The actual possession of two natures in one person only occurs in Christ just as the possession of a human nature without a human person only occurs in Christ.
The Role of Mary in the Church of Roman Catholicism
- Thread starter RayneBeau
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The actual possession of two natures in one person only occurs in Christ just as the possession of a human nature without a human person only occurs in Christ.
you seem to have a trouble with a foot in all camps.
Again making no sense at all. You mean Jesus isn't human?
It is historical fact and in fact we can see your splits debating on these very threads. That is because it follows its founders that Roman Emperors.
Bonnie
Super Member
Jesus took on the additional nature of man, at His Incarnation, but never ceased being God. Why is that so hard to understand?
Bonnie
Super Member
Oh
Oh, good grief! Jesus was as human as we are, but was and is without sin. He is the God Man. He is one Person, both God and man. HOW that can be, I don't know--but I expect God to be able to do what we mere humans cannot.
St. Athanasius and the church council of Nicaea managed to figure it out, even though Arius disagreed. (Is ram a "closet Arian"? ?) Athanasius' creed explains it quite clearly. Odd that people who so often say, "Well, this Church Father said..." seem to be inconversant with a CF's magnus opus...
--Rich
what i cannot understand is why you cannot understand that as God, Jesus is immutable despite taking human nature. The second person of the Blessed Trinity possesses two natures, one divine, and one human, subsisting within the one divine person.
St. Thomas Aquinas explains:
Since the divine Person is infinite, no addition can be made to it: Hence Cyril says [Council of Ephesus, Part I, ch. 26]: “We do not conceive the mode of conjunction to be according to addition”; just as in the union of man with God, nothing is added to God by the grace of adoption, but what is divine is united to man; hence, not God but man is perfected (Summa Theologiae, Pt. III, Q. 3, Art. 1, Reply Obj. 1).
We call this divine union of the human and divine natures in one divine person as 'Hypostatic Union" 'St. Thomas explains this union in one divine person in Christ like this...
[E]very relation which we consider between God and the creature is really in the creature, by whose change the relation is brought into being; whereas it is not really in God, but only in our way of thinking, since it does not arise from any change in God. And hence we must say that the union of which we are speaking is not really in God, except only in our way of thinking; but in the human nature, which is a creature… Therefore we must say it [the hypostatic union] is something created (Ibid., Q. 2, Art. 7).
therefore, when we speak of Jesus we speak of his divine person, to which everything fully human and divine is attributed.
Bonnie
Super Member
Except that church then was NOT the RCC.
Which isn't your church at all; it has been teaching error for many centuries and God does not give anyone authority to do that.
All Christians are the royal priesthood of all believers, and thus can read and understand Scripture for themselves--just as the Bereans did. What "authority" officially interpreted the Scriptures for THEM?
Bonnie
Super Member
I have said Jesus is one person with two natures: The nature of God and the Nature of Man. What part of that cannot you understand?
I don't care what St. Thomas Aquinas wrote. I am going by the Bible. Nothing can be added to Jesus' Deity, since He possesses all of that, but He still took on the additional nature of man at His Incarnation. I don't see what is so hard to understand about that. I also realize that nothing is too hard for the Lord and that His ways are not our ways.
you are correct that Jesus has two natures but since he is God, a divine person, from the very beginning he did not and cannot change despite taking human nature. you said it yourself... 'nothing can be added to Jesus" Deity'. Jesus, as God, is infinite. what changed when the divine was added to man is the perfection of man. God is already all-perfect. again, a divine person cannot change into a divine-human mix.
this is the logic of those who cannot accept ecclesial authority. although the church has an invisible quality being the mystical body of Jesus, but what good would it have done before Jesus stow the keys upon a Church so formless as to defy any effort to identify it? Jesus speaks of a visible Church when he recommends the church for setting disputes (Matt. 18:17); when (he says it is a city set up on a hill cannot be hidden, a light of the world (Matt. 5:14-15; see also Luke 8:16,11:33).
then explain these facts if the one true church have no visibility:
- Codification of the Bible.
- The worldwide church councils
- the Lord’s day (sunday)
- Christmas and Easter.observance
- the gregorian calendar
Bonnie
Super Member
No, it is simply the truth. The early first century church was NOT the RCC--that took hundreds of years to develop.
Who says the early church was formless? But there was no one head pope over all the early church--Jesus is and was the head of the church.
So? I never said the church was ONLY invisible, now, did I?
Uh, I never said the church was ONLY invisible. I just stated that the early church was NOT the RCC and that is a fact and the truth. It wasn't. In fact, it was nothing like the bloated, corrupt behemoth of a church that you belong to now.
Bonnie
Super Member
Jesus is fully man as well as fully God. However, He is one Person, the God-Man. HOW He can be that--I don't know. But I expect God to be able to do what we mere mortals cannot.
if the church has form and is visible, what is the name of this church and where is it today?
so, you believe that a divine person from the very beginning changed into a divine-human person.
it also means that you do not believe God is all-perfect and immutable.
correct?
Bonnie
Super Member
Jesus as the Word of God has always been God. His deity is immutable and unchangeable. But at His Incarnation, He took on the additional nature of man, which He has kept, but He never gave up His deity.
No. Very incorrect.
Bonnie
Super Member
We have already told you this. ALL true believers are temples to the Holy Spirit and they are certainly visible and are the church. And the name is simply the Church, though in the first century, it was called The Way.
you say God is immutable and all perfect, why contradict yourself and insist that a divine person changed to divine-human mixture?
Jesus' divine person did not change when he took human nature.
He did not give up his divinity. He remained in his divinity, He is God.
what changed was the human nature that was perfected by his divinity.
because as God, Jesus is already all-perfect, He cannot change.
is this difficult to understand?