Where Did Humans Come From?

[JAL]

I don't know of anyone who believes what you just said in (2) and (3) and you don't seem to spend any time showing that such a person exists who believes it. In any case I don't nor do many millions of other Christians believe such a thing.

Item #2 is the official position of the church. A while back I was debating with a guy who denied this. A few hours later he came back to me and apologized.

Item #3 is an ambiguity of the church. Some believe that God cleansed this human soul of his sinful nature before placing it in Mary's womb.

1. I assume you are not about to tell us that your friend Mike is God ...

I take it you are not familiar with the nature and purpose of an analogy. Haven't debated much?

2. The human nature of Christ was created at His birth and the whole point of it - is that His human nature was not just a duplicate of His God nature.

I don't get your point here. Reasserting what's in debate is not an argument.

I show the texts pointing out that Christ was both fully God and a real human...

You pointed out no such text. You pointed out texts that God became a man. No dispute there.

...your only "proof" to the contrary is that you can't figure out how God can do it.

God becoming man? A cinch to explain in my ontology. Literally a joke to explain. My views are fully coherent.

 

[The Barbarian]

I take it you are not familiar with the nature and purpose of an analogy. Haven't debated much?

I rarely agree with BobRyan, but I can assure you he understands analogies, and yes, he debates a lot. And as you might have figured out, he's not easy.

 

[JAL]

I don't think God is required to make everything comprehensible to us. What seems to be a deep mystery to us may be entirely reasonable for His purposes. I'm not inclined to complain that He didn't explain everything.

If you make a statement humanly incomprehensible to all men (like speaking Chinese to English people), please don't dignify it with the term "doctrine". Would be better to say, "I don't have a clear answer on this issue, I just don't know the answer."

 

[JAL]

Sorry I had to update post 381. Was writing hastily because I'm busy on something else.

 

[JAL]

I don't know of anyone who believes what you just said in (2)

The official position of the church:

"Christ’s human soul is created"
Did Jesus Have a Human Soul? – Shameless Popery

Author: Joe Heschmeyer (on-staff apologist for Catholic Answers).

 

[The Barbarian]

If you make a statement humanly incomprehensible to all men (like speaking Chinese to English people), please don't dignify it with the term "doctrine".

It's a mystery, not a doctrine. And while I speak English, I can understand some very basic Mandarin. I can read it better than I can speak or understand it.

Would be better to say, "I don't have a clear answer on this issue, I just don't know the answer."

That's what a mystery is. Your apparent assumption that God is obligated to explain everything to us, is incorrect.

 

[JAL]

It's a mystery, not a doctrine. And while I speak English, I can understand some very basic Mandarin. I can read it better than I can speak or understand it.



That's what a mystery is. Your apparent assumption that God is obligated to explain everything to us, is incorrect.

Our obligation is to say something coherent when we use the term "doctrine".

 

[JAL]

@BobRyan,

From Thomas Aquinas, Summa. Notice how he differentiates between the uncreated/God versus the created/creatures:

"What is proper to God cannot belong to any creature. But it is proper to God to be omnipotent, according to Exodus 15:2-3: "He is my God and I will glorify Him," and further on, "Almighty is His name." Therefore the soul of Christ, as being a creature, has not omnipotence."

You don't understand why the church went this route? For an obvious reason. If God is immutable in knowledge, power, and holiness, how do you get an ignorant, weak, temptible creature incarnate? There's no solution to this problem, so they "claim" to have solved it by adding a human soul to the Trinity.

It all stems from an insoluble premise: an immutable God became man.

 

[JAL]

@BobRyan

Please don't try to "explain" to me the Hypostatic Union (as if it were coherent). At post 93, I already cited several scholars admitting that it is humanly incomprehensible. Notably Paul Tillich called it a set of “inescapable contradictions and absurdities”.

 

[JAL]

@BobRyan,

I have now updated post 376, by adding a sixth point of incoherence.

