reverse. science, make it into something like a human characteristic. Besides violating the principle of divine transcendence - indeed, because of it - when divine and human qualities are set next to one another they are set in competition: in the respects to which Jesus is divine (for example, omniscient) it is hard to see how he is still human, and the If one is leery of allowing divine qualities to simply replace their human counterparts in Jesus - following Chalcedon, Jesus is not partially divine and partially human but fully both divine and human - the result is a nonsensically redundant duplication of qualities - for example, Jesus is omniscient in so far as he is divine and ignorant in so far as he is human at the very same time - with all the difficulties that brings for establishing Jesus as a coherent character. Better to think of divinity and humanity not in terms of isolable, discrète qualities that divide up Jesus' life and person, but as what characterize Jesus' life overall, as a whole. Jesus life as a whole is both divine and human but on different levels or planes of reality, one being the source of the other. Jesus leads a fully human existence but this existence is the result of the assumption of Jesus' humanity by the Word. Because they occur on different planes, so to speak - the leading of a human life on a horizontal plane, the assumption of this whole plane of a human life by the Word on a vertical plane – they neither supplement nor replace one another. The same human features and effects of Jesus' life may be attributed to Jesus as both divine and human since Jesus' divinity, the Word's assumption of his humanity, is the immediate source of his whole human life, Jesus' compassion for the outcast, for example, has its human source - in presumably the historically conditioned human process by which he reached the decision for that course of life and it has a divine source in the Word's assumption of humanity which gives human existence with this shape in its totality. In this manner Jesus can be said to lead a life both human and divine at the very same time. - When divinity and humanity are attributed to Jesus' life as a whole in this way, one is less inclined to discuss Jesus' two natures in abstraction from the soteriological point of what the triune God is. doing in Christ, less inclined, for example, to become (mistakenly) preoccupied with fascinating, but ultimately beside-the-point issues concerning the exact relations between Jesus' divine and human 16 qualities (say, how his divine omniscience and his limited human knowledge interact - might he tell himself as man what he knows as God?). Talk of two natures is instead brought back to the concrete events of salvation that such talk is supposed to illuminate. The point of two natures talk is now evident in what God does for us - assumes humanity for the sake of human life, in order to bring about the sort of human life that Jesus lived.30 Discussion of the human and divine natures of Christ becomes more dynamic and more concrete by way of their reference to an actually existing person. Jesus is divine and human in that Jesus is both God (becoming human and the human becoming divine. Jesus is divine because in him God becomes human - that is, God assumes the human. Jesus is perfectly human, the deined human, because in him the human becomes God – that is, the human is assumed by God so as to produce an elevated and perfected human way of life. Both at once God become human and the human become God because the second, the living of a perfectly gifted human life, is the direct result of the first God's becoming one with the human.³ Jesus is both the Word incarnate and deified or exalted humanity because these are just different descriptions of the same process from different points of view the one highlighting the agency of the Word in uniting itself with humanity; the other coming at the same process from the flipside of) its effect, humanity assumed and thereby perfected. d), CUTUSLAUAD (17) Notice that as a characteristic of Jesus' life as a whole rather than a particular, isolable quality, the divinity of Christ has a kind of invisibility: divinity makes no obvious appearance in the form of some identifiable empirical or metaphysical feature of Jesus life. The second Person of the Trinity's assumption of the human is as invisible as God's acting to create and uphold the world: it transpires silently, behind the scenes; it makes no appearance in itself but is identifiable only in 30 This effort to tie up 'two natures' talk with what is going on in Jesus' life is typical, for example, of Martin Luther's Christology; see Ian Siggins, Martin Luther's Doctrine of Christ (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1970). It is also crucial for Karl Barth's: sec, for example, Church Dugmatics IV/2, 74-6, 98–9, 105–9. See, in Karl Barth's terms, the way the exaltation of the human is the humiliation of God's becoming human, considered in its effects on the human; Church Dogmatics IV/1, 132-5; and IV/2, 110–12, 117. 