This post is to capture to this point an email exchange I have been having with Kristor concerning what Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems might tell us reality, about ourselves, and about God. We intend to continue our discussion in the comments section of this OP.
For the most part, I'll try to represent our exchange in chronological order. But sometimes, arranging things in thematic order will override chronological order. And, the part of the exchange I'll duplicate first is the last part of the exchange to this point.
Ilíon: What do you think of me turning our exchange up to this point into a post on my blog, and then continuing the discussion as comments to it?
Kristor: Sure, that would be terrific. Is it OK if I link to it from Orthosphere?
Ilíon: Of course that would be OK.
Kristor: OK, this is great. I think a lot of people could benefit from watching the two of us try to figure this out with each other. It is not often that you get equally orthodox yet divergent and well informed perspectives that are both working together to seek understanding (as opposed to crushing each other). Hugely valuable, as a counterpoint to our wicked adversarial environing culture.
Mentioned you in a post about Godel
This conversation was initiated by an email to me from Kristor:
Kristor: [Mentioned you in a post about Godel] And would be happy of any criticisms you might want to offer. If you have the time, of course:
Ilíon: Related to Godel ... I suspect that the Incarnation and the Passion ... and indeed, the Creation ... were not primarily about *us*, but rather about the Godhead. The Creation is necessitated by the Incarnation, which is necessitated by the Passion. And the Passion is the proof that there is no contradiction within the Godhead.
Kristor: OK, this totally piques my interest. I'd be in your debt if you fleshed it out a bit. The closest I've gotten to it is the reflection that Creation is implicit in the divine nature - it's the sort of thing that a good God would do, by his nature - and that the Fall as being an almost certain eventuality for any created order meant that the Atonement would be necessary, so that the Passion would be needed, so that the Incarnation would be needed. But I'm fascinated to find what I've missed in not seeing that the Passion is implicit in the divine nature directly. I very much want to find out.
A digression about pronouns ... and about what actually exists
While I didn't mention this to Kristor, I constantly see supposed conservative Christians use "she" when correct English calls for "he" ... and their rationales, when I "call" them on it, are straight out of the leftist playbook. So, I'm hyper-critical of any use of "she" when "he" is called for.
Also, the reason I finally decided to include this digression is because it is an example of what Kristor said: "It is not often that you get equally orthodox yet divergent and well informed perspectives that are both working together to seek understanding (as opposed to crushing each other)."
Ilíon (quoting and criticizing a single sentence of Kristor's post): ="Following on the same arguments, the human person is not exhaustively specified by any number of her past physical aspects."=
That use of "she/her" where correct English usage calls for "he/his" is mere feminist-pandering; it's "male virtue signaling", in that *women* (except perhaps a very few of the more outlandish man-haters) don't go out of their way to use "she" when "he" is correct.
Kristor: I can see why you took it that way, but it was not motivated that way. I've been working for a couple years now on the notion that relations of dominance are gendered, with the dominant agent being masculine and the non-dominant being feminine. It is an extension of the ancient idea that the father's seed is the source of all the information that informs the development of the foetus, which was extended even by ancient authors - particularly among the Greek Fathers - to the notion that God plants the forms of creatures in otherwise formless matter: these seeds of future creaturely development were and are called lógoi spermatokoi.
I've been ruminating on this notion for some time, and find it fruitful, and that it explains a lot.
So, the human person is masculine in respect to its subsidiaries (such as the face), and feminine in respect to its supersidiaries (such as the spirit). The human creature is masculine in respect to his servants, and feminine in respect to the Lord.
This notion is explicit in ecclesiological diction: the Church is feminine, Christ is her bridegroom. Looking back, I realize that my interest in the idea started with this striking locution.
NB the difference between sex and gender; between male and female on the one hand, and masculine and feminine on the other. An army of men is feminine in respect to her commanding officer, masculine in respect to the territory it controls. Ships are feminine in respect to their sailors, but this is of course not to say that ships are female.
Anyway, the idea is still too murky in my mind for me to have written about it anywhere but in my journal, and now in this message. But I find that it has begun to permeate my use of language. I'm content to watch that happen, and see what order suggests itself from the result.
The feminists would be horrified at the idea. They want to demolish both sex and gender, in part because both sex and gender pick out sorts of dominance relations, which they abhor above all things. I'm going the opposite way, and in calling dominants masculine am accurately reflecting both the ontological reality and the Latin gender of "dominus."
PS: in a nutshell, the agent which is the source of the logos of a thing is masculine in respect to that thing, and that thing - even though it be male, and manifest masculine virtues - is feminine in respect to the agent who is the source of its logos.
PPS: OK, the permeation of my diction by the notion I have been discussing is a work in progress. I should have written:
In a nutshell, the agent who is the source of the logos of a thing is masculine in respect to that thing, and that thing – even though it be male, and manifest masculine virtues – is feminine in respect to the agent who is the source of her logos.
What, given the foregoing, is the proper application of the third person? I suppose (not having considered the question before this very moment) that the third person would be apt to things that are not in themselves recipient of a logos particular to themselves, such as rocks. A rock has a form, but apart from the properties thereof which derive from the essential forms of its atomic and molecular constituents, that form is largely adventitious. The shape of a bit of granite does not depend so much upon its granitic nature as upon its contingent adventures. The bit of granite is not, i.e., a true entity. It is, rather, a congeries of entities: a heap that is evolving slowly.
Ilíon: A hunk of granite -- or an entire planet (or star) -- is wholly lacking in *identity*. So, can such things truly be said even to exist?
Kristor: It does not seem to me that a hunk of granite is an actual entity. It is, again, just a slow heap. We can refer to a heap or a hunk of granite, but the denotation is a heuristic only.
Interestingly, on nominalism, all denotations are heuristics only. Never thought of that.
I’m not so sure about planets and stars. It seems to me that some of them might be actual entities; might be embodiments of living spirits. I’m inclined to think that homeostasis might be a pretty good indication of life - albeit that I am not totally clear on what life is.
[This particular digression went no further. My questioning of whether a rock, or a planet, or a star, can truly be said to exist is rooted in some past ruminations on the Paradox of Theseus' Ship.]
On to the Main Event: Creation; Incarnation; Passion: God's Glory
Kristor: Please understand that, regardless of what you might have to say about my recent essay on Gödel, and regardless of whether indeed you have any reactions at all of a more, I don't know, big character (which I very much want to hear about, if such there be); nevertheless, I am absolutely with child to hear your notions of how the Passion is implicit logically in the Divine Nature. On pins and needles. I woke up at 3 AM this morning wondering about it.
No pressure!
Ilíon: This could take several exchanges between us as we try together to work through the as yet undeveloped idea: I never did write up my thoughts to that point, and so I haven't fully fleshed-out the idea. At the same time, we two have briefly discussed some of the background thought on the present matter; namely my suspicion (which you believe to be logically impossible) that Christ really was tempted by sin, as asserted in Scripture -- and, as a logical matter, really might have fallen to sin.
The Bible speaks many times of God having glory, or of this or that action or attribute of God resounding to his glory. And, as I recall (though I can't quickly locate where) that he does what he does, including the Creation, for his own glory.
But, what does "glory" mean to God? Whose opinion of him matters so much to him as to resound in glory? Clearly, it cannot be the opinion of any creature. And, as God has no peer, it cannot be the opinion of any other being but God himself: so, he does what he does for his own reasons, related to his own triune nature, and which reasons may or may not be comprehensible to creatures. The history of the world is The Story of God: the Creation is about God, not about us; the Incarnation is about God, not about us; the Passion/Crucifixion is about God, not about us; the Resurrection is about God, not about us. Yet, in his glory and mercy and grace, he extends all these things also to be about us.
Now, Scripture asserts that Jesus was tempted in all ways, just as we are. It seems to me that that assertion logically entails that Jesus *might have* surrendered to at least one of those temptations, and thus *might have* sinned.
For instance, when the Satan spread out all the kingdoms of the world before Jesus, and claimed that he'd give them to him if only Jesus would bow down and worship him, the temptation wasn't in the bowing down and worshiping of Satan; that was only the "payload", as it were. No, the temptation was in the offer of being given dominion over all the kingdoms of the world. But, this was a temptation not as it would have been to most human persons, that is, as an appeal to our vainglory, but rather it was a temptation to "take the easy way" to achieve one of the goals of the Son's mission in taking on flesh.
