christology. (shrink)

A follow up to 'The Easter God'. John V. Taylor sets out God's incarnation in Jesus and his interaction with the world.

This work introduces the English-speaking reader to the theoretical foundations of Kng's popular works; an indispensable prolegomena for every future Christology.

Bonaventure holds that God does all things with power, wisdom, and goodness; such as in the case of the restoration. If Incarnation is examined as a work of God in the light of power, wisdom, and goodness, we can see why it is the most perfect of all God's works, for there cannot be any greater act of power than to combine within a single person two natures: the human and divine. While Bonaventure stresses the gratuity of the redemption (...) — that is, God was in no way obliged to save us — he is very clear that man could not have been saved by any healer other than God. (shrink)

Why I thought it useful to offer an explanation of Hegel’s doctrine on the Incarnation was so that the reader may be empowered to identify Hegel’s influence in modern accounts of this mystery. Even if, in my view, Hegel’s interpretation of revealed religion differs greatly from Catholic Doctrine, it is not surprising to find the presence of some of his concepts in modern theology. In truth, what matters is not the theologian’s self-identification as Hegelian or as non-Hegelian, but whether (...) or not the theologian adopts Hegel’s concepts. This paper offers an explanation of the internal dynamism of Hegelian concepts and their relation to Christian doctrine in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. This research may help to show in what way it is possible to explain Christian religious doctrine with a philosophy other than the Thomistic one and how, at least in Hegel’s case, religious doctrine is changed and reduced to an erroneous philosophical content. Also, an attempt is made to show the internal “coherence” of this Hegelian re-reading of Christianity so that theologians may become more cautious about accepting an explanation of Christian doctrine simply because the Christian language is preserved in that explanation. (shrink)

An invited talk delivered at the Logos Institute of Analytic Theology at the University of St Andrews. The topic was on the coherence of the doctrine of the Incarnation. I sought to introduce my solution to the logical challenge against the doctrine of the incarnation and also my own metaphysical model of the incarnation (called the transformational model). This talk summarises my article on this topic published previously in IJPR (termed 'On the metaphysics of the incarnation'). (...) Handouts for the talk are included in the file. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE INCARNATION: MUSLIM OBJECTIONS AND THE CHRISTIAN RESPONSE ROBERT L. FASTIGGI St. Edward's University Austin, Texas Introduction: Christian-Muslim Dialogue and the Incarnation THE TWO largest religions in the world, Christianity and Islam cannot help but encounter each other. In the last two decades, several important steps have been made by Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians to engage in meaningful dialogue with members of the Islamic faith.1 While (...) sincerity, mutual respect and good will are all in evidence in these efforts to dialogue, it also is clear that an authentic theological discussion between Christians and Muslims cannot help but arouse a certain degree of tension over the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. In my own experience in dialogue with Muslims,2 there seems to emerge a point in which discussion of Jesus the prophet vs. Jesus the Incarnate Word of God will inevitably take place. Such discussions can prove to be stimulating and educational. However, they tend to go best when there is an honest and open acknowledgement of the differences that exist between 1 A good summary of Catholic and Protestant efforts can be found in John Renard, " Christian-Muslim Dialogue: A Review of Six Post-Vatican II, Church-Related Documents," Journal of Ecunmenical Studies 23 :1, Winter, 1986: 69-89. On the Orthodox Christian dialogue with Muslims, see Orthodox Christians and Muslims, ed. N. M. Vaporis (Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1986). 2 I have visited Saudi Arabia and Bahrain as a Joseph J. Malone Fellow with the National Council of U.S.-Arab Relations, and I was a member of the Christian-Muslim Dialogue Commission of the Austin Metropolitan Ministries in Austin, Texas. 457 458 ROBERT L. FASTIGGI the two traditions. As Georges Anawati, a Catholic Islamicist; notes : " As a starting point, dialogue requires respect for the identity of the other. It does not ignore obvious differences... for to do so would be of no use for ·either friendship or truth." 3 A Muslim scholar, Professor Mohammed Taibi of the University of Tunis, likewise remarks that " the more one is firm about the classical aspects of divergence, the better the contacts between Christians and Muslims." 4 At issue in the Christian-Muslim discussion of the Incarnation is the unique character of each faith. In Islam, there is the absolute affirmation of divine unity (tawhid) which necessarily condemns any attempt to associate something other than God with God (shirk). Christianity, though, has as one of its central tenets the affirmation that the uncreated Word of God (ho logos) became flesh (sarx) in Jesus (John 1 :14). Islam, therefore, presents a unique challenge to the Christian theologian. Is it possible to formulate a Christology which can affirm the Islamic principle of tawhid and evade the accusation of shirk without compromising the core of the Christian message? This is the question this article hopes to address. One suggestion for Christians in dialogue with Muslims is given by Hans Kiing in his book Christianity and the World Religions.5 Kiing believes that Christians would do best to go back to the mindset of the original Jewish Christians who possessed an understanding of Jesus which is much more compatible with the Qur'anic view of Jesus as the "servant of God." 6 While Kiing's suggestion is helpful for Christians who are looking for an analogy to the Islamic view of Jesus, I find it problematical for several reasons. Kiing seems to suggest that the Jesus of history (as s Georges Anawati, 0.P., "An Assessment of the Christian-Islamic Dialogue," in The Vatican, Islam and the Middle East, ed. Kail Ellis, O.S.A. (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1987), p. 59. 4 Ibid., p. 65. 5 Hans Kung, Christi"anity and the World Religions: Paths of Dialogue with Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, trans. Peter Heinegg (New York: Doubleday, 1986), pp. 109-130. a Ibid., p. 122. MUSLIM OBJECTIONS & CHRISTIAN RESPONSE 459 well as the Jesus of the New Testament) is quite separate from the Christ of the ecumenical councils. Such an assertion, though, does not find support from many Christian theologians and biblical scholars (not to mention church authorities).1 Moreover, Kiing appears to have an... (shrink)

