Please explain

Hentenza said:

If that was the case then His human nature would be working against His divine nature. No such thing in scripture.

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In synergistic relationships, there is no competition, but only cooperation—and we find numerous examples of this cooperation throughout all four of the gospels. Can you name even one scholar who is internationally known for his studies in Christology who shares your opinion?

DeaconDean said:

But according to some here, you and I are dead wrong.

God Bless

Till all are one.

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Sure. But here is the wall they have to climb.

1. The OT is Christological. All types and prophesies of Christ from the OT are from prophets who were elected. None of the prophets are synergists.

2. Mary, whose seed created Jesus humanity, was elected and not synergistic.

3. Jesus' humanity is from God (the Holy Spirit), therefore, it is not synergistic but "elected."

Hentenza said:

Sure. But here is the wall they have to climb.

1. The OT is Christological. All types and prophesies of Christ from the OT are from prophets who were elected. None of the prophets are synergists.

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None of the prophets were both man and God—or do you deny the doctrine of the hypostatic union of Christ?

Hentenza said:

2. Mary, whose seed created Jesus humanity, was elected and not synergistic.

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Mary was not both man and God.

Hentenza said:

3. Jesus' humanity is from God (the Holy Spirit), therefore, it is not synergistic but "elected."

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Neither Jesus in his humanity nor in His divinity was synergistic. The synergism is the cooperation of His two natures. There are no walls to climb but the wall that separates truth from error.

PrincetonGuy said:

None of the prophets were both man and God—or do you deny the doctrine of the hypostatic union of Christ?

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Irrelevant.

Mary was not both man and God.

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Irrelevant.

Neither Jesus in his humanity nor in His divinity was synergistic.

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Right.

The synergism is the cooperation of His two natures. There are no walls to climb but the wall that separates truth from error.

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Again, research synergistic medication efects.

Hentenza said:

Hint: Research synergistic medication effects.

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As you may recall, before my career change, I was a research biologist. Furthermore, I already addressed in an earlier post in this thread that issue. I do not appreciate theologians borrowing terms from science and misapplying them to theology, but they have done so, and we must work with those terms when they are used by others.

PrincetonGuy said:

As you may recall, before my career change, I was a research biologist. Furthermore, I already addressed in an earlier post in this thread that issue. I do not appreciate theologians borrowing terms from science and misapplying them to theology, but they have done so, and we must work with those terms when they are used by others.

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In other words, there is no cooperation in some synergistic relationships.

Hentenza said:

In other words, there is no cooperation in some synergistic relationships.

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Without cooperation, there is no synergism!

PrincetonGuy said:

Without cooperation, there is no synergism!

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And yet, some synergistic relationships are non-cooperative.

PrincetonGuy said:

Can you name even one scholar who is internationally known for his studies in Christology who shares your opinion?

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Argument from silence (argumentum e silentio) – where the conclusion is based on the absence of evidence, rather than the existence of evidence.

Argument from authority (Latin: argumentum ab auctoritate), also authoritative argument and appeal to authority, is a common form of argument which leads to a logical fallacy when misused.

Of course, my initial reaction was "Who cares?" I thought we got over that business about getting led around by the nose by "authorities" back during the Reformation.

Hentenza said:

And yet, some synergistic relationships are non-cooperative.

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No, they are not!

PrincetonGuy said:

No, they are not!

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In a synergistic medication reaction a person could die. The medications in this case did not cooperate with one another. Here is a synergistic relation were there is no cooperation, but yet you claim that ALL synergistic relations are cooperative. Once again, some synergistic relations are not cooperative.

Hentenza said:

In a synergistic medication reaction a person could die. The medications in this case did not cooperate with one another. Here is a synergistic relation were there is no cooperation, but yet you claim that ALL synergistic relations are cooperative. Once again, some synergistic relations are not cooperative.

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Of course the patient could die—and sometimes they do. We find this very thing in medications for depression. However, that does NOT mean that there was not a cooperative (synergistic) reaction in the patient’s body. Indeed the cooperative (synergistic) reaction killed the patient! For essentially the same reason that a “regular” drug can have a wonderful healing effect in 85% of the patients to which it is administered while in 15% of the patients there is little or even an adverse reaction (and some may even die), a synergistic medication can produce similar results.