Now, if, as I believe, Scripture's word usage and the logic of using those words dictates that the Second Person *might have* sinned, what does that *mean*? It means that there would be a contradiction within the Godhead. But God is capital-T Truth, and God is "the ground of all being". Expanding on arguments you have presented, if the Second Person *had* sinned, and thus there were contradiction within the Godhead, then Truth is not truth and Being is not being. If Jesus had sinned, then *all things* would be unmade, would *never have been* made (as a side note, I strongly suspect that that was the Satan's objective). If Jesus had sinned, then God themself (*) -- Being Itself -- would not be.
As I recall from our previous discussions, you believe that the reasoning I've laid out above is flawed.
Moving on, this is where Godel comes in.
On second thought, and as this note is getting lengthy, let's save Godel for another time. Why don't we first explore the ideas above to test whether they are sound or flawed?
(*) how is that for an attempt to express the plurality-in-unity of the Godhead? Saying "God himself" when speaking of the Father seems to me to be correct; but, saying "God himself" when speaking of the Trinity has always stuck in my craw, and so I just now thought of saying "God themself".
Another Digression: "Themself" or "Himselves"?
Kristor: Hah! I like it. But, wouldn’t it be “God themselves”?
Ilíon: I had initially written "God themselves", but on thinking about it, changed it to "God themself".
I can see your point, in that God is a plurality of persons, but "themselves" in normal English denotes a plurality of beings/entities. In our experience *as* human beings, a 'being' and a 'self' are co-extensive. But, does that hold true in all possible worlds?
If one wishes to create a new pronoun to avoid referring to the *Trinity* as "God himself", perhaps is should be "God himselves"?
God is one being; God is three persons. God certainly has selfhood; but is the Trinity one self (i.e. "God themself"), or is each Person a self (i.e. "God himselves")?
Kristor: Well, for years now I have understood "person" to mean - literally - "for + knowledge." From pro + sopon. And I can't think of a way to avoid modalism except by taking the persons to be each subjects of such knowledge - primordially, of each other. That way the persons are truly different from each other, rather than being only modes of the Godhead. And I can't conceive of a subject of knowledge - a knower - other than as a self.
I don't know the first thing about Hebrew, but from what I've read the plural noun elohim takes singular verbs when it is used to denote the Most High.
[As an after-the-fact addendum to this digression, have you ever noticed that the very people who demand that we normal/sane persons "honor the pronouns" of mentally unstable and/or insane persons frequently decline to themselves "honor the pronoun" by which the God has chosen to be revealed to mankind?]
Back to the Topic
Kristor: I think you are right that the entire creation and its redemption are about God. I have read the suggestion that God creates in virtue of his love, or of his overflowing goodness, and both of those notions seem right so far as they go. But they too are ultimately urges (if that’s the right term – I doubt that it is) internal to God. God is simple, so all his act is entirely in, of, and about himself. We creatures get to participate in that act; in it we live, move, and have being. But we are as it were along for the ride that is really his; like children allowed to ride along with their father on a business trip.
As for glory, again, I think you are spot on. God couldn’t have created in order to make himself bigger or more powerful, because he’s infinite and omnipotent by nature. Nor could he have created to make himself more glorious, though, because by nature he is Beauty per se, and glory is a sort of beauty: it is brilliance and purity; or the brilliance of purity, which is to say, of maximal perfection.
So, yeah, I think you are right: the whole created order, and God’s action within it, is about God. It makes perfect sense.
I don’t remember our discussion about whether Jesus could be tempted, or could sin. I do vaguely remember discussing “lead us not into temptation,” but I don’t remember the details.
It seems to me that you have provided a demonstration that Jesus could not sin:
… if … Scripture’s word usage and the logic of using those words dictates that the Second Person *might have* sinned, what does that *mean*? It means that there would be a contradiction within the Godhead.
I think that sums it up. Jesus is God, and God cannot sin without ceasing to be God, which is an act impossible to a necessary being. I think your reasoning is bulletproof.
The question then is how to interpret Hebrews 4:15:
For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Jesus can be tempted, in that he can hear the Satan’s offer, can understand its significance and feel its attractions, and so forth. So he can understand our predicament. But he can’t fall into sin. Likewise, Jesus can be lied to, but cannot be deceived. Sin is falsehood enacted. Jesus can’t credit a falsehood, because he is omniscient. So nor can he act in any way contrary to the Truth that he perfectly knows.
This is right in line with Hebrews 2:18:
For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.
Jesus suffers the temptation: he is aware of it, indeed perfectly so; just as he is perfectly aware of the character of the false world represented to him in a creaturely lie. But he cannot fall into sin, just as he cannot be deceived.
The thing I don’t quite get is how the Satan could be so stupid as to think he had a shot at turning the Lógos to his own side. I have read explanations to the effect that Lucifer thought Jesus was only the worldly Messiah expected by most contemporaneous Hebrews, and had no idea he was dealing with the Lógos. But that doesn’t quite cut it for me. Lucifer is a seraph, after all. Before he Fell, he could see the whole of cosmic history laid out before him like a tapestry. He had to have known the score.
The notion that Lucifer was in the dark about Jesus falls also before the fact that the demons Jesus exorcised all seem to have known exactly who he was, before he even opened his mouth. And Lucifer must have known that his minions were being cast out, instantly, at a glance from Jesus. Anne Catherine Emmerich reports that Jesus exorcised hundreds and hundreds of people in the course of his public ministry. His powers as an exorcist were common knowledge in Judea and Galilee. Even his disciples – even those who were not his disciples – were casting out demons in his Name.
The only way I have been able to find a way out of that thicket is to suppose that his Fall radically addled Lucifer’s wits, and darkened his mind, so that he could no longer remember seeing things the way he had before he Fell. He must be nuts, right? I mean, the Church has been preaching the identity of Jesus and the Lógos for thousands of years now, so the demons certainly know the score. Yet they keep up with their hopeless war.
The other thing that bugs me is that one of the things Lucifer would have had to see in cosmic history prior to his Fall was … his Fall. Was he doomed?
Aquinas gets around this difficulty with the answer that the angels all made permanent decisions for or against YHWH in the very first moment of their existence. I suppose that works if the angels are essentially immaterial, and only accidentally corporeal. But it just feels weak.
I’m still struggling with these issues.
Thanks for the work you put into your message.
Ilíon: =="We creatures get to participate in that act; in it we live, move, and have being. But we are as it were along for the ride that is really his; like children allowed to ride along with their father on a business trip."==
That's exactly what I was getting at, and I almost said something similar to "we are as it were along for the ride that is really his".
In the Creation, God graces us with being in the first place; in the Incarnation, God graces us with beholding him as he is; in the Passion/Crucifixion, God graces us with reconciliation; in the Resurrection, God graces us with the *fullness* of being. These acts or events are *about* the Godhead ... and we are *graced* to participate in and benefit from them.
=="I think that sums it up. Jesus is God, and God cannot sin without ceasing to be God, which is an act impossible to a necessary being. I think your reasoning is bulletproof."==
Ah, but *is* God the Necessary Being? Please don't misunderstand, I fully agree with you that the God is the Necessary Being. BUT, I strongly suspect that that is the issue being put to the test in the Creation, Incarnation, and Crucifixion (and fully demonstrated in the Resurrection).
[Side Note: I strongly suspect, following on ruminations about what Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems might hint at about God -- keeping in mind that these theorems no more strictly apply to the Divine Persons than they do to human persons -- that the *point* of the Crucifixion, and thus of the Incarnation, and thus of the Creation, is that the Triune God is "putting God to the test", as it were, demonstrating that there is no contradiction within the Godhead.]
As I said in the last post, the history of the world is God's Story; God has done these things for God's own glory. But, to what end, or at any rate to what end in terms which I can comprehend? I more than suspect that what Creation, and all that follows from it, is about is that the God is putting the Godhead to the test: the God is demonstration/proving that there is no contradiction within the Godhead: "We are indeed the Necessary Being".
=="Jesus can be tempted, in that he can hear the Satan’s offer, can understand its significance and feel its attractions, and so forth. So he can understand our predicament. But he can’t fall into sin."==
It's a matter that is easy to misstate ... or to misunderstand another's statement.
If Jesus *could not* have submitted to the temptations by which he was tested, then they were not really temptations. If Jesus *had* submitted to any of the temptations by which he was tested, then either: 1) Jesus is simply not God, or 2) both: Jesus is God ... and the Godhead contains a contradiction. That is, Being Itself is contrary to Being Itself ... and thus there is no being at all.
=="Likewise, Jesus can be lied to, but cannot be deceived. Sin is falsehood enacted. Jesus can’t credit a falsehood, because he is omniscient. So nor can he act in any way contrary to the Truth that he perfectly knows."==
When the Second Person dwelt among us as the man Jesus, while he was indeed God, was he really omnipresent? Of course not; at any one time during those 33 years, Jesus the man was located at one single place, just as we are.