17 32 and from its effects. Rather than being a matter of direct perception or simple identification, the divinity of Jesus becomes an inference from the character of Jesus' life and its effects. If a man should wish to see God, who is invisible by nature and not seen at all, he: may know and apprehend him from his works. '33 'Christ is the image of the invisible God [the Father] even in respect of his invisibility: for if the [divine] substance of Christ were discernible, how could He be the image of an invisible nature?"+ It is for this very reason that the affirmation of Jesus' divinity must be inferred. Although one cannot identify anything empirically or metaphysically out of the ordinary in them, Jesus' person and acts are nevertheless so out-of-the-ordinary as to be called divine, because they have a character and consequences exceeding any mere creature's capacities. In order to lead this sort of life and death, in order for this life and death to have the sort of saving effects on others that it has, one must be God, and work by the power of God. Thus, Jesus, to all appearances and as far as any metaphysical inquiry can tell, weeps and feels terror before death just as any human would: what is odd is the way Jesus overcomes these anxieties and fears for example, the way he nevertheless conforms his will to the Father's as the Father's own Son would - and the saving consequences of such acts - Jesus overcomes our weeping and terror by weeping and being terrified.35 _ One can defend, then, the divinity of Jesus, rather than merely assume it, with reference to the historical Jesus and the effects of his life on others. This takes the question of Jesus' divinity off the usual epistemological plane to which it is put in contemporary theology (by, for example, Pannenberg whose whole book Jesus – God and Man is premised on the idea, mistaken I believe, that traditional Christologies merely assumed the divinity of Christ without argument). Contrary to much contemporary theology, one is not, in other words, assessing the church's belief in the divinity of Christ by investigating how it developed, with good cause or not, from the evidence provided by Jesus' own life and self-understanding. One is instead asking more directly whether what Jesus was and did justifies the claim of divinity; this is less an epistemological question (about the justification of the church's belief by way, for example, of an account of its genesis) than an objective or 'ontological' question about the relationship between Jesus' person and acts and their preconditions. **Athanasius, ‘On the Incarnation,' 107; see also 72, 86. 34 Hilary of Poitiers, 'On the Trinity,' trans. E. Watson and L. Pullan, Nicene and Post- Nicene Fathers, vol. 9 (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 199+), Book 11, section 5, 204. 35 See Athanasius, Four Discourses against the Arians,' trans. J. H. Newman and A. Robertson, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1957), 424. To say that Jesus works by the power of God is not to say that Jesus as a psychological or metaphysical matter avails himself of divine powers, for example, uses his omniscience or decides to employ his miracle-working capacities. Jesus is simply human on that level; nothing like those divine faculties or powers are uncoverable by, say, closer empirical inspection or better historical investigation, or cleverer metaphysical analysis. It is rather to say that, for example, Jesus acts as if he is omniscient (meaning by that, that his acts are the sort of thing only an omniscient God might do for our benefit) despite the "fact that as a human being he clearly is not. Because what Jesus is and does is impossible for a mere human being, one attributes divinity to him; that simple attribution, without further specification in terms of empirical or metaphysical qualities, respects the transcendence of God. Developing an empirical or metaphysical account of those qualities would, that is, make them into either quasi-divine human faculties or divine powers comparable to human ones (for example, distinct from human powers by degree). 36 In another sense, however, the fact that Jesus' divinity is not located on the level of particular empirical or metaphysical qualities means his divinity is apparent in his human acts, rather than alongside them.37 Jesus' divinity is invisible in and of itself - the assumption of the human as a divine act does not take place on the human plane - but that divinity nevertheless appears in the shape of Jesus' life. Jesus lives out in a fully human form the mode of relationship among Father, Son and Spirit in the Trinity. The human shape of Jesus' life is not something alongside Jesus' divinity but the manifestation of that divinity as a human whole. “It is only when . . . we find his divinity in his humanity, not ….. plainly visible over against it, but as operative in and through it, that we are on the right track. This means, then, that the judgment that Jesus is divine is ... made in consequence of the experience of what he is and does, as well as what he was ** There are hints of this position in Athanasius and Hilary of Poitiers (see nn. 33-5), despite their tendencies to say the reverse: that Jesus knows everything and just hides the fact for saving purposes. See Rahner, 'Current Problems in Christology,' 190--1. 38 See, for example, how Zachary Hayes explicates Bonaventure's views to make this point in What Manner of Man?, trans, with commentary by Zachary Hayes (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1989), 77-81, 86, 94. 18 19