Most of us think of memory in terms of the brain's ability to store and retrieve events, facts, and skills. Philosophers and cognitive scientists seek to understand memory in terms of causation and justification. This article steps back from these considerations to reflect broadly on what memory is. Drawing on the paradigm shift underway in mind sciences, I explore the implications of the emerging understanding of cognition as embodied, embedded, extended, and enacted. This new paradigm undermines epistemological dualism and individualism (...) and makes it possible to view memory as an ecological process. (shrink)

The best defense of the doctrine of the Incarnation implies that traditional Christianity has a special stake in the knowability paradox, a stake not shared by other theistic perspectives or by non-traditional accounts of the Incarnation. Perhaps, this stake is not even shared by antirealism, the view most obviously threatened by the paradox. I argue for these points, concluding that these results put traditional Christianity at a disadvantage compared to other viewpoints, and I close with some comments about (...) the extent of the burden incurred. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the Incarnation of the Son of God, understood in a traditionally orthodox way, is incompatible with an atemporalist concept of God. First, I explain what I mean by atemporalism, namely the idea that God exists outside time. I also show the main corollaries of that doctrine, most notably that all of God’s life occurs eternally simultaneously. Second, based on New Testament teaching and widely accepted creeds, I spell out philosophically what I mean by (...) the Incarnation. In short, I take it to be the doctrine that the Second Person of the Trinity at some point in time took on a human body as part of a fully human nature. I then proceed to my central argument, which derives a contradiction from the definitions of the Incarnation and of atemporalism, respectively. In the last section, I shall treat some possible objections to my argument and show that they do not solve the problem satisfactorily. (shrink)

A groundbreaking exploration of Heidegger and embodiment, from which a radical ethical perspective emerges.

Why does the paradox play such a crucial role in Kierkegaard's notion of truth as subjectivity? Richard Schacht explains it as follows: Eternal happiness is possible for a man only if it is possible for him to relate himself to God. A man, however, is a being who exists in time; and it would not be possible for such a being to enter into a ‘God-relationship’ if God had not also at some point existed in time. Through the ‘leap of (...) faith’ in which one affirms the proposition that God did exist in time, one is able to enter a ‘God-relationship’ and thereby attains ‘an eternal happiness’. (shrink)