In similar vein, was the man Jesus, while being indeed God, really omniscient? I don't believe he was. Does not Scripture say that the Son laid aside the glory of his divinity, that he "emptied" himself, to take on flesh?
=="The thing I don’t quite get is how the Satan could be so stupid as to think he had a shot at turning the Lógos to his own side. I have read explanations to the effect that Lucifer thought Jesus was only the worldly Messiah expected by most contemporaneous Hebrews, and had no idea he was dealing with the Lógos. But that doesn’t quite cut it for me. Lucifer is a seraph, after all. Before he Fell, he could see the whole of cosmic history laid out before him like a tapestry. He had to have known the score.
...
The only way I have been able to find a way out of that thicket is to suppose that his Fall radically addled Lucifer’s wits, and darkened his mind, so that he could no longer remember seeing things the way he had before he Fell. He must be nuts, right?"==
I agree ... and I disagree. And, certainly, he is insane. But, he's not stupid.
As I understand it, the majority opinion among philosophers and theologians (I mean, the ones who admit that there is such a thing as 'good', and that is is knowable), going back the Aquinas and ultimately to Aristotle, is that "Evil is a privation of Good". From this presumption, they tend to reason that there is no being who loves evil purely for the sake of evil. I disagree with that conclusion: a mere look at current events, much less at history, shows us multitudes of human beings who give every indication of loving evil purely for the sake of evil. It seems to me to be a denial of their moral agency to tie oneself in philosophical knots "explaining" that, contrary to their own words, it's not that they love this or that evil, but that they misapprehend The Good.
By the reasoning which follows from "there is no being who loves evil purely for the sake of evil", the Satan is seen as being an atheist. One might call him a pre-Randian: Ayn Rand imagined that she had disposed of the necessity of the Necessary Being by positing that "Existence Exists!" On this view, the Satan has a similar outlook: he believes that "the cosmos", whether or not there is a physical extension to it, exists in its own right ... and, like the Darwinists, he believes that minds just "arise" all on their own out of not-mind.
To put it as a metaphor, the Satan believes that the three Persons of the Godhead occupy the Throne of Heaven not because they are God, but that they "arose" before he did and managed to cooperate and collectively occupy the Throne before he had the chance. That is, he imagines that the Throne bestows godhood, rather than that Godhead establishes the Throne.
In contrast, I believe that the Satan understands very well the facts of the matter ... and that he hates it.
I believe that the Satan is indeed a being who loves evil. Put another way, that he is a nihilist in the absolute sense of the word: that he *hates* "what is", he hates that anything at all exists; that the only purpose to which he puts his existence is to try to bring about the non-existence of "all that is". Or, as I said above, that he is insane.
=="The thing I don’t quite get is how the Satan could be so stupid as to think he had a shot at turning the Lógos to his own side."==
If we stop insisting that Jesus, the man, *had* to be omniscient, then most, if not all, of that difficulty vanishes. As I asked above, if we can acknowledge the plan fact that Jesus, the man, was not omnipresent, while still affirming that he is [indeed] the Second Person of the Trinity, why is it so difficult to let go the assertion that being the Son *requires* that the the Son of Man be omniscient?
So -- keeping in mind my view that the Satan is a nihilist -- I don't think it's so much that "Satan could be so stupid as to think he had a shot at turning the Lógos to his own side", but rather that he thought he could tempt Jesus, the man, into creating contradiction within the Godhead, and thereby bring about the non-existence of all things.
==The other thing that bugs me is that one of the things Lucifer would have had to see in cosmic history prior to his Fall was … his Fall. Was he doomed?==
What follows is purely hypothetical speculation --
1) What if physical incarnation as a human being is a "moral test", as it were, to which the angels must submit ... and that the "fallen angels" are those who refused the test? Consider that pre-Christian, and especially anti-Christian, religious movements tend to view the physical world with disgust. Perhaps the "fallen angels" were similarly disgusted by what embodiment entails, and refused to take the test
2) What if we human beings *are* the "fallen angels" (for whatever unstated reason it is that they rebelled against God) ... and that embodiment in the physical world and repentance through Christ Jesus is their/our hope of escaping ultimate death. Consider that God is a *jealous* God -- he does not easily or willingly give up what is his, and even the demons are his creatures. Is it really impossible that he loves them, even though they hate him?
If this second were the case, it's easy to see why God wouldn't tell us that: you just know that many millions of people, who might otherwise repent, might easily be swayed by the boast, "I shook my fist at God to has face, I'll keep shaking my fist at him."
29 comments:
Interesting speculations about the Fallen angels. I’ve been reading about that topic a fair bit over the last few years, and have some thoughts.
First, it seems to be possible for angels to put on flesh when a mission calls for it (as at Mamre, for example, where three of them – one of the three, at least, being YHWH himself, the Great Angel – ate and drank as guests of Abraham [Genesis 18]; and then as at Sodom, where the homosexuals of the town found two of those same three so alluring that they beat on the door of Lot’s house (where the angels had come to warn Lot to get the hell out of town before they brought down upon that city fire and brimstone), and even tried to kill Lot, so as to try to get at the angels [Genesis 19:1-10]). But incarnation is not essential to angels, as it is to us. They don and doff flesh the way we don and doff clothes.
It is interesting to compare the alfresco lunch of the Great Angel YHWH at Abraham’s camp in Mamre to the alfresco breakfast he prepared for the Apostles on the shore of Lake Tiberias [John 21]. It appears that angels incarnate in something like the Resurrection Body possible to humans. Indeed, one can wrestle with it (Genesis 32:22-31).
Angels also seem to be able to take up loci and exert causal effects as agents in our cosmos without incarnating; as at the Annunciation, e.g. Flesh does not seem to be the only way that angels are able to materialize in our world.
Genesis 6:1-5 tells us that quite a few angels Fell, not because they wanted to avoid incarnation, but because on the contrary they donned flesh illicitly, so that they could mate with human women. Which they then did, siring children. So, apparently, incarnate angels can breed with humans. But the illicit incarnation and miscegenation of Semyaza, Azazel and their crew was contrary to their essential nature – and, of course, to any lawful mission proper thereto. They defected from their proper nature, and so ruined it. Thus their Fall. Incarnating and fornicating illicitly, they condemned themselves to this cosmos thenceforth – specifically, to one of its subsidiary hells – and could not get back to the heavens proper to their original nature.
Their offspring were the Nephilim, the mighty men of old. Most of the Nephilim were infected with the lawless character of their fathers, but some of their heirs might not have been particularly evil. Some traditions suggest that even Noah had some Nephilim blood. Most of the Nephilim were destroyed in the Flood, but apparently enough of them survived that they controlled a lot of Canaan when the Israelites arrived from Egypt (this being why YHWH commanded the utter eradication of some (not all) Canaanite towns). There is a good chance then that many humans alive today have some Nephilim blood, just as so many of us carry Neanderthal genes.
All that is interesting, but I doubt that men *just are* fallen angels. It is enough, I dare say, to suppose that we are fallen men, many of whom might be descendants of the fallen angels of Genesis 6. But even if angels had never incarnated so as to mate with women, Man would have been Fallen: the Fall of Man had happened long before the events of Genesis 6.
As for the impossibility of contradiction in the Godhead, I can’t see how this would be something that God would need to test, or to demonstrate to or for himself. He’s omniscient, and so knows all truth; truth is integral and cannot be contradictory; so he must know from all eternity that he cannot possibly sin – cannot possibly stop being God. There’s just no indeterminacy there to test; no possibility that it could be otherwise than it is.
Can Jesus be tempted if, being God, he cannot possibly sin? Why not? Consider that we can have some notion of what it would be like to breathe water, even though breathing water is impossible to such as we. We can see quite well that it would be awesomely cool if we could dive into water and breathe it. The idea is tempting. I’d love to dive into a lake and just breathe. But it’s not something I can actually do, while remaining myself. So, I don’t ever worry about the fact that I cannot breathe water. It’s just not on the list of options open to a being such as I.
So likewise with Jesus. While it is metaphysically impossible for a being who is God to sin, because Jesus is (among many other things) a man, he can see the attraction of sin to men who are not God, and for whom sin is metaphysically possible. Sin is just not on his list of realistic – i.e., of real – options: of options that accord with his nature, and that he can therefore possibly accomplish. He can no more sin than we men could – qua men – breathe water. So, in practical terms, he can’t sin – even though he can see what it would be like to do so (from which apprehension – prior to any one of us, or to any of our trials in this darkling plain, wherein enemies clash by night – is derived his mercy toward us).