reverse. science, make it into something like a human characteristic. Besides violating the principle of divine transcendence - indeed, because of it - when divine and human qualities are set next to one another they are set in competition: in the respects to which Jesus is divine (for example, omniscient) it is hard to see how he is still human, and the If one is leery of allowing divine qualities to simply replace their human counterparts in Jesus - following Chalcedon, Jesus is not partially divine and partially human but fully both divine and human - the result is a nonsensically redundant duplication of qualities - for example, Jesus is omniscient in so far as he is divine and ignorant in so far as he is human at the very same time - with all the difficulties that brings for establishing Jesus as a coherent character. Better to think of divinity and humanity not in terms of isolable, discrète qualities that divide up Jesus' life and person, but as what characterize Jesus' life overall, as a whole. Jesus life as a whole is both divine and human but on different levels or planes of reality, one being the source of the other. Jesus leads a fully human existence but this existence is the result of the assumption of Jesus' humanity by the Word. Because they occur on different planes, so to speak - the leading of a human life on a horizontal plane, the assumption of this whole plane of a human life by the Word on a vertical plane – they neither supplement nor replace one another. The same human features and effects of Jesus' life may be attributed to Jesus as both divine and human since Jesus' divinity, the Word's assumption of his humanity, is the immediate source of his whole human life, Jesus' compassion for the outcast, for example, has its human source - in presumably the historically conditioned human process by which he reached the decision for that course of life and it has a divine source in the Word's assumption of humanity which gives human existence with this shape in its totality. In this manner Jesus can be said to lead a life both human and divine at the very same time. - When divinity and humanity are attributed to Jesus' life as a whole in this way, one is less inclined to discuss Jesus' two natures in abstraction from the soteriological point of what the triune God is. doing in Christ, less inclined, for example, to become (mistakenly) preoccupied with fascinating, but ultimately beside-the-point issues concerning the exact relations between Jesus' divine and human 16 qualities (say, how his divine omniscience and his limited human knowledge interact - might he tell himself as man what he knows as God?). Talk of two natures is instead brought back to the concrete events of salvation that such talk is supposed to illuminate. The point of two natures talk is now evident in what God does for us - assumes humanity for the sake of human life, in order to bring about the sort of human life that Jesus lived.30 Discussion of the human and divine natures of Christ becomes more dynamic and more concrete by way of their reference to an actually existing person. Jesus is divine and human in that Jesus is both God (becoming human and the human becoming divine. Jesus is divine because in him God becomes human - that is, God assumes the human. Jesus is perfectly human, the deined human, because in him the human becomes God – that is, the human is assumed by God so as to produce an elevated and perfected human way of life. Both at once God become human and the human become God because the second, the living of a perfectly gifted human life, is the direct result of the first God's becoming one with the human.³ Jesus is both the Word incarnate and deified or exalted humanity because these are just different descriptions of the same process from different points of view the one highlighting the agency of the Word in uniting itself with humanity; the other coming at the same process from the flipside of) its effect, humanity assumed and thereby perfected. d), CUTUSLAUAD (17) Notice that as a characteristic of Jesus' life as a whole rather than a particular, isolable quality, the divinity of Christ has a kind of invisibility: divinity makes no obvious appearance in the form of some identifiable empirical or metaphysical feature of Jesus life. The second Person of the Trinity's assumption of the human is as invisible as God's acting to create and uphold the world: it transpires silently, behind the scenes; it makes no appearance in itself but is identifiable only in 30 This effort to tie up 'two natures' talk with what is going on in Jesus' life is typical, for example, of Martin Luther's Christology; see Ian Siggins, Martin Luther's Doctrine of Christ (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1970). It is also crucial for Karl Barth's: sec, for example, Church Dugmatics IV/2, 74-6, 98–9, 105–9. See, in Karl Barth's terms, the way the exaltation of the human is the humiliation of God's becoming human, considered in its effects on the human; Church Dogmatics IV/1, 132-5; and IV/2, 110–12, 117. 