The Chalcedonian Definition states that the incarnate Christ is both fully human and fully divine. But spelling out what the Chalcedonian Definition entails continues to be a subject of intense controversy among philosophers and theologians alike. One of these controversies concerns what I call the problem of the bearer question. At the heart of this question lies whether or not the two natures of Christ require two distinct bearers. In section I, I will explain the problem of the bearer question (...) and how it arises directly due to the Chalcedonian Definition. In section II, I will propose a solution to the problem of the bearer question within the framework of what I call, a ‘Multi–Track Disposition Model of the Incarnation’. At the heart of this model lies the notion that the manifestation of properties is multi–directional in the sense that there is a reciprocal partnership among property manifestations. In section III, I will contrast the solution proposed to the bearer question by the Multi–Track Model to that of a ‘Kenotic Model of the Incarnation’. I will argue that the Multi–Track Model provides us with better conceptual resources to make sense of the bearer question. Finally, in section IV, I will briefly point out why ultimately a conclusive answer to the bearer question may still prove to be elusive because the bearer question gives rise to a host of other unresolved questions. (shrink)

The central doctrine of traditional Christianity, the doctrine of the Incarnation, is that the Second Person of the Trinity lived a human existence on Earth as Jesus Christ for a finite period. In the words of the Nicene Creed, the Son is himwho for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.

A knowledge argument is offered that presents unique difficulties for Christians who wish to assert that God is essentially omniscient. The difficulties arise from the doctrine of the incarnation. Assuming that God the Son did not necessarily have to become incarnate, then God cannot necessarily have knowledge de se of the content of a non-divine mind. If this is right, then God’s epistemic powers are not fixed across possible worlds and God is not essentially omniscient. Some options for Christian (...) theists are discussed, including rejecting traditional theism in favour of some version of pantheism or panentheism. (shrink)

This essay explores the ways in which John Henry Newman’s preaching on asceticism can speak to the ostensible tension in contemporary Christianity between ‘spiritual’ and ‘earthly’ concerns. Newman contends, paradoxically, that a conscious self-denial of lawful material pleasures is necessarily correlated to the Christian’s ability to perceive the spiritual grace that can be mediated by physical objects. The sermons of his Anglican period reflect what he would eventually articulate as the “sacramental principle,” namely that the material world presents “types and (...) the instruments of real things unseen.” This principle is grounded in the doctrine of the Incarnation, which he considers to be the central truth of the gospel. I argue that this anchoring in the Incarnation gives his preaching on asceticism an ultimately practical or “this worldly” character, and, more precisely, offers an understanding of asceticism not as a means of mystical knowledge or escapism but as the only way to live fully in the world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Incarnation of God: An Introduction to Hegel's Theological Thought as Prolegomena to a Future Christology. By HANS Kii'NG. Translated by J. R. Stephenson. New York: Crossroad, 1987. Pp. 601. $37.50 (cloth bound). This is an imposing book (first German edition, 1970), not only in length, but in breadth of presentation. Kiing, in the introduction, outlines the philosophical, theological and cultural milieus out of which Hegel's (...) theology and philosophy emerged. In the next 400 pages (seven chapters), Kiing thoroughly articulates the historical development of Hegel's theological and philosophical thought as expressed in his successive writings, specifically examining and evaluating the christological elements. Kiing's final chapter interprets Hegel's Christology in light of recent biblical historical/critical methodology, by way of a prolegomenon to a future Christology. The book concludes with five integral historical/theological excursus which take up specific questions that arise out of this Hegelian enterprise, for example: "Does God suffer?," "The Dialectic of the Attributes of God," "Immutability of God?". In the preface to this English edition, Kiing states that the purpose of this work is to "provide theologians with an introduction to Hegel's theological and christological thought.... [It will be] a many-leveled 'invitation' into Hegel's life and 'thought, with particular reference to his religious world, and then into his theology and Christology " (p. ix). "Moreover,.this book is an introduction to Hegel's thought by way of 'prolegomena to a future Christology '. In ·these pages we endeavour to return... a provisional reply that will take us some way in the right direction" (p. x). Why did Kiing look to Hegel for the clue to a future Christology? His thesis is that "the biblical message concerning a God who is by no means separated from the world but rather operates within it, and who is by no means stuck immovable and immutable in an unhistorical and suprahistorical realm but rather performs living acts in hi&tory can be better understood [along the lines of Hegelian thought] than in terms of the metaphysics of either classical Greece or the middle ages" (p. xii). Any student of historical or philosophical theology/christology will be captivated by Kiing's treatment of.the development of Hegel's ilhought. Undoubtedly he has mastered Hegel's life, writings and 698 694 BOOK REVIEWS thought, and presents these in a clear, complete and engaging manner. Kiing notes that Hegel, beginning with his student days at Tiihingen, was influenced by three strong cultural and intellectual currents: the Enlightenment as it specifically culminated in the thought of Kant, the French Revolution, and the rise of the Romantic movement. Kiing shows that, while the young Hegel was acquainted with the Bible, and even,though he already displayed an interest in the role of religion (folk religion) as formative of society, nowhere was he "seized in a lively and inward fashion by the Christian faith, by the figure of Christ himself" (p. 54). To rthe contrary, Hegel's early experience of Christianity was lifeless and joyless. During his subsequent time in Bern, Hegel's evaluation of Jesus un· derwent a transformation. Hegel became fascinated with Greek religion, not because it was true, but because it embodied the culture and spirit of the people. Developing this train of thought, he stated that "The supreme end of man is morality, and his religious bent is pre· eminent among his aptitudes for promoting that end" (p. 69). In light of this, Hegel considered Jesus,to lack the humane and universal scope of Socrates, who was " the paradigm of a free, good and humane Hellenism and of harmony with nature, world and state " (p. 63). Jesus' teaching was too much an authoritarian imposition upon people rarther than, like Socrates', a nurturing of their inner spirit and life. Shordy, as reflected in his Life of Jesus, Hegel's view of Jesus was to change. Now he was placed above Socrates, not because he was acknowledged to be the eternal Son of God, nor because he reconciled mankind to God by his death on the cross, but rather because he per· sonified the divine ideal of virtue that is so necessary for social order. " Whart is... (shrink)