I conclude that at the end of the day Jesus decides again and again not to fall into sin, in rather the way that I decide again and again each day not to try to breathe water. Not, i.e., by way of some moral struggle, the outcome of which is in some doubt ex ante, but rather by a determination not too different than that of some geometrical impossibility: “Well, that can’t happen.”
Must God be Necessary? Yes, necessarily he must be Necessary; he must be Necessary by definition. If he were not Necessary, he’d be contingent, and by the definition of contingency all contingent things continge upon other things. Were God not Necessary, he’d be a creature, rather than the Creator. He would not be the God we theists are always going on about, who is the cause of all things, and is Being as such. He’d be like the Flying Spaghetti Monster upon whom such impudent ignorant skeptics as Dawkins heap scorn: one contingent thing among others, no one of which is ultimately explanatory (so that, ex hypothesi, there can be no such thing as explanation, or therefore as understanding (the acolytes of Dawkins and his ilk generally overlook this obvious fatally redundant corollary of their doctrine)). Dawkins thinks that his Flying Spaghetti Monster is like the God of the theists with whom he offers to contend. This shows that he is not even in the same arena as the theists. He offers to contend with theists, but lo, it turns out that he is not on their lists, at all. He is not even hors de combat. He is, rather, off somewhere by himself in the Perilous Wood, blindfolded and dependent entirely upon the near access and help of some knight errant who is in service of the Good that Dawkins himself repudiates.
Re the omnipresence and omniscience – and, by extension, the absolute infallibility – of Jesus the man: it is true that in the Incarnation the Lógos emptied himself to take flesh. But NB: an infinite quantity of being cannot be exhausted one whit by any diminution thereof, howsoever enormous. All of God was poured into the body of Jesus, and all of God was nowise diminished thereby: the infinite God can produce an infinite quantity of creaturely effect without diminishing his infinity a jot.
Cost is just not a notion appurtenant to God. Cost can appertain only to beings with finite ontological budgets.
The flesh of Jesus is not ubiquitous, to be sure, even though obviously his spirit the Lógos certainly is. This is not so different in principle from our own case: we are not so much strictly localized bodies with spirits confined on board, like passengers in vehicles, as we are spiritual fields expressed most intensely (i.e., at the greatest field strength) in the general extensive vicinity of our bodies. As those bodies, those causal factors of future eventuation, our corporeal manifestations are like those of electrons. NB: “electron” (or any other particular sort) denotes at bottom “field strength at locus l, m, n, o along dimensions x, y, z ...” So likewise for “body of Ilíon:” your body is the material character – the causal character – of the extensive locus where you are most likely to be evidently manifest (bearing in mind that you could be locally manifest also elsewhere, as some saints are said to do when they bilocate (for, spirits are not first merely extensive, but rather formal, and so (perhaps, in some cases) then in some continuum extensive).
But if in the Incarnation the Lógos had omitted to incarnate any aspect or portion of his divinity, then the Incarnation would not have been of God, but of something less; of some portion or part. But then, that’s not really possible: God is simple, so wherever you get any bit of him you get all of him: he’s like a hologram, or a form (of such is the circumincession of the Trinity). So, if Jesus is God, then Jesus just is God, period full stop. He is all of God. He is not some diminution, quotation, participation, invocation, bit, synecdoche, or portion of God – although he is all those things, too – but, rather is he the entirety of God manifest in human flesh.
God is after all entirely manifest – qua facticity of all fact – in all things whatsoever, so his complete manifestation in some particular body in Palestine (or in the courts of the Heavens, or wheresoever) should pose no difficulties.
In no other way than complete Incarnation of the Godhead in Jesus could God have furnished himself entirely as sufficient sacrifice and oblation for the defects of creation. Nothing less than a sacrifice of infinite value could have sufficed to repair the infinite gap between the smallest creaturely defection and the perfection from which it Fell. Nothing short then of an entire Incarnation of the whole of God in Jesus could have sufficed to the Sacrifice of the Lamb.
Thus the man Jesus, who could see only to the horizon, had to have been at the same time the omniscient Lógos. How that works, I do not pretend to understand. But I do understand that it must work somehow, in plain logic. One day, perhaps, I’ll get it.
OK, shucks, I’ll take a stab at this. Right now, my eyes disclose to me only what is happening in the nearest 4’: the distance from my skull to the wall behind my monitors; plus the 20’ out on either side, to the extent of my peripheral vision. Yet my understanding comprehends right now at least a few aspects of infinity and eternity. Is there some conflict between the present limit of my corporeal sight and the boundlessness of my intellectual understanding? No.
Is there more to be said on that topic? Not sure; probably yes; will have to think about it more.
I’m not satisfied by your parsing of Satan’s understanding of who Jesus is. If Satan understands correctly that Jesus does not know he is YHWH – so that Satan has a shot at fooling him into falling into sin – then Jesus is not YHWH. The only way that Jesus can be YHWH is if he knows he is YHWH; and it is evident anyway that Jesus did know he was YHWH, because he said he was, many times; that’s why they killed him. So if Jesus is YHWH, Satan is in the difficult position of needing to convince YHWH that he is not himself.
How does that work, when you are arguing with omniscience?
The only way it can begin to make sense is if Satan thinks that Jesus is not YHWH. But because he is a seraph, acquainted from all aeviternity about the foundation and order and cosmogony of all worlds, this is not a thought that is possible to Satan’s seraphic intellect, unless that intellect has been so darkened and confused by his Fall that he simply cannot see any way out of his (fundamentally epistemological) predicaments, and so confuses the Lógos as Incarnate in Jesus with a normal man.
Finally, as to the question whether evil is a privation of good, or is rather an alternative good in its own right – these being the only two credible alternatives out there (for, it could not be possible to want something entirely bad, devoid of all goodness; the notion makes no sense): a good that is at odds with the Good is not strictly conceivable. All proximate goods must agree somehow or other with the Good himself.
So, I can’t see how the Satan could want to complete nothing. To be is to want to complete being; is to want to complete something or other somehow positively good. Each instant of being is such a completion. To be is implicitly to assert that something or other is good, and worthy of being enacted.
Only the All could want for nothing; for, only the All could lack nothing.
And Lucifer is not the All.
One last thought for this round: is not "completing nothing" a contradiction in terms?
I'm still at my sister's in Indiana. She had been wanting to reroof the garage this week (while she is on vacation), but there wasn't time to get the materials. So, we've been doing various maintenance, including ripping out an old fire-pit (which was too far from the house to be easy to use) and re-purposing its pavers to make an addition to the patio by the house.
I'm beat ... she's a slave-driver!!!1!1 I was even out in the rain today finishing placing the pavers!!11!
Admittedly, we had set up portable gazebo over the area. But, still!
Sounds like the work I did last weekend helping my son clean and organize his garage. We pretty much finished - we took the edge off the project, anyway, so that now it is actually possible to go out there and put something where it belongs. But as he remarked, "We'll need to do this again in about five months!"
Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems mean also that - like any other aspect of the created order - tasks cannot all be completed. ;-)
This is a general comment, for background, rather than to address anything Kristor has said.
Logical reasoning is a vitally important tool for knowing truth and learning new truths.
Yet, logical reasoning is also a limited tool, in that one does not, and cannot, reason in a vacuum. That is, the very foundation of logic is certain asserted truth-claims which cannot themselves be logically derived from other truth-claims. And the act of logical reasoning builds upon these axioms with the addition of some number of other assumptions, which while open to critical/logical evaluation in principle, but may not have been so evaluated in practice.
Worse, we humans are really bad at logical reasoning. Non-exhaustively:
- we constantly violate the known rules of logical inference;
- we constantly make use of assumptions which can be shown to be false;
- we constantly make use of assumptions which have not been shown to be true (oftentimes, this is a practical necessity);
- we constantly make use of hidden assumptions, sometimes deliberately so;
- and, critically important for understanding much of human history, we constantly place too much confidence in conclusions derived from assumptions which have not been shown to be true.
Nevertheless, given these caveats, it remains true that we humans can reason correctly. Better yet, we can recognize and correct errors-of-reason, both of others and of ourselves.
This last fact, by the way, is itself an insurmountable falsification of all assertions that the human mind is an algorithm, or that some future algorithm will ever be the virtual/logical equivalent, much less the moral equivalent, to human minds (and which as yet to be written algorithms are always vapor-ware).
Now, the point of stating the above is to help us understand that:
1) we can learn some number of possible truths about God via logical reasoning, without reference to any (purported) revelation;
1a) in fact, most of the Jewish/Christian claims about the nature of God can be so derived ... including the specifically Christian claim that God is both One and a multiplicity of persons;
2) we can be very confident that some number of those possible truth-claims are indeed true;
3) we must be very cautious about asserting some of those possible truth-claims as having been proven true;
4) there are any number of truths about God that we cannot derive via reason alone, whether because of inherent limitations of logical reasoning, or because of inherent limitations of human intellect, or because of our own cultural or personal blind-spots and/or hidden assumptions.