17 32 and from its effects. Rather than being a matter of direct perception or simple identification, the divinity of Jesus becomes an inference from the character of Jesus' life and its effects. If a man should wish to see God, who is invisible by nature and not seen at all, he: may know and apprehend him from his works. '33 'Christ is the image of the invisible God [the Father] even in respect of his invisibility: for if the [divine] substance of Christ were discernible, how could He be the image of an invisible nature?"+ It is for this very reason that the affirmation of Jesus' divinity must be inferred. Although one cannot identify anything empirically or metaphysically out of the ordinary in them, Jesus' person and acts are nevertheless so out-of-the-ordinary as to be called divine, because they have a character and consequences exceeding any mere creature's capacities. In order to lead this sort of life and death, in order for this life and death to have the sort of saving effects on others that it has, one must be God, and work by the power of God. Thus, Jesus, to all appearances and as far as any metaphysical inquiry can tell, weeps and feels terror before death just as any human would: what is odd is the way Jesus overcomes these anxieties and fears for example, the way he nevertheless conforms his will to the Father's as the Father's own Son would - and the saving consequences of such acts - Jesus overcomes our weeping and terror by weeping and being terrified.35 _ One can defend, then, the divinity of Jesus, rather than merely assume it, with reference to the historical Jesus and the effects of his life on others. This takes the question of Jesus' divinity off the usual epistemological plane to which it is put in contemporary theology (by, for example, Pannenberg whose whole book Jesus – God and Man is premised on the idea, mistaken I believe, that traditional Christologies merely assumed the divinity of Christ without argument). Contrary to much contemporary theology, one is not, in other words, assessing the church's belief in the divinity of Christ by investigating how it developed, with good cause or not, from the evidence provided by Jesus' own life and self-understanding. One is instead asking more directly whether what Jesus was and did justifies the claim of divinity; this is less an epistemological question (about the justification of the church's belief by way, for example, of an account of its genesis) than an objective or 'ontological' question about the relationship between Jesus' person and acts and their preconditions. **Athanasius, ‘On the Incarnation,' 107; see also 72, 86. 34 Hilary of Poitiers, 'On the Trinity,' trans. E. Watson and L. Pullan, Nicene and Post- Nicene Fathers, vol. 9 (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 199+), Book 11, section 5, 204. 35 See Athanasius, Four Discourses against the Arians,' trans. J. H. Newman and A. Robertson, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1957), 424. To say that Jesus works by the power of God is not to say that Jesus as a psychological or metaphysical matter avails himself of divine powers, for example, uses his omniscience or decides to employ his miracle-working capacities. Jesus is simply human on that level; nothing like those divine faculties or powers are uncoverable by, say, closer empirical inspection or better historical investigation, or cleverer metaphysical analysis. It is rather to say that, for example, Jesus acts as if he is omniscient (meaning by that, that his acts are the sort of thing only an omniscient God might do for our benefit) despite the "fact that as a human being he clearly is not. Because what Jesus is and does is impossible for a mere human being, one attributes divinity to him; that simple attribution, without further specification in terms of empirical or metaphysical qualities, respects the transcendence of God. Developing an empirical or metaphysical account of those qualities would, that is, make them into either quasi-divine human faculties or divine powers comparable to human ones (for example, distinct from human powers by degree). 