 

[JAL]

@BobRyan,

Given these six points of incoherence, is Paul Tillich's assessment any surprise? Again, he called it a set of “inescapable contradictions and absurdities”.

Newsflash: That MIGHT be a CLUE that traditional theology needs revision.

 

[BobRyan]

The Hypostatic Union has NO CLEAR SUPPORT in Scripture. It's just a logical construct. The only difference is that MY logical constructs are comprehensible, they actually MAKE SENSE to the human mind.

I would agree that a number of points you list in your version of "Hypostatic Union" are things you and I don't believe and I am not sure anyone does.

 

[BobRyan]

...(6) Question: Does the additon of a human soul change the immutable Son? Did He become weak, temptible, ignorant, passible? No. Does this mean He drafted a human soul to do all His dirty work .

God created the human nature that He then used to be the incarnate Son of God as Christ. Human nature by definition has limits - His divine nature did not. HOW those two blend is the subject of your comment and is beyond your paygrade and mine. We are not required to know HOW God does something ... only THAT He does it if scripture so affirms.

Some of your questions end up boiling down to the fact that you do not know HOW to be God - but I never doubted that this was the case for humans. We do not know HOW to be God.

 

[BobRyan]

@BobRyan,

Given these six points of incoherence, is Paul Tillich's assessment any surprise? Again, he called it a set of “inescapable contradictions and absurdities”.

Some of your statements do end up that way - but I don't find those statements in scripture.

 

[JAL]

I would agree that a number of points you list in your version of "Hypostatic Union" are things you and I don't believe and I am not sure anyone does.

My points are based on the church's position that God added a created soul to the Trinity.

I cited Thomas Aquinas on this point.

Are you saying that Aquinas misunderstood the church's position?

 

[JAL]

God created the human nature that He then used to be the incarnate Son of God as Christ. Human nature by definition has limits - His divine nature did not. HOW those two blend is the subject of your comment and is beyond your paygrade and mine. We are not required to know HOW God does something ... only THAT He does it if scripture so affirms.

Some of your questions end up boiling down to the fact that you do not know HOW to be God - but I never doubted that this was the case for humans. We do not know HOW to be God.

There is no rational reason to accept a theology that boils down to:
...(1) A God who is a colossal jerk
...(2) A set of "inescapable contradictions and absurdities" (Paul Tillich)

when there is a PERFECTLY coherent alternative.

 

[BobRyan]

There is no rational reason to accept a theology that boils down to:
...(1) A God who is a colossal jerk
...(2) A set of "inescapable contradictions and absurdities" (Paul Tillich)
.

The ability for someone to post absurd statements not found in the Bible and not believed by Christians - has never been doubted.

The ability to post pejorative complaints about God - has also never been doubted.

Make a logical argument either from the Bible or for why the Bible should be rejected.

 

[JAL]

The ability for someone to post absurd statements not found in the Bible and not believed by Christians - has never been doubted.

The ability to post pejorative complaints about God - has also never been doubted.

Make a logical argument either from the Bible or for why the Bible should be rejected.

Again, did Thomas Aquinas in your view misunderstand the position of the church?

 

[JAL]

Make a logical argument either from the Bible or for why the Bible should be rejected.

Oh I see. YOU are the one who is being logical here, by holding the logically absurd position:

An immutable God became man.

Gotcha. That makes a LOT of sense.

 

[JAL]

God created the human nature that He then used to be the incarnate Son of God as Christ. Human nature by definition has limits - His divine nature did not. HOW those two blend is the subject of your comment and is beyond your paygrade and mine. We are not required to know HOW God does something ... only THAT He does it if scripture so affirms.

You are quite correct. Resolving "inescapable contradictions and absurdities" (Paul Tillich) is certainly, to use your words, "beyond your paygrade and mine." The obvious solution is to start with a set of COHERENT assumptions that do not LEAD TO a set of "inescapable contradictions and absurdities"