Monday, September 24, 2012

The Incarnation

Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. The question, of course, is how? Well, why not say that he has the essential characteristics of God, and at the same time the essential characteristics of a human being? This, then, requires one to figure out what those are, and requires that they not contradict.

God is, essentially, in perfect union with himself, the one who created all that was created, who had no cause outside of himself, who is an infinite spirit, and is morally perfect. It may also be said that he is omnipotent and omniscient.
Humans are, essentially, spirits in material bodies, have a desire for companionship,
and find their joy in doing the will of God. It may also be noted that humans react to existence temporally.

I see no reason that Christ could not have all of these characteristics. It seems to me that there is no reason to assume any connection between the size of a spirit and the size of the body which that spirit might be in. I do not think that it is necessary to say that Christ necessarily had the ability to act atemporally while in time, though he may or may not have been aware of events atemporally.

It is enough, with respect to Christ's temporality, to say that he was able to have a certain sort of anxiety, being human, despite knowing how things would turn out. This does not seem strange to me, because it seems that there are times when it may be appropriate for a human to be anxious in a certain sense of the word. It does not seem to me that it is a sin to be anxious in that sense, but only to keep that anxiety, rather than to give that anxiety to God who works all things to our good and his glory. And Christ did give his anxiety to his Father, and, having done so, prayed "not my will, but yours, be done" (Luke 22:42).

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