36 In another sense, however, the fact that Jesus' divinity is not located on the level of particular empirical or metaphysical qualities means his divinity is apparent in his human acts, rather than alongside them.37 Jesus' divinity is invisible in and of itself - the assumption of the human as a divine act does not take place on the human plane - but that divinity nevertheless appears in the shape of Jesus' life. Jesus lives out in a fully human form the mode of relationship among Father, Son and Spirit in the Trinity. The human shape of Jesus' life is not something alongside Jesus' divinity but the manifestation of that divinity as a human whole. “It is only when . . . we find his divinity in his humanity, not ….. plainly visible over against it, but as operative in and through it, that we are on the right track. This means, then, that the judgment that Jesus is divine is ... made in consequence of the experience of what he is and does, as well as what he was ** There are hints of this position in Athanasius and Hilary of Poitiers (see nn. 33-5), despite their tendencies to say the reverse: that Jesus knows everything and just hides the fact for saving purposes. See Rahner, 'Current Problems in Christology,' 190--1. 38 See, for example, how Zachary Hayes explicates Bonaventure's views to make this point in What Manner of Man?, trans, with commentary by Zachary Hayes (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1989), 77-81, 86, 94. 18 19
Social Psychology (10th Edition)
10th Edition
ISBN:9780134641287
Author:Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, Robin M. Akert, Samuel R. Sommers
Publisher:Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, Robin M. Akert, Samuel R. Sommers
Chapter1: Introducing Social Psychology
Section: Chapter Questions
Problem 1RQ1
Related questions
Question
On pages 15-20, Dr. Tanner explains “how it is possible for Jesus to be both human and
divine at once.” What is her answer in these pages? Explain it in detail.
Transcribed Image Text:reverse.
science, make it into something like a human characteristic. Besides
violating the principle of divine transcendence - indeed, because of it
- when divine and human qualities are set next to one another they
are set in competition: in the respects to which Jesus is divine (for
example, omniscient) it is hard to see how he is still human, and the
If one is leery of allowing divine qualities to simply replace
their human counterparts in Jesus - following Chalcedon, Jesus is
not partially divine and partially human but fully both divine and
human - the result is a nonsensically redundant duplication of qualities
- for example, Jesus is omniscient in so far as he is divine and ignorant
in so far as he is human at the very same time - with all the difficulties
that brings for establishing Jesus as a coherent character.
Better to think of divinity and humanity not in terms of isolable,
discrète qualities that divide up Jesus' life and person, but as what
characterize Jesus' life overall, as a whole. Jesus life as a whole is both
divine and human but on different levels or planes of reality, one being
the source of the other. Jesus leads a fully human existence but this
existence is the result of the assumption of Jesus' humanity by the
Word. Because they occur on different planes, so to speak - the leading
of a human life on a horizontal plane, the assumption of this whole
plane of a human life by the Word on a vertical plane – they neither
supplement nor replace one another. The same human features and
effects of Jesus' life may be attributed to Jesus as both divine and
human since Jesus' divinity, the Word's assumption of his humanity,
is the immediate source of his whole human life, Jesus' compassion
for the outcast, for example, has its human source - in presumably the
historically conditioned human process by which he reached the
decision for that course of life and it has a divine source in the
Word's assumption of humanity which gives human existence with
this shape in its totality. In this manner Jesus can be said to lead a life
both human and divine at the very same time.
-
When divinity and humanity are attributed to Jesus' life as a whole
in this way, one is less inclined to discuss Jesus' two natures in
abstraction from the soteriological point of what the triune God is.
doing in Christ, less inclined, for example, to become (mistakenly)
preoccupied with fascinating, but ultimately beside-the-point issues
concerning the exact relations between Jesus' divine and human
16
qualities (say, how his divine omniscience and his limited human
knowledge interact - might he tell himself as man what he knows as
God?). Talk of two natures is instead brought back to the concrete
events of salvation that such talk is supposed to illuminate. The point
of two natures talk is now evident in what God does for us - assumes
humanity for the sake of human life, in order to bring about the sort
of human life that Jesus lived.30
Discussion of the human and divine natures of Christ becomes more
dynamic and more concrete by way of their reference to an actually
existing person. Jesus is divine and human in that Jesus is both God
(becoming human and the human becoming divine. Jesus is divine
because in him God becomes human - that is, God assumes the human.