In this paper I provide a metaphysical account of the incarnation that starts from substantive assumptions about the nature of natures and about the metaphysics of the Trinity and develops in light of these a story about the relations among the elements involved in the incarnation. Central to the view I will describe are two features of Aristotle's metaphysics, though I do not claim that my own development of these ideas is anything of which Aristotle himself would have (...) approved: (i) a hylomorphic understanding of material objects; (ii) a doctrine of numerical sameness without identity; and (iii) the view that the nature of a thing can appropriately be identified with its form. These ideas, along with other important aspects of the metaphysical framework with which I shall be working, are laid out in the first five sections below, followed in the sixth section by a brief sketch of the account of the Trinity that Jeff Brower and I have presented in detail elsewhere. In the final section, I present my account of the incarnation. (shrink)

The Council of Chalcedon insisted that God Incarnate is one person with two natures, one divine and one human. Recently critics have rightly argued that God Incarnate cannot be a composite person. In the present paper I defend a new composite theory using the analogy of a boy playing a video game. The analogy suggests that the Incarnation is God doing something. The Incarnation is what I label an “action composite” and is a state of affairs, constituted by (...) one divine person assuming human nature. This solves a number of puzzles, conforms to Chalcedon, and is logically and metaphysically consistent. (shrink)

Trenton Merricks holds to a physicalist view of the Incarnation according to which the Son transformed into a physical object at the Incarnation. R. T. Mullins, in “Physicalist Christology and the Two Sons Worry,” claims that Merricks’s account is Nestorian since it entails that it is metaphysically possible for the human nature of Christ to be a person independently of the Son’s incarnation. While I am not a physicalist, in this essay I defend Merricks’s view against Mullins’s (...) claim. I argue that if the Son is numerically identical to the body of Jesus, then it is not possible for the body of Jesus to exist independently of the Son’s incarnation. (shrink)

This book offers original essays by leading philosophers of religion representing these new approaches to theological problems such as incarnation.