5) we Christians (especially the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics) are far too confident in some lines of reasoning about the nature of God, tracing back to Aristotle and Plato, which contain embedded, and questionable, hidden cultural assumptions (we Protestants, of course, have our own issues).
An example of point 4) is that the classical pagans could never even have formulated the thought of the Christian assertion that "God is Love", for they carried the hidden assumption, derived from their cultures, that to love is to express weakness, and a shaming weakness at that. So, as The Divinity, "the ground of all being", *cannot* be weak, it not only follows that The Divinity cannot love, and cannot *be* Love, but the very questions would never have been asked.
=="Interesting speculations about the Fallen angels. ..."==
As I said, it was purely hypothetical speculation -- having nothing to do, one way or another, with what is important to us in this life: the salvation of human souls.
=="Genesis 6:1-5 tells us that quite a few angels Fell, not because they wanted to avoid incarnation, but because on the contrary they donned flesh illicitly, so that they could mate with human women"==
Even that does not rule out the the possibility of the (first) speculation that the Fallen Angels rebelled/fell over their disgust with the creation of the physical world. Consider that human beings often do, repeatedly, the very things which disgust them most..
And consider, as mentioned in the speculation, that as a general rule, the further removed a human cultus is from a Biblical understanding of reality, the deeper its antipathy to the physical world and to our incarnation in it. You may recall that some of the Gnostic sects of the early Christian era (and even until today) both condemned the creation of the physical world as itself a moral evil *and* encourged fornication ... so long as one did not thereby bring new souls into the world.
Consider that by the time obliquely referenced in Genesis 6:1-5, the Fallen Angels were surely committed to thwarting God's plans for human beings. How better to thwart his plans, than to so corrupt human society, and the individual souls planted in that society, that he "repents that he had created man"?
And recall, the speculation wasn't merely about angelic incarnation, but incarnation as an angelic "moral test", and that the Fallen Angels refused the test.
=="All that is interesting, but I doubt that men *just are* fallen angels. It is enough, I dare say, to suppose that we are fallen men, ..."==
This is about the second speculation.
As I said, both are purely hypothetical speculations. I don't believe either to be true; and even if I did believe one, I wouldn't expect others to join me in that belief, as such a belief has no bearing on our salvation from Death.
As I see it, one of the greatest temptations (and consequent sins upon failure of the test) which Christians have faced since Constantine's heirs threw the violent weight of the State behind the organized/bureaucratic church is precisely the insistence that beliefs (and speculations) tangential to salvation be made Sacred Doctrine (tm) to which one must assented upon pain of death.
=="As for the impossibility of contradiction in the Godhead, I can’t see how this would be something that God would need to test, or to demonstrate to or for himself. He’s omniscient, and so knows all truth; truth is integral and cannot be contradictory; so he must know from all eternity that he cannot possibly sin – cannot possibly stop being God. There’s just no indeterminacy there to test; no possibility that it could be otherwise than it is."==
There are several points to be made here ,,, and, no doubt, I will forget to mention some significant ones.
Of course, "the impossibility of contradiction in the Godhead [isn't] something that God would need to test, or to demonstrate to or for himself."
"He’s omniscient, and so knows all truth;" -- What if the causality runs a bit in the other direction? What if God doesn't know 'X' because it is true, but rather that 'X' is true because God knows it?
What if there is *nothing* -- not even "necessary truths", not even as simple and obvious one as that "1 + 1 = 2" -- which exists apart from God?
I sometimes characterize:
Plato -- Unthought Thoughts;
Aristotle -- Unintended Intentions.
And part of my point is that we Christians (especially the Roman tradition) rely a bit too much on their lines of reasoning about the Divinity; which lines of reasoning contain some unspoken, and disputable, cultural assumptions.
If the God is the creator of all-that-is not-God, then God is the creator of *all* that is not-God. If there is/exists *anything* which is/has being, which logically *can* have being, apart from the Divinity, then that thing is *also* a "necessary being", on the par with God ... then that thing is *also* "a God".
But, there can be only *one* necessary being, there can be only one non-contingent being.
So, it seems to me that upon pain of denying the very nature of the God as being *the* Necessary Being, we must acknowledge that even "necessary truths" are contingent upon God, are contingent upon God's *knowledge* of them as truth.
"... so he must know from all eternity that he cannot possibly sin - cannot possibly stop being God."
Consider that the God *creates* the world, and us, precisely by *knowing* that the world is and that we are. It seems to me that part of the reason that "God cannot lie" about a contingent truth is that God's statement of it creates it.
If God were to "forget" (for lack of better term) that you or I or the entire world exist, then would that not be the truth?
If -- through the covering of Christ's redemptive blood -- God were to "forget" that I am a sinner, and that I have sinned, that I have been his enemy, then is that not the truth? Is it not true that though I am a sinner *now* -- whether or not I commit any sins at all -- that in the New Creation I will not be a sinner, and I will not sin?
I suspect that it is God's *knowledge* that there is no contradiction in the Godhead which created/creates the test/demonstration that there is no contradiction in the Godhead.
"As for the impossibility of contradiction in the Godhead, I can’t see how this would be something that God would need to test, or to demonstrate to or for himself."
1) What if the demonstration is not *for* God's gain-of-knowledge, but for that of others ... such as ourselves, or such as the angels (including the fallen ones).
2) This is where Gödel becomes relevant to the matter ... but not in this particular post, as that would be a distraction from my response to your immediate post.
== continued from previous, due to character limit ==
"There’s just no indeterminacy there to test; no possibility that it could be otherwise than it is."
Yes. Now apply the logic of this truth to some of the other points with which you disagree with me.
* If, as Scripture asserts, Jesus, the man, faced temptations-to-sin, as all men do, but *if* it was logically, utterly, impossible for him to have surrendered to any of the temptations, then they were not *really* temptations, and his overcoming pf the temptations was just play-acting.
* If (as I believe, having long ago reasoned to this conclusion) the temptations Jesus faced were *real* temptations, then it is logically possible that he could have surrendered to one of them, and thereby to have sinned. That is, if the temptations Jesus faced were *real* temptations, and not merely play-acting, then it is logically possible the Jesus could have sinned. But, *if* it was logically, utterly, impossible for Jesus to have surrendered to the temptations, if* it was logically, utterly, impossible for Jesus to have sinned, then his conquest of sin was just play-acting.
* If (as I believe, having long ago reasoned to this conclusion) Christ's Incarnation and Crucifixion was the Godhead putting the Godhead "to the test", but *if* it was logically, utterly, impossible for him to have failed the test, then it wasn't a *real* test, but just play-acting.
* As I have said in the past, I believe that there were real stakes at play in Christ's Incarnation and Crucifixion, and not just with respect to human interests. I believe that there were real consequences at stake ... and for something to be "at stake" requires that there be more than one practical, hence logical, possibility.
I don't believe that the Son was staging a play for an adoring Father, as it were.
* This seems to me to be what it comes down to --
- Either the Son's Incarnation and Crucifixion was real, with real issues at stake, and with real consequences, and with a real possibility of failure, or it was just play-acting;
- Either it was logically possible that Jesus might have sinned, or Christ Jesus cannot logically be said to have conquered sin (which *is* Death).
- Either it was logically possible for Jesus to have failed the test of the Incarnation and Crucifixion, or it was just play-acting ... which doesn't seem to me to be a solid rock upon which to base my assurance of deliverance from Sin-and-Death. To put it another way: if our redemption out of Death could be purchased with the cosmic equivalent of the Little Rascals putting on a play, then we were never in any real danger in the first place.
=="... So likewise with Jesus. While it is metaphysically impossible for a being who is God to sin, because Jesus is (among many other things) a man, he can see the attraction of sin to men who are not God, and for whom sin is metaphysically possible. Sin is just not on his list of realistic – i.e., of real – options: of options that accord with his nature, and that he can therefore possibly accomplish. He can no more sin than we men could – qua men – breathe water. So, in practical terms, he can’t sin – even though he can see what it would be like to do so (from which apprehension – prior to any one of us, or to any of our trials in this darkling plain, wherein enemies clash by night – is derived his mercy toward us)."==
Too much Greek philosophy.
It seems to me that this approach to resolving the queston of whether Jesus, the man, might have sinned empties all meaning from the Scripture's clear assertion that he was tempted as all men are tempted, yet did not sin. Do not the NT writers make a point of the "yet did not sin" part?