Jesus is perfectly human, the deined human, because in him the human
becomes God – that is, the human is assumed by God so as to produce
an elevated and perfected human way of life. Both at once God
become human and the human become God because the second,
the living of a perfectly gifted human life, is the direct result of the
first God's becoming one with the human.³ Jesus is both the Word
incarnate and deified or exalted humanity because these are just
different descriptions of the same process from different points of view
the one highlighting the agency of the Word in uniting itself with
humanity; the other coming at the same process from the flipside of)
its effect, humanity assumed and thereby perfected.
d), CUTUSLAUAD (17)
Notice that as a characteristic of Jesus' life as a whole rather than
a particular, isolable quality, the divinity of Christ has a kind of
invisibility: divinity makes no obvious appearance in the form of some
identifiable empirical or metaphysical feature of Jesus life. The second
Person of the Trinity's assumption of the human is as invisible as God's
acting to create and uphold the world: it transpires silently, behind
the scenes;
it makes no appearance in itself but is identifiable only in
30 This effort to tie up 'two natures' talk with what is going on in Jesus' life is typical, for
example, of Martin Luther's Christology; see Ian Siggins, Martin Luther's Doctrine of Christ
(New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1970). It is also crucial for Karl Barth's: sec,
for example, Church Dugmatics IV/2, 74-6, 98–9, 105–9.
See, in Karl Barth's terms, the way the exaltation of the human is the humiliation of God's
becoming human, considered in its effects on the human; Church Dogmatics IV/1, 132-5; and
IV/2, 110–12, 117.
17
![32
and from its effects. Rather than being a matter of direct perception
or simple identification, the divinity of Jesus becomes an inference
from the character of Jesus' life and its effects. If a man should wish
to see God, who is invisible by nature and not seen at all, he: may know
and apprehend him from his works. '33 'Christ is the image of the
invisible God [the Father] even in respect of his invisibility: for if
the [divine] substance of Christ were discernible, how could He be
the image of an invisible nature?"+ It is for this very reason that the
affirmation of Jesus' divinity must be inferred. Although one cannot
identify anything empirically or metaphysically out of the ordinary in
them, Jesus' person and acts are nevertheless so out-of-the-ordinary
as to be called divine, because they have a character and consequences
exceeding any mere creature's capacities. In order to lead this sort of
life and death, in order for this life and death to have the sort of saving
effects on others that it has, one must be God, and work by the power
of God. Thus, Jesus, to all appearances and as far as any metaphysical
inquiry can tell, weeps and feels terror before death just as any human
would: what is odd is the way Jesus overcomes these anxieties and
fears for example, the way he nevertheless conforms his will to the
Father's as the Father's own Son would - and the saving consequences
of such acts - Jesus overcomes our weeping and terror by weeping
and being terrified.35
_
One can defend, then, the divinity of Jesus, rather than merely assume it, with reference
to the historical Jesus and the effects of his life on others. This takes the question of Jesus'
divinity off the usual epistemological plane to which it is put in contemporary theology (by,
for example, Pannenberg whose whole book Jesus – God and Man is premised on the idea,
mistaken I believe, that traditional Christologies merely assumed the divinity of Christ without
argument). Contrary to much contemporary theology, one is not, in other words, assessing the
church's belief in the divinity of Christ by investigating how it developed, with good cause or
not, from the evidence provided by Jesus' own life and self-understanding. One is instead
asking more directly whether what Jesus was and did justifies the claim of divinity; this is less
an epistemological question (about the justification of the church's belief by way, for example,
of an account of its genesis) than an objective or 'ontological' question about the relationship
between Jesus' person and acts and their preconditions.