Thomas Morris and Richard Swinburne have recently defended what they call the ‘two-minds’ model of the Incarnation. This model, which I refer to as the ‘inclusion model’ or ‘inclusionism’, claims that Christ had two consciousnesses, a human and a divine consciousness, with the former consciousness contained within the latter one. I begin by exploring the motivation for, and structure of, inclusionism. I then develop a variety of objections to it: some philosophical, others theological in nature. Finally, I sketch a (...) variant of inclusionism which I call ‘restricted inclusionism’ (RI); RI can evade many, but not all, of the objections to standard inclusionism. (shrink)

In a previous publication, I offered a novel argument against physicalist approaches to the Incarnation called “the Two Sons Worry.” In brief, I argued that a physicalist who is committed to the ecumenical teachings about the Incarnation cannot easily escape the worry that there are two persons in Jesus Christ. Keith Hess has recently pointed out a flaw in the argument that I present. In this paper, I offer a reply that fixes the argument, thus leaving the problem (...) for the physicalist intact. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore how free will should be understood within the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, particularly on the assumption of traditional Christology. We focus on two issues: reconciling Christ's free will with the claim that Christ's human will was subjected to the divine will in the Incarnation; and reconciling the claims that Christ was fully human and free with the belief that Christ, since God, could not sin.

Many skeptics throughout the centuries have accused the New Testament characterization of the incarnation as being incoherent. The reason is that it appears impossible that any person can exemplify human properties such as ignorance, fatigability, and spatial limitation, as the New Testament testifies of Jesus, while possessing divine properties such as omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence at the same time. This paper proposes a possible model which asserts that at the incarnation, the Logo's mind was divided into conscious and (...) preconscious, and the divine properties were transferred from the conscious into the preconscious, which became part A of Jesus' preconscious. Simultaneously, the conscious acquired newly created human properties, while a human preconscious which would become part B of Jesus' preconscious and a human body were also created. It is demonstrated that this model does not suffer from the problems that beset other models such as Apollinarianism, two-consciousness Christology, and ontological Kenoticism, and that based on this model the full attributes of divinity and humanity of Jesus as testified by the Scriptures could have simultaneously coexisted in one person without contradiction. (shrink)

Dès le Ier siècle, quantité d'objections ont été soulevées contre la foi en l'Incarnation, c'est-a-dire contre le dogme selon lequel le Fils éternel de Dieu a vraiment assumé une existence humaine, pour apporter le salut à l'humanité. L'article examine et répond à certaines des objections soulevées d'un point de vue biblique, théologique et philosophique par une version révisionniste récente de la foi en l'Incarnation, à savoir le livre de John Hick : The Metaphor of God Incarnate.

In a pair of recent articles, Brian Leftow and Eleonore Stump offer independent, although similar, accounts of the metaphysics of the Incarnation. Both believe that their Aquinas-inspired theories can offer solutions to the kind of Leibniz’s Law problems that can seem to threaten the logical possibility of this traditional Christian doctrine. In this paper, I’ll have a look at their compositional account of the nature of God incarnate. In the end, I believe their position can be seen to have (...) unacceptable philosophical and theological implications, and that is it inadequate to solve the Leibniz’s law problems that motivate it in the first place. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between Karl Rahner’s well-known supralapsarian approach to the doctrine of the incarnation and the theme of social salvation. It examines his distinctive supralapsarian approach to the Incarnation of the Word and the implications that Christological emphasis has for understanding not just individual salvation, but corporate or social salvation, including the whole of creation—human and nonhuman alike. First, we situate Rahner’s supralapsarianism within the broader tradition of this Christological approach. Second, we highlight the cosmic (...) significance of Rahner’s supralapsarian argument for the divine ratio for the Incarnation through the lens of “deep incarnation” theology. Finally, we argue that Rahner’s supralapsarian Christology gestures toward a form of “social salvation” understood in a more cosmic and capacious sense. (shrink)

I greatly appreciate Thomas Flint’s reply to my paper, “Flint’s ‘Molinism and the Incarnation’ is too Radical.” In my original paper I argue that the Christology and eschatology of Flint’s paper “Molinism and the Incarnation” is too radical to be considered orthodox. I consider it an honor that a senior scholar, such as Flint, would concern himself with my work in the first place. In this response to Flint’s reply I will explain why I still find Flint’s Christology (...) and eschatology to be too radical. Below I shall attempt to address various issues raised by Flint in his reply. (shrink)