You are taking us VERY far off topic and I do not like that, and I will not continue to reply to off-topic posts. The two natures of Christ worked together in the accomplishment of His mission. Some people have called that working together “synergistic.” As I have already posted and explained, I believe that that is a poor choice of words. However, it is an incontrovertible fact (as has already been shown) that the two natures of Christ worked together in the accomplishment of his mission.

DeaconDean said:

Here again, from the Eastern Orthodox P.O.V., Jesus had to have the "co-operation" of His human "side"/"nature" to accomplish everything. Thus, Jesus was "synergistic"...

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Not sure about the use of the term, or even how the Eastern Orthodox view of this subject. It was a clear choice of God to use the situation to redeem His creation. His nativity as a human reconciled humans, and not any other creature, including animals and angels.

Man took upon Himself the EGO, the Fallen Nature, and the accompanying term, "flesh." In some ways "flesh" is used to describe the blood, meat and bones of humans and animals. Also, God uses it to describe the natural state of fallen man and the current default status of Human Nature. The actual human blood, flesh and bones of man are not the cause of his fallen status before God. However, in that state, there is no place for Him except in this temporal life.

For promises of glory with God to be realized by anyone in human flesh, God must change their physical bodies. The idea that we may be ushered into God's presence as a human requires the change of the nature of the person before the change in the nature of the body. Those not made into a new creation by God, are to be cast away, and share in the torment of Hell and the Lake of Fire with the fallen angels (for whom these were created.) Their bodies will be changed to be able to continue throughout eternity in the torments they have chosen when rejecting Christ as their LORD and Savior.

That God was in Christ and that God existed as a human required that He be subject to the limitations of mortal flesh and blood. I am amazed at all the iterations of ideas used to somehow diminish this, and eventually, they seem to tie back into the false idea of the physical frailty being equivalent to the LORD being subject to giving-in to temptation of the devil. This was proven to be wrong when Jesus Christ endured 40 days of fasting, and THEN was tempted with things none of us can imagine or endure.

At the weakest point in the physical existence of our LORD as a human, He endured the harshest of temptations. MAN has faced similar things (all humans) and each have failed long before the level of Jesus' temptation. Jesus endured these things and triumphed over them. The devil left Him after being resisted, and we are told the same will happen for us as we are obedient in resisting the devil. It does not mean the temptation won't return, but that there is a limit to what Satan can do to us.

If the feeble mind of man must find a word or idea to describe the relationship of God and the human body with which He clothed Himself. The use of SYNERGISTIC, may not be completely incorrect in the general use of the word, but the situation was so unique as to NOT be subject to such a pigeonhole. Already, even here, the thoughts that this made Christ subject to failing in sin have been entertained by some. My main problem with the whole concept is how the finite mind uses only what it understands to describe what it cannot understand.

This does not even begin to cover the issues of the infinite complexity of God's manner of reconciling that which could not be physically, spiritually or even legally reconciled. Our understanding is enough to grasp His requirements of us, but Christians will likely have an eternity of discovering the depths of what God has done for us.
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Originally posted by PrincetonGuy
Without cooperation, there is no synergism!

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Hentenza said:

And yet, some synergistic relationships are non-cooperative.

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PrincetonGuy said:

No, they are not!

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Here is why we need to be careful of these words. A scriptural term is good and right, but the use of worldly terms is questionable. It is not that there is no usefulness in a general definition in a general way, but that to try to classify this completely unique arrangement, as if it were akin to commonly seen mundane things, is not wise.

To say the LORD learned through obedience is right and scriptural. To say this indicates a level of ignorance we could ever describe is highly questionable. One can learn ever so much about a task or job, and still have a learning curve when actually doing that job, or trying to make production with that set of skills. This may be a worldly example that sheds a little light on the situation of God taking on human flesh in order to save some people from Hell, and make a way for man into the glory of the Father, but it is wrong to say God started a new job, and made progress through on-the-job training.

Also, it is wrong to ascribe the corruption of the EGO to the LORD who was born without an earthly father, and thus did not inherit that corruption. The frailty of mortal existence is not equivalent to the corruption of Human Nature by the sin of Adam.
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