**Athanasius, ‘On the Incarnation,' 107; see also 72, 86.
34 Hilary of Poitiers, 'On the Trinity,' trans. E. Watson and L. Pullan, Nicene and Post-
Nicene Fathers, vol. 9 (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 199+), Book 11,
section 5, 204.
35 See Athanasius, Four Discourses against the Arians,' trans. J. H. Newman and
A. Robertson, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B.
Eerdmans, 1957), 424.
To say that Jesus works by the power of God is not to say that
Jesus as a psychological or metaphysical matter avails himself of
divine powers, for example, uses his omniscience or decides to employ
his miracle-working capacities. Jesus is simply human on that level;
nothing like those divine faculties or powers are uncoverable by, say,
closer empirical inspection or better historical investigation, or cleverer
metaphysical analysis. It is rather to say that, for example, Jesus acts
as if he is omniscient (meaning by that, that his acts are the sort of
thing only an omniscient God might do for our benefit) despite the
"fact that as a human being he clearly is not. Because what Jesus is
and does is impossible for a mere human being, one attributes divinity
to him; that simple attribution, without further specification in terms
of empirical or metaphysical qualities, respects the transcendence of
God. Developing an empirical or metaphysical account of those
qualities would, that is, make them into either quasi-divine human
faculties or divine powers comparable to human ones (for example,
distinct from human powers by degree).
36
In another sense, however, the fact that Jesus' divinity is not located
on the level of particular empirical or metaphysical qualities means
his divinity is apparent in his human acts, rather than alongside them.37
Jesus' divinity is invisible in and of itself - the assumption of the human
as a divine act does not take place on the human plane - but that
divinity nevertheless appears in the shape of Jesus' life. Jesus lives out
in a fully human form the mode of relationship among Father, Son
and Spirit in the Trinity. The human shape of Jesus' life is not
something alongside Jesus' divinity but the manifestation of that
divinity as a human whole.
“It is only when . . . we find his divinity in his humanity, not ….. plainly visible
over against it, but as operative in and through it, that we are on the right
track. This means, then, that the judgment that Jesus is divine is ... made in
consequence of the experience of what he is and does, as well as what he was
** There are hints of this position in Athanasius and Hilary of Poitiers (see nn. 33-5), despite
their tendencies to say the reverse: that Jesus knows everything and just hides the fact for
saving purposes.
See Rahner, 'Current Problems in Christology,' 190--1.
38 See, for example, how Zachary Hayes explicates Bonaventure's views to make this point
in What Manner of Man?, trans, with commentary by Zachary Hayes (Chicago: Franciscan
Herald Press, 1989), 77-81, 86, 94.