Understanding another's temptation is not at all the same as facing/experiencing temptation oneself.
We humans can discover a lot of truths about the God using reason alone, without reference to any purported divine revelations or to the sacred scriptures of any religion (*). But, at the same time, we must be careful that our reasoning about the God doesn't rely upon hidden (much less, disputable) assumptions.
It seems to me that the meaning of Jesus having faced temptation as all men do is at question only because of "too much Greek philosophy". That is, the Christian intellectual tradition of trying to understand the God has imported a few Greco-Roman conclusions about the Divinity which are built upon sub-consciously (with respect to the ancient thinkers) hidden assumptions, some of which are disputable. And the consequence of that is to "harmonize" these Greek conclusions with Christian Scripture ... by emptying some passages of meaning.
"While it is metaphysically impossible for a being who is God to sin, ..."
It's also metaphysically impossible for a being who is God to die. And yet, he did. The Jews say that it is metaphysically impossible for a being who is God to become a man. And yet, he did.
My answer to this "metaphysically impossibility" is to note that according the the Christian Scriptures, the Second Person "set aside" the glory and honor and majesty of his Divine nature, that he "emptied himself", to take on flesh and become a man.
============
(*) One may notice that I never make reference to, much less rely upon, the Bible when presenting arguments that atheism is the false conception of reality.
But, in the present discussion, as both Kristor and I *are* Christians, and as we are discussing the *Christian* understanding of the Godhead, the Bible is not "off the table".
============
==Must God be Necessary?==
This is a note to myself to take up that post at that point.
I'll intersperse my replies in bold.
What if the causality runs a bit in the other direction? What if God doesn't know X because it is true, but rather that X is true because God knows it?
It is a bicondition: (x → God knows that x) ↔ (God knows that x → x). If God knows that x, then x must be true. Likewise, if x is true, then God must know that x.
What if there is *nothing* – not even "necessary truths," not even as simple and obvious one as that 1 + 1 = 2 – which exists apart from God?
No sort of thing – not even necessary truths – can exist apart from God.
If the God is the creator of all-that-is not-God, then God is the creator of *all* that is not-God. If there is/exists *anything* which is/has being, which logically *can* have being, apart from the Divinity, then that thing is *also* a "necessary being," on [a] par with God … then that thing is *also* "a God."
But, there can be only *one* necessary being, there can be only one non-contingent being.
So, it seems to me that upon pain of denying the very nature of the God as being *the* Necessary Being, we must acknowledge that even "necessary truths" are contingent upon God, are contingent upon God's *knowledge* of them as truth.
Sure. But describing the relation of the various necessary truths to God as one of contingency might be stretching terms a bit too far. If the necessary truths are necessary, they are not contingent, period full stop. They are all necessary. But as you say, there can be only one necessary. We may then safely infer that the various necessary truths are all implicit ab origino in the Lógos, as aspects thereof.
Consider that the God *creates* the world, and us, precisely by *knowing* that the world is and that we are. It seems to me that part of the reason that "God cannot lie" about a contingent truth is that God's statement of it creates it.
Well said.
If God were to "forget" (for lack of better term) that you or I or the entire world exist, then would that not be the truth?
Yes. But by definition, omniscience cannot forget; omniscience cannot be ignorant: □ ¬ (x & ¬ x).
If – through the covering of Christ's redemptive blood – God were to "forget" that I am a sinner, and that I have sinned, that I have been his enemy, then is that not the truth? Is it not true that though I am a sinner *now* – whether or not I commit any sins at all – that in the New Creation I will not be a sinner, and I will not sin?
Yes, that’s true. In the blood of Christ your sins are washed away and you are rendered sinless (until you happen to sin again). But it’s not true on account of God becoming a fool in some respect about what has actually happened. It’s true because despite the ineradicable fact of your sins, God has paid for them, so that you can transcend them (with his gratuitous help). This is why you thought to put the scare quotes around “forget.” God is omniscient, so he cannot forget what has actually happened. But he can forgive. If he could forget, he could find a way for there to be nothing to forgive, or to redeem. No such luck. If God could forget, he would in love and mercy infinite have done so; then Calvary would not have been needful. But it was. So, it happened.
Facts are inexorable. Nothing is ever forgotten.
I suspect that it is God's *knowledge* that there is no contradiction in the Godhead which created/creates the test/demonstration that there is no contradiction in the Godhead.
Not sure what that means. If God *knows* that there is no contradiction in the Godhead, what is there to test? God knows that 2 + 2 = 4. Indeed, it is in virtue of God that 2 + 2 = 4. Does he need to work this out for himself, as we do, in order to know it?
What if the demonstration is not *for* God's gain of knowledge, but for that of others … such as ourselves, or such as the angels (including the fallen ones)?
OK, I can see that. Apparently sinners *do* need to be shown that God is unimpeachable, so that their sins are perverse ontologically, ergo hopeless, doomed to failure. So he shows them, he demonstrates to them, and so tells them: thou shalt not put God to the test. Luke 4:12; Deuteronomy 6:16. This, in the first instance, in a case wherein Lucifer has tried to put God to the test.
If, as Scripture asserts, Jesus, the man, faced temptations to sin, as all men do, but *if* it was logically, utterly, impossible for him to have surrendered to any of the temptations, then they were not *really* temptations, and his overcoming of the temptations was just play-acting.
Why? When I was little and alcohol tasted vile to me, there was essentially zero likelihood that I would choose to have a drink. Alcohol didn’t change its nature so as to start being alluring when I grew older and started liking it. The allure of drinking does not presuppose, or necessarily involve, a disposition to engage in it. That someone is not inclined to drinking does not mean that drinking is not tempting. The temptation of drinking is inherent in it, and not dependent upon the reaction to it of this or that agent.
Take then as a special case wine. About ten years ago, I developed an allergy to wine, so that even half a glass is quite likely to generate in me an instant, severe migraine. I still enjoy the taste of wine, but I avoid it now with a whole and untroubled heart. Wine has not stopped being enjoyable to me, or therefore tempting. It’s just that I’m no longer disposed to drinking wine.
I don’t need to recur to analytical reasoning to see this difference between the temptation to an act and the inclination to enact it. All I have to do is remember all those times when I said to myself, “It could be fun to do x; but, nah.” Jesus faced temptations in every way as we do; like us, in respect to so many of the temptations we face, he did not sin. He said, “Nah; stupid; not going there.”
That he said this in accordance with his divine nature is not categorically different than my similar reaction, arising from the mysterious springs of my own nature to the allure of wine. Each of us has acted according to his nature: Jesus didn’t feel like sinning; I don’t feel like drinking wine.
If (as I believe, having long ago reasoned to this conclusion) the temptations Jesus faced were *real* temptations, then it is logically possible that he could have surrendered to one of them, and thereby to have sinned. That is, if the temptations Jesus faced were *real* temptations, and not merely play-acting, then it is logically possible the Jesus could have sinned. But, *if* it was logically, utterly, impossible for Jesus to have surrendered to the temptations, if* it was logically, utterly, impossible for Jesus to have sinned, then his conquest of sin was just play-acting.
I am not at all allured to gambling, despite the evident allure of gambling to so many. In order for me to become allured to gambling, and then actually to devote my limited time and resources thereto, I’d have to become a different sort of person than I am. Now, I’m contingent, so in logic I could become a different sort of person than I am; although, in that case, I wouldn’t be me. So – apart from the fact that he is the Lógos, and thus a necessary, changeless being (so that he *could not* in logic come to be other than he is) – likewise with the Lógos. In order for him to be tempted to sin – *against *himself,* NB* – he’d have to become other than himself. But nothing can become other than itself without ceasing to be itself, and becoming something quite different. Acorn ≠ oak.
If (as I believe, having long ago reasoned to this conclusion) Christ's Incarnation and Crucifixion was the Godhead putting the Godhead "to the test," but *if* it was logically, utterly, impossible for him to have failed the test, then it wasn't a *real* test, but just play-acting.
Omniscience could not have failed to know that he would himself pass the test. The passage of the test must then have been, as you suggest, only for our benefit: a teaching moment. That would not render it in some way false. The Truth himself cannot but teach us truth.
That Omnipotence cannot but pass a test cannot render the verdict of the test false. Omnipotence for the win. How could it be otherwise?
As I have said in the past, I believe that there were real stakes at play in Christ's Incarnation and Crucifixion, and not just with respect to human interests. I believe that there were real consequences at stake … and for something to be "at stake" requires that there be more than one practical, hence logical, possibility.
I don't believe that the Son was staging a play for an adoring Father, as it were.