18
19](/v2/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcontent.bartleby.com%2Fqna-images%2Fquestion%2F2e1cb03f-91d2-4991-91c8-37c8965f1bd7%2Fddd6fd47-7c1e-48d8-96e8-5389d9d06a15%2F1exmiid_processed.png&w=3840&q=75)
Transcribed Image Text:32
and from its effects. Rather than being a matter of direct perception
or simple identification, the divinity of Jesus becomes an inference
from the character of Jesus' life and its effects. If a man should wish
to see God, who is invisible by nature and not seen at all, he: may know
and apprehend him from his works. '33 'Christ is the image of the
invisible God [the Father] even in respect of his invisibility: for if
the [divine] substance of Christ were discernible, how could He be
the image of an invisible nature?"+ It is for this very reason that the
affirmation of Jesus' divinity must be inferred. Although one cannot
identify anything empirically or metaphysically out of the ordinary in
them, Jesus' person and acts are nevertheless so out-of-the-ordinary
as to be called divine, because they have a character and consequences
exceeding any mere creature's capacities. In order to lead this sort of
life and death, in order for this life and death to have the sort of saving
effects on others that it has, one must be God, and work by the power
of God. Thus, Jesus, to all appearances and as far as any metaphysical
inquiry can tell, weeps and feels terror before death just as any human
would: what is odd is the way Jesus overcomes these anxieties and
fears for example, the way he nevertheless conforms his will to the
Father's as the Father's own Son would - and the saving consequences
of such acts - Jesus overcomes our weeping and terror by weeping
and being terrified.35
_
One can defend, then, the divinity of Jesus, rather than merely assume it, with reference
to the historical Jesus and the effects of his life on others. This takes the question of Jesus'
divinity off the usual epistemological plane to which it is put in contemporary theology (by,
for example, Pannenberg whose whole book Jesus – God and Man is premised on the idea,
mistaken I believe, that traditional Christologies merely assumed the divinity of Christ without
argument). Contrary to much contemporary theology, one is not, in other words, assessing the
church's belief in the divinity of Christ by investigating how it developed, with good cause or
not, from the evidence provided by Jesus' own life and self-understanding. One is instead
asking more directly whether what Jesus was and did justifies the claim of divinity; this is less
an epistemological question (about the justification of the church's belief by way, for example,
of an account of its genesis) than an objective or 'ontological' question about the relationship
between Jesus' person and acts and their preconditions.
**Athanasius, ‘On the Incarnation,' 107; see also 72, 86.
34 Hilary of Poitiers, 'On the Trinity,' trans. E. Watson and L. Pullan, Nicene and Post-
Nicene Fathers, vol. 9 (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 199+), Book 11,
section 5, 204.
35 See Athanasius, Four Discourses against the Arians,' trans. J. H. Newman and
A. Robertson, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B.
Eerdmans, 1957), 424.
To say that Jesus works by the power of God is not to say that
Jesus as a psychological or metaphysical matter avails himself of
divine powers, for example, uses his omniscience or decides to employ
his miracle-working capacities. Jesus is simply human on that level;
nothing like those divine faculties or powers are uncoverable by, say,
closer empirical inspection or better historical investigation, or cleverer
metaphysical analysis. It is rather to say that, for example, Jesus acts
as if he is omniscient (meaning by that, that his acts are the sort of
thing only an omniscient God might do for our benefit) despite the
"fact that as a human being he clearly is not. Because what Jesus is
and does is impossible for a mere human being, one attributes divinity
to him; that simple attribution, without further specification in terms
of empirical or metaphysical qualities, respects the transcendence of
God. Developing an empirical or metaphysical account of those
qualities would, that is, make them into either quasi-divine human
faculties or divine powers comparable to human ones (for example,
distinct from human powers by degree).
36
In another sense, however, the fact that Jesus' divinity is not located
on the level of particular empirical or metaphysical qualities means
his divinity is apparent in his human acts, rather than alongside them.37
Jesus' divinity is invisible in and of itself - the assumption of the human
as a divine act does not take place on the human plane - but that
divinity nevertheless appears in the shape of Jesus' life. Jesus lives out
in a fully human form the mode of relationship among Father, Son
and Spirit in the Trinity. The human shape of Jesus' life is not
something alongside Jesus' divinity but the manifestation of that
divinity as a human whole.
“It is only when . . . we find his divinity in his humanity, not ….. plainly visible
over against it, but as operative in and through it, that we are on the right
track. This means, then, that the judgment that Jesus is divine is ... made in
consequence of the experience of what he is and does, as well as what he was
** There are hints of this position in Athanasius and Hilary of Poitiers (see nn. 33-5), despite
their tendencies to say the reverse: that Jesus knows everything and just hides the fact for
saving purposes.
See Rahner, 'Current Problems in Christology,' 190--1.
38 See, for example, how Zachary Hayes explicates Bonaventure's views to make this point
in What Manner of Man?, trans, with commentary by Zachary Hayes (Chicago: Franciscan
Herald Press, 1989), 77-81, 86, 94.
18
19
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