This seems to me to be what it comes down to: either the Son's Incarnation and Crucifixion was real, with real issues at stake, and with real consequences, and with a real possibility of failure, or it was just play-acting.
There *are* real possibilities of failure in the Atonement. And for many – perhaps even most – it is a total failure. Some sinners do still opt for damnation and everlasting torment, despite the Passion and the chance of sempiternal ecstasy in Heaven.
It just seems nuts to me to suppose that the Lógos might possibly have opted for his own damnation. For, that is what you are suggesting.
Either it was logically possible that Jesus might have sinned, or Christ Jesus cannot logically be said to have conquered sin (which *is* Death).
It is not logically possible that 2 + 2 = 5; that does not mean that it is illogical to say that 2 + 2 = 4.
Either it was logically possible for Jesus to have failed the test of the Incarnation and Crucifixion, or it was just play-acting … which doesn't seem to me to be a solid rock upon which to base my assurance of deliverance from Sin-and-Death. To put it another way: if our redemption out of Death could be purchased with the cosmic equivalent of the Little Rascals putting on a play, then we were never in any real danger in the first place.
*We* are certainly in danger. But God cannot be in danger. If it were possible that God himself might be in danger, then were all our assurances of his salvation moot; for, what if he should someday Fall, thus ruining all his works – including the work of the Atonement? After all, the temptation in the wilderness was not the last moment in the lives either of the Lógos or of his Tempter. They might be at that game for some time to come. What if Jesus Fell next week? We’d all be lost.
Perfect salvation – which is just to say, salvation per se, properly so called – *cannot work* except by a perfect Savior effecting a perfect sacrifice. No such Savior, no salvation.
Too much Greek philosophy.
That is not an argument. It is an emotion; indeed, it is no more than a prejudice. Emotions and prejudices are not without philosophical valence, to be sure. Still.
Do not the NT writers make a point of the "yet did not sin" part?
Sure. They distinguish between the temptation and the sin. Where’s the difficulty?
I am tempted to walk away from all my responsibilities. But I don’t do it, because I don't want to. Again, how is distinguishing between the temptation and the fall thereto so difficult?
Kristor writes: "While it is metaphysically impossible for a being who is God to sin …"
It's also metaphysically impossible for a being who is God to die. And yet, he did. The Jews say that it is metaphysically impossible for a being who is God to become a man. And yet, he did.
My answer to this "metaphysically impossibility" is to note that according [to] the Christian Scriptures, the Second Person "set aside" the glory and honor and majesty of his Divine nature, that he "emptied himself," to take on flesh and become a man.
Well, as I’m sure you know, the Church from the beginning has recognized that Jesus died in his manhood but not in his godhood. The Lógos emptied himself into and as a human body, to be sure; but Infinity cannot by any kenosis possibly be exhausted even a jot, so the Incarnation of the Lógos nowise vitiated the Infinite; it did not render him less than Infinite; to think so is to misunderstand infinity.
His perfect *human being* then died. His *divine being* did not. To assert otherwise is to assert a plain contradiction: i.e., that God was not God. If the Second Person of the eternal Trinity had died on Golgotha, there could have been no Resurrection of his human body (nor could there have been any other subsequent creaturely event), because the death of God would have been, hello, *the utter death of God,* and so of all his creative acts, such as Kristor and Ilíon. Once the Lógos had died, the Lógos would be done, over; as per impossibile no longer existent, he would not have been, at all; and so he would have been quite impotent to do anything whatever, including resurrection – or, likewise, our continued existence from one moment to the next. With him would have gone the other two Persons, for they are all three one being: no one of them could die except insofar as the others did, too. With the death of God, everything else whatsoever would have died, utterly and forever.
Had things worked out that way, we could not be here now talking about things. We do here now talk; ergo, etc.
The body of Jesus died and was resurrected, and with it his manhood, his humanity, and indeed his creaturity. But God himself, qua God, who is by his immutable nature eternal, necessary, and living, cannot and so did not die. To suppose that he might have done so is to engage in a contradiction in terms. □ ¬ (x & ¬ x).
NB: to say that, by definition, God cannot die just is to say, among other things, that God cannot sin. For, to fall into sin is to fall into death. To fall into sin and death is to fall into contradiction to the divine nature. To suppose that God could possibly fall into contradiction to his own nature is to suppose that he might not be God, properly so called, but something less: something unworthy of our ultimate devotion; indeed, something we might not altogether improperly call demonic.
So, we must take a choice: either the One whom we have worshipped as God is eternal and so immortal, or he can fall into sin, and so die; so that he is not God, properly so called. In which case, are we of all men most to be pitied; for, no God → no resurrection.
I'll never catch up at this rate.
I'm off to Indiana, again, for a week. Leaving shortly.
But, let me note in reference to your insistence on what God cannot do -- Jesus *himself* told us that not even the Son knows the hour or the day when the Father shall end the age.
So, since there is at least one thing that the Son/Jesus does not know, that *must* mean that he is not omniscient. And that he is not omniscient *must* mean that he is not God.
Or ... just maybe ... the logic you are using does not apply to the Living God, because you're working from one or more incorrect assumptions about what the God *must* be like (that "too much Greek philosophy" I mentioned).
In Jesus Christ are united two natures, two wills, and two intellects: human, and divine. As the body of Jesus is finite, so is his human intellect; meanwhile his divine intellect is omniscient. This is tricky, but is ably explained in the Catholic Encyclopedia – which is not, on this topic, arguing in support only of Roman Catholic doctrine on the matter, but for the doctrine accepted by all the Chalcedonians – Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Calvinist, the Churches of the East, and now the Maronites too. Qua man, Jesus cannot know all that he knows qua God; still, qua God, he knows all that God knows – just not by way of his purely human intellect.
Of the passage you notice, Mark 13:32, the Encyclopedia says merely:
"After all that has been written on this question in recent years, we see no need to add anything to the traditional explanations: the Son has no knowledge of the judgment day which He may communicate; or, the Son has no knowledge of this event, which springs from His human nature as such; or again, the Son has no knowledge of the day and the hour, that has not been communicated to Him by the Father."
These three alternative explanations reduce to one. The Dominical knowledge of judgement day arises not from his human intellect, but from the knowledge of the Lógos, which is coterminous with and is begotten of the knowledge of his Father; and he may not communicate that knowledge to his human auditors in terms that they may understand and in such a way as to accord with the divine plan of their salvation.
I prefer to read the text as is, whenever possible. The Son, the Second Person, told us directly: "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."
The Son has told us that no being, including the Son, except the Father himself, knows when the Father shall end the Age.
The Son did not say, "I may not tell you when the End of the Age shall be"; nor did he say, "Even if I told you when the End of the Age shall be, you would not understand what I mean". Rather, he said, "I do not know."
Therefore, by the Son's own words, there is at least one true thing that the Son does not know. Therefore, by the logic you yourself have asserted, the Son is not omniscient, and therefore he is not God. But, that's not right, for we know that he is God.
I identify the problem as being one or more of the assumptions from which you are starting. You identify the problem as my misapplication of the logic you have asserted ... without really showing how I have done so.
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Meanwhile. It may be that I severely misunderstand the words "will" and "intellect", but to me, saying that "In Jesus Christ are united ... two wills, and two intellects" sounds exactly like saying that Jesus Christ, the Son, the Second Person of the Godhead, is *two* persons. And I *know* that you don't mean that. So, am I misunderstanding the terms, or were you speaking too imprecisely?
We (including I) often speak of "having a will" or "having free-will" ... as though our wills were like our feet: parts of us, which could be separated from us without utterly destroying us. But, as I see it, it is not that we *have* free-will, but that we *are* free-wills.
Similarly with "intellect".
As I see it, to speak of the will or of the intellect is to focus on an aspect of the person, of the self, and thus to treat that *focus* as though we were contemplating an entity separable from the person himself.
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But, once again, I see what I can only term a flaw in Received Orthodoxy ... because of that "Too Much Greek Philosophy" problem.
Christ Jesus is fully man, and fully God. So far, so good.
Now, IF Christ Jesus is fully man, THEN it is logically possible for him to have sinned. For, if it is not logically possible for him to have sinned, then he is not fully man.
The NT writers make sure to make a point of it: that Jesus was without sin. But, the point is pointless *unless* it was possible that he might have sinned.
Moreover, we *know* that it is possible for the Son to will opposite to what the Father wills, for he himself said in prayer to the Father that his will concerning his coming torture and murder was opposite that of the Father. Opposed does not mean defiant, but it does imply the possibility of defiance.
Which brings us once again to the point of contention: as I see it, to deny that Jesus really did face real temptations to sin, just as we do, that Jesus really was tempted by those temptations to sin, just as we are by the temptations we face (*), is to deny, or at best to trivialize, his conquest of sin (and thus of Death).
For, if instead, it truly was utterly/logically impossible for Jesus to have sinned, if the "temptations" were not at all tempting to him, than his "conquering" of sin is utterly unimpressive. To paraphrase the Man himself, "Even the Pagans 'overcome' temptations which do not tempt them."
(*) Or, as is frequently the case, the temptations to which we ourselves subject ourselves.
To suppose that Jesus did not apprehend and feel the allure of sin far more comprehensively and perfectly than we ever could is to suppose that he is not omniscient. But he is omniscient. So, Jesus was “tempted in every way as we are.” Hebrews 4:15. Indeed, as tempted *perfectly* he was tempted maximally – far more than we might ever be. But to suppose, notwithstanding his perfect knowledge of the allure of sin, that he did not also perfectly apprehend the idiocy of sin, and its net hedonic repellence – the utter horror of it – is likewise to suppose that he is not omniscient. He must be omniscient – in his divine nature and intellect, that is – for, he is God. So, he understood sin – its allure, and its horror – perfectly well.
Qua man, it was ontologically possible for Jesus to sin; he could not have been man, otherwise. Qua God, it was not; he could not have been God, otherwise.
The human and divine natures are one hypostatically in Jesus. Of the two natures, it seems clear that the divine must be dominant: it can’t be possible to be God without, you know, *being God,* through and through, perfectly, completely. Yet the Godhood of Jesus did not drive out or delete or vitiate his manhood, but rather subsumed it (thereby optimizing manhood per se, perfecting it and so fulfilling, magnifying, and glorifying it). So despite that subsumption – indeed, in virtue thereof – Jesus is a man, with a human intellect, human knowledge, and human will – and a human capacity to sin.
As man, Jesus *could* have sinned, but as the man who is God he could not have *wanted* to sin, mutatis mutandis. Sinning looks silly to him in the same way that jumping off the Tower of the Temple looks silly to me. So there is no possible state of affairs in which he *would* have sinned – for, to have sinned would have been for him to delete his own Godhood and thus his being. For the Necessary Eternal One that move is of course impossible.
If God had in Jesus deleted his Godhood, the whole created order would have been instantly deleted in the bargain.
Excursus: the same logic is at work in the Blessed in Heaven: qua men, they *can* sin, but as Blessed they never *want* to. Reciprocally, the Damned *can* repent, but they never *want* to.
I’m afraid I can’t quite see how the triumph of Omnipotence over sin is rendered trivial on account of the fact that Omnipotence is Omnipotent, and so could not but triumph. That triumph certainly isn’t trivial *for us,* no matter how it is accomplished. On the contrary. But, for Omnipotence, *every and all* accomplishment is trivial. That it was a piece of cake for Omnipotent Perfect Goodness to beat sin and death decisively should not surprise or trouble us. How could it be otherwise, on any consistent definition of “God”?
The entire point of the Incarnation and Passion was that the Infinite Holy One should pay for us the infinite price of our sin, which we could not as finite creatures ever possibly pay. While it was to be sure totally difficult and painful – and mortal – for him to pay that price in his human nature, it had to have been easy for him to pay it in his divine nature, if he was ever to pay it in the first place. And so it was: Infinity can pay an infinite price without being at all diminished, or anywise hurt.
In his manhood, Jesus is like us. But in his Godhood, he is categorically different. He didn’t beat sin as a mere man. That’s Pelagianism (as well as Arianism and Adoptionism). He beat sin as God. And, by the definition of “God,” God cannot but beat sin.
Why should it trouble us, at all, that Omnipotent Good cannot but beat finite depravity? I don’t get it.
The human will and intellect are integral to human nature – and, insofar as such a nature is expressed and manifest in a particular human person, to that person. But then, so is the human body. And as it is possible to be a human person who has for a while been deprived of embodiment, so is it possible to be a human who has for a time been deprived of will or intellect – as, e.g., when comatose.
So, the orthodox doctrine of all Chalcedonians that in Jesus are united the divine and human natures, completely and without confusion – together with their implicit wills and intellects – does not imply that in Jesus there are two persons. Jesus is one person with two natures, two wills, and two intellects.
That this seems hard to understand prima facie does not matter, for despite its apparent difficulty, the doctrine is not logically incoherent.
The doctrine turns out to be relatively easy to understand, secunda facie. Consider that in each of us quite a few natures are more or less integrated. It is the normal state of affairs for us. E.g., Ilíon is at once, in one person, and without confusion, both a brother and a blogger. So is he of two minds about how he ought to spend the weekend; of two wills, of two intellects: he wants to help out his sister in Indiana, and knows he ought to do so; and he also wants to stay home and work on his reply to Kristor at his blog, which he knows he ought to do.
The only reason we must make decisions – and pay prices – is that we are of more than one mind. It was to multiplicity of natures that we Fell from Eden. Our better natures are at war with our worse.
In the Resurrection, we’ll still have multiplicity of natures – one day, Kristor and Ilíon will work at a project together in the woodshop, and the next they’ll parse metaphysics – but there will be no worry that we are doing one thing at the expense of another; our diverse activities, and the natures that they supervene in us, shall never be at odds with each other. Such is perfect peace: not stillness all the time, but unobstructed flow.
We Fell from one nature to many, that are in competition and some conflict (because our time is limited); we’ll rise to many natures that are congruent (because our time will then be unlimited, so that we shall never pay a price for doing one thing at the expense of another we should like to do).
The difficulty of the doctrine of the hypostatic union then turns out to lie not in the fact that Jesus has more than one nature, will and intellect united in a single person – for that is true of all of us – but rather in the fact that one of those natures, wills and intellects is divine. We can understand what it is to be of two minds about this or that, and indeed about almost everything; but we cannot possibly understand what it is like to be of two minds, *one of which is divine.* For, none of our natures are divine (to think that one of them might be is the heresy of Gnosticism). Such is the mystery of the unique Dominican hypostasis.
“Hypostasis” is Greek for the Latin “substans” and the English “understanding.” It connotes then both being and knowing.
We can learn something from the humdrum example of routine human hypostatic union adduced above. Ilíon is a man essentially. He can’t stop being a man. He is blogger and brother accidentally. He had to be Ilíon the man in order then to be either Ilíon the brother or Ilíon the blogger.
Likewise is the Lógos essentially God. He is man accidentally. His divine nature is prior logically and causally to his human nature; and his human nature is possible in the first place only in virtue of his prior divine nature, which by him creates all worlds and everything in them – including the body and manhood of Jesus, together with the whole histories of all the worlds. The Lógos donned Jesus – and the entirety of creatura – the way that Ilíon donned blogging.
The comparison seems silly, and indeed it is; Ilíon is an image of the Lógos, but his likeness thereto is but poor, indeed absurdly so (which is why he now sees through a glass but darkly). Still is there some likeness; or else, Ilíon could be no image at all.
Ditto for the analogy between the office of the Messiah and that of the blogger.
You write:
"The Son, the Second Person, told us directly: 'But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.'"
Yes. But he also told us directly that he and the Father are One. John 10:30. In Matthew 11:27 he said also:
"*All things are delivered unto me of my Father:* and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him."
How to reconcile these statements?
The Pulpit Commentary writes:
"Why; then, does St. Mark here add, "neither the Son"? The answer is surely to be found in the great truth of the hypostatic union. The eternal Son, as God, by his omniscience, and as man, by knowledge imparted to him, knows perfectly the day and the hour of the future judgment. But Christ as man, and as the Messenger from God to men, did not so know it as to be able to reveal it to men."
It’s all buried in the hypostatic union. Jesus qua man could not know what the Lógos knows, even though Jesus qua God is himself the Lógos, and so is Omniscience. But of course, Omniscience cannot be encompassed by a brain (even though all brains supervene and partake Omniscience). What was it like then for Jesus subjectively? We can’t know.
Jesus is the Lógos incarnate. Qua Lógos, he knows in his very being the hour that he himself has ordained from before all worlds. But, Jesus is also a partiscient (in no other way could he be truly man) who by his human nature – in his converse with other creatures, in his intracosmic role, mission and career – cannot know such things in any detail, or in any way he might have communicated either to men or to angels in such a way as to inform them, rather than to confuse them.
I shall soon post an item at the Orthosphere that might be of help in this respect. Among other things, it will parse the mundane character of Jesus and the Lógos who plays that character in the drama of cosmic salvation history. The player is Omniscience; the character he plays is a partiscient man.
The hypostatic union is *hard.* It is to theology as the Hard Problem of Consciousness is to the philosophy of mind.
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